Nothing can break London's spirit

When it comes to the spirit of Britain in the face of adversity, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Take, for example, a video that came to light after the latest terrorist attack on London, which left seven dead and dozens wounded. Captured by a local TV news crew, the video shows a man calmly walking away from the scene of the attack, pint in hand, carefully not spilling a drop, while terrified people sprint past him to safety.
The image quickly went viral on social media, often with humorous comments as to what it says about the British spirit.
"People flee a terrorist attack LIKE LONDONERS," remarked one parody Twitter account.
Of course, this unflappable Victorian stoicism is nothing new. This is, after all, the country that spawned Winston Churchill, who urged his fellow Brits to "never, never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense", even in the face of the 57 consecutive days of German bombing raids during the infamous "Blitz" of the World War II.
The "stiff upper lip" attitude of that time - much more dangerous than that of today - is exemplified in another set of pictures, depicting Londoners going about their business even as their beloved city still smoldered from the aftermath of German bombs.
One particularly famous photograph - the "London Milkman" - is a perfect example. The picture, which was taken by Fox Photos photographer Fred Morley in 1940, shows a smiling, even cheerful looking milkman walking through rubble the morning after a night of particularly heavy bombing, even as firefighters in the background work to put out a blaze.
Even though the picture was staged - the 'milkman' was, in fact, Morley's assistant - it sent a very real message about the country's attitude in a time of adversity, in which the destruction of Britain itself seemed a very real possibility.
"Morley's thinking was that to circumvent censorship of demoralising pictures of ruined streets, after more than a month of daily bombings, he should present things as an object lesson in the maxim Keep Calm and Carry On," the Telegraph newspaper explained in a photo feature about the Blitz.
Despite recent attention-grabbing headlines, most Britons - particularly Londoners - will know that the country has faced terrorist threats before. In the decades-long struggle with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other Irish groups opposed to British rule of Northern Ireland, hundreds of bombs were set off across the country, often near London's most iconic and important structures.
Even in the face of a concerted bombing campaign by a sophisticated and determined enemy like the IRA, the British spirit could not be broken.
Take a massive 1993 bombing conducted by the IRA that killed one person and left parts of London's financial centre in ruin, forcing the closure of nearly two dozen streets, shattering thousands of windows and shredding the facades of numerous office buildings to pieces. The following day, many newspaper commentators went as far as to compare the destruction to that faced by war-torn cities such as Beirut, or the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo.
Rather than force the British government to re-think its policies in Northern Ireland, the IRA bomb and similar attacks brought the country together.
"City Keeps the Flag Flying" ran the headline of one newspaper, the Evening Standard, along with an image of the Union Jack fluttering before the ruins.
The Dean of nearby St. Paul's Cathedral - which was itself severely damaged during a German bombing raid in 1940 - even declared that the IRA had "no more hope of killing the spirit of London and its people than Hitler had."
Judging by the reaction of Londoners to the most recent attacks, the latest generation of terrorists doesn't stand much of a chance of breaking their spirit either. In the hours after the attack, many took to social media to voice their defiance.
"London Bridge will never fall down," read a hand-written service announcement posted on a white board at Walthamstow Central underground station. "You can't break our spirit."
Just ask the fellow with the pint.
-bernd@khaleejtimes.com