Last night it appears that a suicide bomber detonated a device at the Manchester Arena near the end of a pop concert. The reports today indicate that 22 people were killed and around sixty people have been injured; it is believed that some of the casualties were young children. We do not yet know the identity or motivation of the bomber, though there is already speculation that this has the hallmarks of another so-called Islamic State atrocity.
Our prayers are with the victims, the emergency services and the health care professionals.
Every time there is a terrorist attack like this my first thought is that we must carry on as before and somehow just soak up the deaths and the maiming and the terror as a society because we believe in freedom and there's a price to pay for that belief in a world when so many fanatics hate freedom. If we give in to the haters, if we change things, then we are letting the terrorists win. They want to foment conflict between communities. They want war between Islam and the West. They want all Muslims to think as they do. They want us to think all Muslims are like them.
Our hardest fight is against their evil ideology. But we will fight on, and we will win, because our love for life and our fellow human beings is a lot stronger than their barbaric hatred. They do not know the mentality of the British people if these fanatics think otherwise.
My second thought is what do we do about these things? Can anything be done without giving the terrorists what they want?
There no easy answers. I know what we must not do. We must not turn ourselves into a police state and destroy the very freedom the terrorists also hate. There is no level of security high enough to stop attacks like this anyway. And we must not blame innocent people for the crimes of guilty people just because they share the same religion or have the same ethnic background. To do so would be unjust, counterproductive and make our country into the kind of place the terrorists long for.
One thing we can do is explore what makes people do these things and seek to counter their ideology. This is especially important if we can reach people before they reach the would-be terrorist stage You cannot seek to change people's minds or stop people ending up thinking a certain way until you understand them. And this both a political and a theological understanding. We then must put effort into countering these ideas and showing why they are wrong. We need the help of good Muslims to achieve this, including Islamic theologians and preachers.
But the other thing we must do is show zero tolerance of incitement to violence. Notice I do not say zero tolerance of "extremism". Extremism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. In a free country, anyone should be able to believe anything they want, however extreme or unpleasant we may find it. But, as soon as someone inciting others to acts of violence, the law needs to step in without pussyfooting around for fear of being labelled racist. We need to impose long prison sentences on anyone who is proven to have incited, aided or sheltered terrorists. This includes anyone who knows about terrorist plans and does nothing to try to stop it.
Our hearts are with the victims in Manchester today. Our heads need to be focused on defeating terrorism in ways which do not destroy the very things we cherish most about our society and culture.
