Hello People of the Internet,
It has been an awfully long time since I last spoke to you and so much has happened. I got my A level results and headed off to uni where I, for the first time, actually have had to work to control my diabtes. For the 12 1/2 years at home everything worked, my hba1c was good, I didn't have too many hypos or many highs. But since coming to uni I've pootled along basically not paying attention to diabetes because I haven't really needed to before and so I've basically een running high for the two months I've been here. Because it's been in the sort of 11-14mmol range I've not felt any different and so haven't been paying attention until the last couple of weeks where I have decided to take action!
But that isn't really what I wanted to write about today. Being at uni I have found I'm almost in a bubble from the outside world. I don't watch the news because I don't have a TV licence, I don't read the papers and so it often takes a while for news to filter through. But last night I logged on twitter as the first reports of Paris began to filter through. I watched as one reporter kept updates going all the way through to my timeline being dominated with support for the people caught up in the horror.
Normally with terrorist attacks anywhere I tend to be horrified by the fact that someone could do such a thing but it doesn't really affect me. I think this is mainly because they don't often happen so close to home. The closest have been the 7/7 London bombings and at the time I was too young to understand really the horror of those attacks. But with Paris the overwhelming feeling I've had today, as the death toll continues to rise, is sadness. Sadness that someone could do this to innocent people in the name of religion. However I think it is incredibly important to remember the number of civilian deaths in the middle east due to the interference of the west.
I do not feel it is right to blame or analyse at this time as Paris enters three days of mourning. But let us not forget about the other disasters that occurred yesterday. Japan was hit with a magnitude 7.0 earthquake which caused a small tsunami. Thankfully, no one has been hurt but it is still a traumatic event. Lebanon spent yesterday in a day of mourning after 41 people were killed in a suicide bombing on Thursday. This is a very small selection of the disasters and horrors that occurred in our world in the last few days. Some of them we have no control over, others you could argue are the fault of the West.
You will see very little reported of Japan and Lebanon over the next few days as the media concentrates on Paris. Because Paris is close to home and a western country there is automatically more public and media outcry and upset. I'm not trying to take away from the horror of Paris but we know so little about what goes on in the middle East, about what impact we, as a country, are having. Many people will wish to increase military presence in the middle East after this attack and I feel it is important to step back and mourn before pointing the finger and trying to find what we believe to be a solution.
Another danger caused by the attacks is the generalisation that all Muslims are terrorists because the attacks were carried out in the name of Islam. We need to remember that IS, Boko Haram and Al Qaeda make up less than 0.003% of the global Muslim population. From my very basic understanding of Islam it is a peaceful religion. The attacks in Paris were not peaceful and they went against the very core message of Islam. Please do not blame Muslims for the attacks. Blaming an entire group of people for the actions of a few is so wrong.
Sorry for a bit of a confused ramble, I needed to get my feelings out. My thoughts and prayers are with all those effected by disasters in Japan, Lebanon, Paris and elsewhere.
Rhona
Sources: BBC News, Al Jazeera, Channel 4's the Last Leg
