Rocketboom: Nilo's Story

I enjoy watching Rocketboom. I admit that a big part of the attraction is Joanne Colan. She is attractive, intelligent, witty and quick. Boy is she quick. She can condense the state of the world and how to fix it into a 30 second monologue.

I come across Nilo's Story. It's a poignant story of a woman working for a news agency in Afghanistan who was attacked one day by a man with a razor blade who cut her arms and then a day later she was stabbed by a woman. She survived the attacks.



I follow several blogs on the internet. A couple of them are written by women (Tamara & Roberta) that one might describe as gun nuts. They own guns, they go shooting (at approved target ranges), they are ardent supporters of the 2nd Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed).

So. I am thinking Nilo is someone who should be carrying a gun. Of course there might be some obstacles to that. It might be illegal, or she might not be able to afford one. On the other hand this is Afghanistan, which is supposedly overrun with guns. Surely she could find one somewhere.

But there might be another reason she was not carrying a gun. She might not be a gun person. I suspect some people, just by their very nature, are not suited to guns. The mind set needed to use a gun effectively is closely allied to that of a predator. You need to be alert to the appearance of a threat/target, you need to be able to react quickly to that appearance, and should it become necessary, you need to be able to act with violence.

Growing up in a protected environment is going to cripple those abilities, and in many societies, providing a protected environment for women is one of the foremost priorities. It's a priority for men, because they want their children to survive, so they attempt to provide protection for them. The women get the protection as well as long as they are providing children. Kind of a harsh way of looking at the human society, but human society is pretty harsh.

Nilo may have been very brave, or, in hindsight, very foolish. She is stepping out in a very primitive society. She is making a target of herself. Where was her protection? Where is her father? Dead, more than likely. So why was she not taking steps to protect herself?

If may be Kabul is like any other big city. People don't just go around slashing strangers for no reason. Except, they do. This kind of thing happens all over the world, even in America. Perhaps especially in America. The odds of it happening on any particular day are tiny, but if it does happen, the results can be devastating.

I hope Joanne is carrying a gun.