As is customary for me at this time of year I remember the Islamic terror attack on London’s transport system that rocked the capital in 2005. But it seems increasingly to be the case that the authorities, the Establishment whether that be the media or the government and administration kind are getting wary and embarrassed about remembering what happened. We should not let the horrors of 7/7 be deliberately forgotten by those who gain from letting this monstrous attack slip out of memory.
I was on the periphery of the attack, I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t even on any of the trains that got bombed by the Moslems, but by chance or divine providence I was arriving at work at a different from usual time and therefore I avoided the Islam-inspired carnage on the Underground. The lady who became my wife missed the attack on the Piccadilly Line because she was off sick. Had she not been off sick she would have been on the bombed train. However even though nothing physically happened to me that awful and terrible day sticks in my mind. I have images etched into my brain of the initial rumours of a substation fire and then the growing and awful revelations that came out during the morning that what had happened was not accident but deliberate and planned murder. I remember the silent evacuation from Westminster by river boat, the shocked journey from the pier that I alighted from and the entirety of the mobile phone system in central London shutting down as it was overwhelmed. I remember it all and it still affects me. I still am extremely ‘terrorism aware’ when I travel and move around (to such an extent that I spotted a suspect package whilst on holiday in Israel before the Israelis did) and see the value of off network communications much more than I did prior to this jihad attack.
Twenty years on we should of course primarily remember those who died or who were injured or who were traumatised. We should remember the blue light services who worked to save those injured by the Islamic savages who set off these bombs. It’s right that we should do that. It’s the least our society should do.
But I am getting the distinct impression, especially after reading the Sky News 20th anniversary piece on 7/7 that the Establishment would far rather that we recall only those who were killed or injured or traumatised and conveniently forget what motivated the bombers. Maybe they are taking their cue from an Establishment that doesn’t want us to be rightly and righteously angry in a political way at the ideology that led a gang of relatively ordinary Moslems living in and in some cases born in Britain to kill Britons and others? We all know that it was the ideology of Islam in one of the violent forms it so often takes that killed 52 people, we know it but the authorities don’t want to say it and crack down on those British subjects who do say it.
Although nearly all religions have had at some points in their history those who were violent either in contravention to or in accordance with their religious ideology we should not shy away, even 20 years on, from naming the ideology that propelled the bombers to commit mass murder. It was Islam. It wasn’t the Jews or the Hindus or the Sikhs who decided to slaughter innocents for their deity on London’s transport system, even though all three of these faiths have had martial aspects to them in their history and it certainly wasn’t the Methodists. It was Islam.
I’m certainly not saying that every Moslem is a terrorist or an extremist, such a claim would be beyond fantastical and indeed unjust. However it cannot and should not be denied that Islam, as an ideology just like Fascism or Communism, is one that both inspires and sanctifies violence from its followers. But what about the violence in the Bible you might ask? There is of course an awful lot of violence, smiting and the mass death of firstborn children in the Bible (especially the original bit) but this described violence is a record of violence. Islamic scripture on the other hand contains not a record of historical violence but also current exhortations to Moslems to commit violence against non-Moslems and those who might be considered as the ‘wrong’ type of Moslem. A lot of Moslems ignore or put aside the worst bits of Islamic scripture or reinterpret it just as I reinterpret the prayer for fixing a parapet to a roof and apply it to any vaguely dangerous technical activity I might be doing, but the presence of the violence in Islamic scripture should not be ignored. The exhortations to violence in this scripture may not affect every Moslem and make them monsters but it affects enough for it to be a problem. I, for example, along with the Christians, have a talking Donkey as part of the scripture of our faiths, but that Donkey doesn’t tell us to go out and kill infidels in the here and now, Islamic scripture has passages that do tell contemporary Moslems to kill infidels.
I refuse to play the ‘don’t look back in anger’ game when it comes to 7/7 I really will not go along with that. I will not be an NPC coward and do that. We should remember who and what did this terrible, senseless mass murder. We should be angry that it was members of a faith that Britons welcomed, sometimes freely sometimes grudgingly, that repaid that welcome with mass murder.
Twenty years on I cannot forget and I find it difficult and at this time impossible to forgive the savages who carried out this attack or rather series of attacks and quite frankly it’s not my place to do so as forgiveness has to be given by those who have been grievously harmed. I wasn’t hurt by 7/7 but I was changed by it. I don’t blame all Moslems for the attacks but I blame the ideology that created the bombers.
We should never forget 7/7 nor who carried it out and what inspired the murderers to do what they did even though forgetting and not looking back in anger is just what too many in our political class in the UK would prefer us to do.
May the memory of those murdered on 7/7 be for a blessing
May those injured in body, mind or spirit by the attacks find healing
May we never forget what killed and injured those afflicted by the 7/7 attacks.
Link
Sky News piece
https://news.sky.com/story/7-7-bombings-stories-that-define-the-bravery-of-victims-and-responders-20-years-on-13393139