Once again the world has united in solidarity after an attack on a Western target. The London outrage by a lone terrorist killed three people outside the House of Parliament, one of them a police officer, before the attacker himself was shot dead.
In what is becoming a grim symbol of sympathy, the lights on the Eiffel Tower in Paris were turned out. Europe’s major cities have braced themselves for such assaults as these. Security is tight. They are therefore all the more shocking when they occur. It is a sad reality that when bombs blast people apart by the score in Iraq or Syria, the world now hardly notices. Such savagery has become a part of every day life.
It is interesting that as in Nice and then Berlin, the primary terrorist weapon was a motor vehicle, in the first two cases a powerful lorry. In London it was a 4x4 sports utility that scythed through walkers on Westminster Bridge that leads to the parliament buildings. And it was a testament to cosmopolitan London’s popularity as a tourist destination that among the 20 people injured, there were French schoolchildren and two Romanians.
This terrorist horror did shock in its callous brutality. But as the British Prime Minister Theresa May said outside Number Ten Downing Street, life would go on. For the victims of this crime and their families the day will be one of infamous memory. But like Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Brussels — the first anniversary of whose airport attack fell on Wednesday — London will get on with its busy existence. The inevitable flowers that will be laid at the scene of the carnage will wither and die and with them pass the recollection of this gross crime.
And with the dying of the flowers, so also will die the tiny terrorist victory — if taking innocent lives can be considered any sort of an achievement by sane men and women. The reality if that terrorism never works. Even the 9/11 slaughter in the Twin Towers achieved nothing except a massive worldwide tightening of security of which decent, peace-loving Muslims have unfortunately become the primary victims.
The bigots of Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) and their demented followers should do the math. Their ranks may be numbered in the thousands. But for what do they count when ranged against secure societies where civilized behavior and the rule of law are their unshakable foundations? It must be wondered if the terrorists thumbing with perverse pleasure through the images published on social media considered for one moment the efforts made to save the life of the man who had just taken at least three lives himself. It was clear that the attacker’s heart had stopped. Paramedics used a defibrillator to try and revive him. They would also have given him an adrenaline injection and sought to staunch the bleeding from his wound by applying pressure on them.
Even though they knew that this man was a killer, for whom they probably felt nothing but the deepest contempt, they did their best to keep him alive, because that was their job. Their humanity encapsulated everything that the terrorists lack. Sunk in blasphemy and twisted hatred Daesh’s creatures are blind to any of the values that make strong and vigorous societies. Their nihilism dooms them to pathetic and total failure.
