Ordinary Stories of (Un)Ordinary Lives

The first time I have ever heard a weapon being discharged in my vicinity was at my University in Bradford in the year 2001, shortly after 9/11, where a person whom I would later come to identify as someone working freelance as a ‘private military contractor’ taught our graduating class of young development-minded individuals some basics about personal security while on mission.

The second time came not long after that, in the military when I myself got to train with a variety of assault rifles and pistols under, of course, controlled and standardized safety rules.  I admit that it was exciting, informative and special, because of its unique nature.

The third time was somewhat more banal.  A shooting range outside Vienna, Austria, where my family and I went for a nice brisk day out in the autumn sunlight to watch people doing skeet shooting.

After that the instances became more uncontrolled and substantially more brutal: an armed attack by Janjaweed militia on the El Fasher market, about 150 meters from where I was watching a movie with Val Kilmer… a rebel wedding in points northwest of North Darfur, and a few other unmentionable times of working in Darfur.

I can understand the difference in sound between a weapon and a firecracker, or a firework, rock quarry or artillery.  (I heard artillery in Rhodes, near an artillery training field while in the military.)

Last week, armed men shot at police in the downtown neighborhood of Exarhia, in Athens, seriously wound a 21 year old police officer.  Three or four weeks before that, a 41 year old police officer shot and killed a 15 year old child from an affluent part of Athens who happened to be slumming in Exarhia.  I guess it gave the boy a feeling of exhilaration to hang out with his boys in parts of town that would make his momma freak out if she knew he was there.  It got me thinking that in 2009 we have finally reached a point where working in warzones across the world, from conflict zones to places where one can be kidnapped by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, or be collateral damaged into oblivion by someone’s IED is now not so bad anymore… since one could basically be clipped by some jackass going full-auto down an Athenian residential street.  That’s what?  20-25 rounds just ripping into balconies, cars, bushes, benches and who knows?  Shop windows, stomachs, baby carriages and taxis.  Or my face.  It’s a sad and scary thing to think about.

I am not a stranger to gunfire.  Though I am thankful the only time a weapon was fired at me it was firing blanks, and in a controlled environment.  And I don’t write this as an ode to guns.  I write this because I am, in my own mind, justifiably fed up with a bunch of assholes running around trying to play at cops and robbers in Greece.  Our population of simpletons can’t find the big blue recycling bins on our street.  What the hell makes us think we can find our way out of this slowly ticking time-bomb in which 25 years of neglect by politicians, watchdogs, opposition parties and ‘the Church’ have culminated.