Not terrorism, mate.

When a child is heinously attacked and murdered, something dies in all of us. When an entire group of tiny little girls in a dance class are targeted in a gruesome attack by a crazed killer and three beautiful lives are extinguished with 6 more fighting for their lives, something is desperately wrong in the society  this happens in.  Politicians will  lay flowers and clerics light candles and preach forgiveness but all of them asserting confidently that this has nothing to do with terrorism is a part of the problem.

One, it is a premature assertion. The investigations have  barely begun and even the authorities know little of the criminal’s motivations and beliefs. His associates or lack thereof have not been identified. Why discount terrorism so readily? One suspects this has become a kneejerk formulation to manage community feelings more than anything else.

Two, if terrorism is defined as being  service of a political aim, his choice of target is already a clue. He might be an incel or a religious puritan but his male rage is rather tediously recognisable. Knifing so many little bodies in such a short time reveals an incandescent fury, a very personal rage. Violence targeted solely at females often has the political aim of restricting female autonomy. Online incel aims are pretty political – legalising rape for example.

Planes flying into skyscrappers is terrorism everyone recognises but the decades of security screening at airports, train stations, concert venues etc  since then have created  the scars of terrorism we all bear. We get accustomed to armed police and bag checks at the local train station and at all mass events. We have lost many hours of our life to security clearance. It is the aftereffect of terrorism that leaches into our lives and forces changes in our habits and the way we interact with others that is truly corrosive. How much further do we want to go? What level of security keeps our children safe?

Rest in peace Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice Dasilva Aguiar. We sincerely hope we don’t have to add more names to this nightmare.

The Southport massacre comes at the end of a month of intense communal clashes in the UK. There were riots in Leeds and mob protests in Rochdale following the punch up at Manchester airport. In both of the cases, the police (with one notable exception) and Labour politicians genuflected reflexively to the minority communities involved. When buses and police vehicles were set on fire in Leeds, the police withdrawal was marked. However in Southport, when protests erupted yesterday, the pictures and language used about the protestors were robustly  different. A heavy police presence is noticeable and the protestors are described as “far right white thugs” quite readily, almost gleefully, as if the authorities are relieved at last to have the right kind of bad guys to fight. No one here is carrying water for the EDL : they are wrong to descend on a town still reeling from grief and absolutely wrong to target a local mosque. Let me say that again, even if jihadists had been responsible for any attacks, the targetting of  a place of worship and innocent members of the community is wrong. It is really not difficult to insist mob violence is abhorrent and is always condemnable.

Yet the authorities and media  failed to say that of the Leicester, Leeds and Rochdale protestors. They have failed to say it of the weekly hate marches that have erupted – with vandalism and violence and terror glorification added- since October 2023. They have greenlighted the identitarian politics of the ummah and there are now 5 Gaza MPs in the British parliament. Well  they just have to learn to live with the identitarian politics of the EDL too.