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Volume CXXXII, Number 9 |
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Trouble in the big city abroad
ALISON L. McCONNELL
ORIENT STAFF AT LARGE
London is a crazy place to be right now. Between the protests, strikes, random downpours, and mayhem, there is little room left for serenity. I still try to find a little bit of it each day from the comfort of my apartment (even though the sirens usually make this process difficult).
There weren't any sirens yesterday, though. London's entire firefighting force has been on strike this week, beginning Wednesday afternoon and (hopefully) ending tonight. The problem, of course, lies in wages. The firefighters have demanded a 40 percent pay increase-a hike that English prime minister Tony Blair said "no government on earth" could provide.
The outlook is not very optimistic. The firefighters are picketing all over the city until 6:00 p.m. tonight, and if a pay raise fails to materialize, they are threatening a series of eight-day strikes between now and Christmas Eve.
I'll give them credit, because they certainly chose an effective method of proving their importance. It's easy to take a public service like firefighting for granted until they ALL quit for a couple of days, leaving you to wonder what you'd do if one of your university buildings went up in flames (or, more likely in my case, if one of your cooking experiments was less than successful). Seriously, who the heck will respond if something's on fire?
The government's temporary answer to that question: the Green Goddesses. They're deploying soldiers in these enormous, ancient military vehicles to the scenes of any outbreaks while the first strike runs its course.
At first, you think, great! Good plan, guys!
Then you remember that soldiers are not necessarily fully trained firefighters, and you're not as excited. Then you learn that these Goddesses top out at 35 miles per hour, and you get less enthused about your odds of survival. One of my friends suggested carrying a fire extinguisher around everywhere, but I have yet to see anyone acting on his advice.
While the strike has obvious repercussions (fear for one's life in the event of fire, to name one), there are other effects as well. London Underground workers had finally stopped their striking only weeks ago, settling with the government for higher pay. They are now halting subway services to roughly 20 stations because they have no fire cover in the event of an emergency. There is talk of the entire Underground system being shut down if the firefighters continue striking. More than a million people travel via "Tube" every day, and the prospect of a shutdown has all the London tabloids running enormous headlines about city travel "GRINDING TO A HALT!" and becoming "COMPLETELY CHAOTIC!"
The striking fun doesn't end there. A selected group of London university staff-professors, janitors, security guards, and the like-lined the sidewalks yesterday, demanding a higher standard-of-living bonus (it hasn't been adjusted in ten years, so I have to side with them on this one). The disruption of the education system has affected several of my roommates, who are all crowing about cancelled classes-leaving me to wish that my professors were more strike-oriented.
Believe it or not, there's more. Not wanting to be left out, workers are planning a mess of one-day strikes at all seven regional airports, which will completely shut down air traffic into England on those days. Luckily, none of those seven dates coincide with my return to the States for winter vacation (and I'm crossing my fingers that they don't reschedule).
The timing for all this couldn't be worse. The ports have been under red alert all week after receiving word that terrorists were trying to get an explosive-laden truck into England via boat from France. If a terrorist attack does occur, the quickness of emergency response will be hindered by the fact that the fire stations are empty as drums, without a single firefighter ready to take the call.
Warnings have been issued to Americans abroad-a relatively common occurrence since last September. This time, the cautionary announcements have us all a bit more on edge.
We recently learned that the goal of the Bali attacks was the highest possible number of American deaths, and we've been told a thousand times that we shouldn't act visibly "American" out and about in the city, as it puts us at greater risk. And London's disrupted infrastructure may make us more vulnerable than ever.
I don't mean to sound pessimistic, nor am I implying that I'm hiding out in my apartment with a fire extinguisher in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. Life, as always, goes on. Even amidst the downpours, the warnings, and the apprehension, life goes on.