Terrorism

I wonder how Mohammad Khan is getting on in his legal action against Virgin Atlantic. Mo — a Muslim, the clue’s in the name — was waiting to board a flight when he started ‘harmlessly’ talking about 9/11. There is no reason to believe he has any connections with extremists, but he was kicked off the flight because of security concerns and had to fly out of the UK with another airline. Although he was later offered a refund, he is now suing, claiming he was ‘racially and religiously profiled’ by the Virgin staff. ‘I know this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been a white man in his sixties,’ Mo complained. No, probably not. But if the world were comprised entirely of white men in their sixties, then 9/11 might not have happened.

This is a very modern novel. Terrorist atrocity sits side by side with the familiar and the mundane. Where better for this to happen than in Northern Ireland? At the Day’s End pub ‘two eejits in Halloween masks’ enter the bar; ‘Trick or treat,’ they shout. ‘Fut-fut-fut-fut went the gun.’ A woman screams, ‘then a very fast piece of metal entered the side of her head and she stopped’. Throughout the first half of the book, the horror of the pub massacre alternates with the narration of an ordinary family’s home life.

How much longer can it go on? Deaths caused by terrorism are always followed now by candlelit vigils, a minute’s silence, victims’ families/ government ministers/emergency services/clergy/imams all clustered together, walls of messages and flowers, flags at half-mast. Instinctively, I feel uneasy because the meaning of it all gradually suffers attrition, and also, perhaps, because it asserts a solidarity which isn’t quite there. Yet the fundamental cause of mourning is true and deep enough — it is first for the dead, then for a civilisation which may be dying. In these pages, on 4 February, Matthew Parris wrote that Brexiteers seemed very anxious, despite having won.

So it seems that it has happened again. A third terrorist attack in as many months on London’s streets. Once again using a vehicle. Once again aimed at Londoners. Except that this time it seems the terrorist himself is not a follower of Isis. Indeed, reports suggest that the attacker may have been a non-Muslim deliberately targeting Muslims. On top of whatever other extremist motivations this attacker may have had, he was also unwittingly doing the work of Isis and similar groups. For if the attack in Finsbury Park was indeed aimed at Muslim worshippers as they were leaving their Mosque then this is exactly the sort of despicable attack that Isis would want to happen, to foment discord.

New York   Main Street is a place, but it’s mostly an idea. It’s where locally owned shops sell stuff to hard-working townies, as we used to call the locals back when I was at boarding school. The townies had dependable blue-collar jobs in auto plants and coalmines. Their sons played American football hard, cut their hair short, and married their high-school sweethearts. I went back to my old school recently with my old buddy Tony Maltese, a wrestler who never lost a match. We had a nostalgic lunch with the wrestling coach and talked about old times. The feeling was one of community and of having control over your life. I talked about Britain, and how the Brits have lost control of their lives because of open borders.