EMail This Page - Print

Kate Galbreath

As British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed his country Monday and vowed to avenge the July 7 London train bombings that left an estimated 52 dead, a number of SIUC faculty members and students from England remained shocked.

Three underground trains and a double decker bus were assaulted by a coordinated attack. Aside from those killed in the attacks, another 700 were injured in the attacks and 20 remain missing.

Blair called the day the bloodiest in the British capital since World War II.

Tony Williams, a professor of English and native to northwestern England, said many of his friends who live in London are taking the bombings in stride.

"It's not mass hysteria," he said. "Thirty years ago they were there when the IRA was bombing."

The Irish Republican Army was responsible for a number of attacks in the 1970s in England.

This time, Blair is pointing the finger at Islamist al Qaeda extremists.

Williams said al Qaeda has threatened London over the past few years.

"I was absolutely shocked but on the other hand I felt it was inevitable sooner or later," Williams said. "Blair has been such a pathetic lapdog in following the policies of your president."

He said every day he reads British coverage of the events as they unfold, via the Internet.

David Lightfoot, a professor of agriculture from Leeds, England, said the attacks hit particularly close to home because his brother-in-law manages the line repair team that maintains the underground railroads. Luckily, he was not present at the time of the attacks.

Lightfoot said transportation in London is particularly tricky because many Brits rely on the rail systems for transportation around England - the London Airport in particular.

"You never know where people are traveling," he said.

Lightfoot said he learned of the bombings when a colleague from Missouri emailed him to ask if he and his family were OK.

"I was very proud of how the English responded to it," he said. "It was a little bit slow between 7 and 8 on Friday morning, but now everything is back to normal."

Tom Saville, coordinator of the Study Abroad program, said a group of students toured the area in May with various University departments but were all safely back before the bombings took place.

He said though the Study Abroad program mostly exports students, some exchange students do attend SIUC from Great Britain. At this time, he believes they have all returned home.

"Typically, we will email students to see if they are OK," Saville said. "This time a whole flurry of people wrote to say they were fine."

Williams said he and others are still shocked, outraged at terrorism no matter what the cause, and feeling sympathy for the bereaved.

The International Students Office said they are unaware of any British students studying at SIUC.

Jim Forrest of Lockerbie, Scotland said that the European perspective is that George Bush and Tony Blair have been "at the top of the world," and being so vocal caused the aggression.

However, he said he feels the terrorists were disappointed by the number of casualties. "London is quite vulnerable because it is such a multi-cultural city - easy to infiltrate the system and not get noticed," Forrest said.

Lightfoot said that people come and go throughout Europe with little request for identification, and these attacks may possibly spur England to institute drivers' licenses with photographs of the bearer as opposed to the licenses that now just have a signature to prove validity.

"Terrorists drive us to the right of ourselves," he said. "We have to become more conscious."

"It's going to take a damn sight more than a few little bumps to scare the English people." Reporter Laura Teegarden contributed to this story.

Reporter Kate Galbreath can be reached at kate_Galbreath@dailyegyptian.com