It’s too early to really take in what’s happened in London. There are 33 dead so far, the whole Tube system is suspended and, I suppose, we don’t know if there are any more bombs waiting to go off.
A Muslim group, apparently called ‘Secret Organization Group of al Qaida of Jihad Organization in Europe’ has claimed responsibility, according to the This Is London news site.
George Galloway, of the party he chose to call ‘Respect’, has already made political capital out of human tragedy by blaming it on the Iraq war and calling for troop withdrawals.
Either way, one wonders what can be done to stop such outrages and, short of body searching everybody in London, I think the answer is: nothing. We really are at the mercy of these murderers.
Quite how we respond to this outrage is impossible to tell. I hope the first reaction isn’t to victimise innocent Muslims - the decent majority of whom are at least as appalled by this as anyone else. Many civilised Muslims may well be even more outraged than the rest of us, aware that this slaughter cannot but reflect badly on them and their belief system.
Either way, one’s most overwhelming thoughts must be with the people whose day would have started so ordinarily, so like any other day but which ended in the terrible and violent loss of their loved ones. The rest we can think about at another time.
