As the world reels with horror from the latest terrorist attack in Manchester, killing 22, many of whom are children, the vapid platitudes are pouring out of the mouths of politicians and the press. Don’t change anything. Don’t overreact. Don’t fear Islam or immigration. “There’s only one way Britain should respond to attacks such as Manchester. That is by carrying on exactly as before,” advises a headline in The Independent. Forget that British authorities raised the country’s terror threat level to “critical,” which means “an attack is expected imminently,” David Harsanyi reminds us in The Federalist.
After every Manchester or Paris or Nice, we are immediately instructed to watch our language and tone. Because love is love. You might remember former Attorney General Loretta Lynch telling a LGBT group, on the heels of an Islamist mass killing at a gay club in Orlando, that the “most effective” weapon Americans had to fight terrorism was “love.”
On his Facebook page, Morrissey, the Manchester-born singer/song-writer, lashes out at the political elite. “How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire.”
Theresa May says such attacks “will not break us”, but her own life is lived in a bullet-proof bubble, and she evidently does not need to identify any young people today in Manchester morgues. Also, “will not break us” means that the tragedy will not break her, or her policies on immigration. The young people of Manchester are already broken – thanks all the same, Theresa. Sadiq Khan says “London is united with Manchester”, but he does not condemn Islamic State – who have claimed responsibility for the bomb. The Queen receives absurd praise for her ‘strong words’ against the attack, yet she does not cancel today’s garden party at Buckingham Palace – for which no criticism is allowed in the Britain of free press. Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an “extremist”. An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?
In modern Britain everyone seems petrified to officially say what we all say in private. Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims. How easy to be unafraid when one is protected from the line of fire. The people have no such protections.
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Debbie Young
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