REUTERS PHOTOS
Britain's Prince Charles (centre) talks to Cynthia Bobb-Semple, one of hundreds injured in the London blasts, at
St. Mary's Hospital in London
yesterday.LONDON, (Reuters):
"London can take it." The defiant phrase used by London's police chief the day after more than 50 people died in attacks on rush hour commuters has struck a chord in a city where memories of World War II and Irish republican bombings have tempered panic and grief.
Media reluctance to expose bereaved families to the limelight, and the fact that most people were spared the full horror of events on underground trains, have added to the impression of a nation taking trauma in its stride.
mourn our dead
"We will mourn our dead and we will grieve for the families and innocent lives that have been shattered forever," the Mirror tabloid wrote in an opinion piece. "But we will carry on. Business as usual."
Comparisons have been drawn with New Yorkers' experience on and after September 11, 2001, although the scale of those events was far greater, and more visible, than the London attacks. Some commentators are calling Thursday London's '7/7'.
Americans' response to the al Qaida attacks was in part nationalistic, with the Stars and Stripes quickly becoming the symbol of the country's resolve.
In Spain, millions of people took to the streets the day after a wave of deadly train bombings initially blamed on Basque separatists but later linked to the al Qaida network.
emotional restraint
But foreigners working in Britain expressed admiration at Londoners' resolve and emotional restraint, which has enhanced a reputation for a 'stiff upper lip' in the face of adversity.
"Middle-aged people remember the IRA bombs, older people remember the Blitz. You just carry on as normal," said Bob Chaundry, 54, a journalist who was at King's Cross underground station soon after a bomb went off there on Thursday. "Somewhere in me there is a slight feeling of defiance."
Richard Scott, a building project manager, added: "We have been through it all before in the 1970s and 1980s with the IRA. We will carry on."
The Irish Republican Army, fighting British rule in Northern Ireland, carried out a series of attacks on the British mainland, including London. In one of the worst, 11 people were killed in twin bomb attacks on soldiers in the capital in 1982.
And during World War Two, parts of London were devastated by German bombing raids and rocket attacks in which tens of thousands of people perished.
"London Can Take It" was the name of a 10-minute propaganda documentary made in 1940 during the Blitz that captured something of the indomitable spirit of Londoners under siege.
"Business carried on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe," Britain's Winston Churchill said of the attitude of his people during the earlier trauma of World War One.
Queen Elizabeth, 13 years old when World War II broke out, said the British were "all too familiar with acts of terror."
