Paddy Woodworth
  • Home
  • Articles & Blog
  • Books
    • Our Once and Future Planet >
      • Reviews & Awards
      • Pre-publication reviews
      • Extracts
    • The Basque Country >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
    • Dirty War, Clean Hands >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
  • Lectures
    • Upcoming & Past Events
    • Themes & Topics
    • Testimonials
  • Tours
    • Recent Tours
    • Basque Itinerary
    • Irish Itinerary
    • Testimonials
    • Logistics and Partners
  • About
  • Contact

Barcelona attack exposes Spain's fault line

8/19/2017

0 Comments

 
It’s a cliche, simply because it’s an important truth, that one’s first thoughts about a terrorist act should always be with the victims, to make some effort to imagine their plight.

For anyone even slightly familiar with Barcelona, the location of Thursday’s attack is terrifyingly easy to picture. A stroll from the Plaza de Catalunya down the broad expanse of the Ramblas, past the gastronomic cornucopia of Boquería market and the exquisite modernist frontage of the Palau de la Música Catalana is many people’s definitive experience of the city.

And therefore, one supposes, a suitably iconic target for terrorists inspired by the so-called Islamic State.

So this weekend, like so many familiar and unfamiliar places from Paris to Kabul, we have to imagine it stained with innocent blood.

However, as we know all too well in Ireland, it does not take long for empathy with the victims of terrorism to morph into political blame games, perverting the essential task of understanding what exactly happened, why, and whether it could have been prevented.

​This article was published in The Irish Times ​on August 19, 2017
​Read more here
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Articles & Blog

    Articles on the environment; Spanish, Catalan and Basque politics; travel; culture; and other subjects; interspersed with personal reflections and images 
    Note:
    the archive section will be updated in the coming weeks.

    Archives

    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017

    Categories

    All
    Blog
    Environment Gen Media
    Environment Journals
    Podcast
    Spain
    The Irish Times
    Videos

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
Photo used under Creative Commons from More pictures and videos: connect@epp.eu
  • Home
  • Articles & Blog
  • Books
    • Our Once and Future Planet >
      • Reviews & Awards
      • Pre-publication reviews
      • Extracts
    • The Basque Country >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
    • Dirty War, Clean Hands >
      • Reviews
      • Extracts
  • Lectures
    • Upcoming & Past Events
    • Themes & Topics
    • Testimonials
  • Tours
    • Recent Tours
    • Basque Itinerary
    • Irish Itinerary
    • Testimonials
    • Logistics and Partners
  • About
  • Contact