View of the 'Truck Bomb'

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfvd7q7UkSE bpb08workshops production 2008 Text below: John The response I have had to this video has genuinely been one of complete astonishment and almost incomparable amazement. As I continue to promote the video, I showed it to a small group of students in a large, vacant seminar room- where I was able to sit and witness their collective response of utter shock and absolute disbelief. This video, Truck Bomb, was shown on large projector (floor to ceiling high), with the students only about around 5 to 10 yards away. The synchronisation of the groups reaction hovered tensely within the lonely room, spreading out into the air just as the smoke and debris from the explosion did in this site in Iraq. It can be thought that today, our society doesnt regularly witness these [assumed] suicide bombings in such an open and uncensored way- be it in reality or alternatively throughout the media. The sheer scale of the explosion in this video appears to shock me largely because I have no relative appreciation of the extent in which these explosions can exist. Again, to me, the fact that I sit in front this video with no visual experience or knowledge to fall back upon is just as disconcerting as the content of this video itself. I think this is because all of my previous experiences of suicide bombs (particularly in Iraq or Afghanistan) have come through both written and spoken forms of our language and only rarely through photographs and videos. Therefore, this visual example proves difficult for me to firstly fight back the shock and surprise evidenced across my face. As a society, I think we can begin to feel educated by this video, at least to a point where we can comprehend the scale of which these bombs can exist. From here empathy can grow stronger by reducing the barrier of displacement that a newspaper or news presenter regularly creates between you and areas of the world in conflict. Worryingly for me in this case, I cant escape the idea of bad luck associated to this situation, specifically through the way in which innocent civilians are killed by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Above all the major concerns that I should have for all the political and religious issues associated with the current wars against terror, I find it hard to engage with this video in words of fact, as the words more honest to me right now describe my emotional response. As this emotion continues to build up, strongly emerging into the foreground of my response, I cannot help but to ask myself how long this initial shock towards suicide bombings (imagery of war in wider context) will last for? How do I feel watching the video for the tenth time? How will I then feel watching a different account of a suicide bombing?