Demolition News is concerned at the increasingly negative connotations of the term “demolition”.
In order to bring you the very latest news from the world of demolition, we scour the Internet for new video, audio and text-based content. We’d love to say that this was done by a team of highly-paid and dedicated individuals working round-the-clock but, in fact, much of the process is achieved by the use of automated searches across a wide variety of engines.
Now Google and its search competitors are exceptionally good at finding terms like demolition, demolish, implosion and wrecking. What they’re considerably less good at is filtering out where these terms have been used out of context.
As a result, almost eight years on, we’re still receiving notifications each time a conspiracy theorists postulates that the 9/11 atrocity was, in fact, a controlled demolition. Every Sunday, our inbox fills with the news that West Ham demolished Arsenal (in our dreams) or how the Chelsea defence imploded (again, mainly in our dreams).
However, just recently, the term demolition (and, in fact, the process itself) seems to have taken on a negative, new connotation as demolition is used as a weapon in places like Gaza, China, India and Pakistan.
For those of us on the inside of the demolition industry, we know that our work opens the way for future development; for an improvement in the living and working standards of individuals and businesses; that it is often the first step on the road to improvement.
Our industry has fought long and hard to overcome the stigma of destruction and the legacy of our poor health and safety record of the past. And now, just as our industry is finally achieving the recognition it so richly deserves, its very language and processes are being used by states and terrorist organisations around the world.
So, for the record, let’s remember that demolition is defined as “the controlled dismantling or pulling down of a building or structure” while driving a tank through as opponent’s house is either an act of terrorism or an act of war.
