My deluded friend; as you settle in to find out Allah has a sense of humour and your 72 virgins all look like Kellyanne Conway, may I thank you. But first let me put you right on a few things. You failed. You are no terrorist.
Did you really think you could terrorise a city with your pathetic, murderous use of a really rather small car to hit people on the pavement? Even those in Berlin and Nice who are probably your role models were sensible enough to use a lorry. At least you could have hired a van, crashing your less than 9 months old car is really going to bugger up your insurance premium or if it’s a rental, there goes your deposit.
Did you think you could destroy a city that has survived two great fires, one at the hands of Boudicca whose statue you passed at the end of Westminster Bridge? OK the other was probably a cooking accident but it did get rid of the plague rats. You are not one of the big players. You are not even up to the standard of the Zeppelin crews who threw bombs out by hand in WWI. Herr Goering’s bombers caused more damage than you ever could. Perhaps that thought passed through your mind as you ran past the statue of Winston Churchill. Oh, and you crashed because like your failed colleagues at Glasgow Airport in 2007, you didn’t take account of the security barriers. Unlike them, you didn’t have your vehicle loaded with gas cannisters. What a loser!
The security barrier that sweeps round the base of Big Ben made you swerve and crash. You obviously wanted to drive through the checkpoint at the entrance to Old Palace Yard where the MPs go in. Instead you hit the fence at almost exactly the place the IRA killed Airey Neave in 1979. I’ll forgive you not having explosives as they are rather difficult to get the ingredients for these days thanks to earlier efforts. But a two door Hyundai, that even the British media had to exaggerate and call an SUV, and a couple of kitchen knives? Come off it! Didn’t you even have enough self respect to get something bigger? I know it’s difficult these days but there are places in London where you can get illegal firearms and large bladed weapons. The killers of Lee Rigby who you copycatted had a cleaver and there were two of them Mr No Mates! Too scared of the police finding out about you if you tried to get a real weapon? That sound is those virgins smirking at your “courage”.
As you pushed your way into Old Palace Yard no doubt you thought Kieth Palmer not having a firearm would make your “mission” easier. Instead that courageous unarmed policeman tackled you and you stabbed him to death for his efforts. It’s his name and those of your other victims, not your’s, that will be remembered. Just as the name of the MP Joe Cox, who was also killed by a knife wielding fanatic, not her killer who is remembered. Your name will not “go down in infamy”. In a few years you will be an aside on a little read Wikipedia page.
You are no doubt pleased that you managed to kill 4 or 5 other people, injured a couple of score of others and made some frightened tourists run away from the area but you are no hero. The heroes are the passsers-by who rushed to help those injured and dying on Westminster bridge, the woman bus driver who rushed to get help for one, PC Palmer who stopped you despite being unarmed and those who rushed to treat him and you as you both lay dying. Your crimes will not change much. There will be a few more police holding automatic rifles wandering around London giving directions to lost tourists for the next couple of weeks. You managed to get Westminster tube station closed for the evening and lots of buses redirected in the immediate area. But most of the crime scene will be open by the morning. Commuters will make their grumpy way to work, more worried about strikes on Southern Rail than anything you caused. Both houses of Parliament will resume their work on Thursday, pausing to remember those you killed and injured.
We will comfort the injured and bereaved. In due course we will erect a dignified memorial as a place for the relatives to gather and remember their loved ones. There’ll be a brief ceremony on significant anniversaries to help them.
However, it’s one your biggest failures that I want to thank you for. No doubt your aim was to divide communities and make Muslims feel victims of persecution to radicalize them. Boy will you fail in that and even more. At a time when the country has been divided by the Brexit vote and possible Scottish independence, you have united the people. You failed to learn that lesson from 7/7 and the bomber of the Admiral Duncan. He sought to divide the Afro-Caribbean, Muslim Asian and gay communities by his bombing campaign. Instead it made them closer through having a shared would-be oppressor.
Most of all, you reminded us of the biggest legacy of 7/7 — the exploration, definition and promotion of the fundamental British values that unite us. Let’s look at them as set out for teaching in schools and part of the test for naturalization:
- democracy;
- the rule of law;
- individual liberty;
- mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith
Democracy. Well by attacking parliament you may well have increased respect for at least one MP. Rather than running from the scene, Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood rushed to help Kieth Palmer, administring mouth-to-mouth and heart massage. He lost his brother in the Bali bombings and still went towards your victim. Proceedings had to be suspended while you were dealt with but resume in the morning.
Rule of Law. Despite you stabbing PC Palmer, you were still warned to drop the knives by the armed policemen.
Individual Liberty. As soon as you were disarmed, every attempt was made to save your life. The image of you and Kieth Palmer being treated almost side by side reminds the public of the respect for human rights inherent in the education of police officers. Your death will be thoroughly investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to confirm your shootng was lawful. If they do not, the policeman will be sanctioned and likely prosecuted.
Mutual Respect. The Coroner will make every effort to release your body for burial within the time scale proscribed by Islam. Very likely no invasive autopsy will be performed if your relatives request it and it is possible to do so. Mark Rowling, the deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the one in charge of anti-terrorism emphasised that he will be liasing with the Muslim community and will be actively preventing far-right groups from persecuting them.
At a time when the formal Section 50 notice is about to trigger Brexit negotiations, your actions against those French schoolchildren has revealed a mutual solidarity between Britain and France.
Your greatest failure was your not learning the lesson of 7/7. It bought we Londoners of our many faiths and nationalities together as one. You fail to terrorise and achieve your aims because of what London has seen before. Your reminded us of that. Simply put, London cannot be terrorized. Attacks make us stronger and more united. You allowed Londoners and our guests to show their basic decency, humanity and courage.
Those uninjured will carry on with our lives as before. Some injured, like those on 7/7 will see new opportunities and like them become winning paralympians. We were not afraid after 7/7 and we are still not afraid.