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| The Guardian view on the Finsbury Park attack: terrorism will not divide us | The Guardian view on the Finsbury Park attack: terrorism will not divide us |
| (about 5 hours later) | |
| Mon 19 Jun 2017 19.40 BST | |
| Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 22.06 GMT | |
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| Groups of people of identifiable religious identity in this month of Ramadan, congregating on a north London street near Finsbury Park mosque. A white van driven with apparently murderous intent mounting the pavement. The attack that took place soon after midnight looks as if it was intended as a vicious and terrifying echo of the London Bridge attack less than two weeks earlier. One man, who had been taken ill just before the attack, is dead, two more were critically injured and a further six were hospitalised. The driver, attempting to flee, was tackled by his intended victims. A local imam, Mohammed Mahmoud, in a striking example of the way so-called British values also reflect the values of Islam, used his authority to protect the attacker from the understandable anger of his captors. A man is now in police custody facing charges of attempted murder. | Groups of people of identifiable religious identity in this month of Ramadan, congregating on a north London street near Finsbury Park mosque. A white van driven with apparently murderous intent mounting the pavement. The attack that took place soon after midnight looks as if it was intended as a vicious and terrifying echo of the London Bridge attack less than two weeks earlier. One man, who had been taken ill just before the attack, is dead, two more were critically injured and a further six were hospitalised. The driver, attempting to flee, was tackled by his intended victims. A local imam, Mohammed Mahmoud, in a striking example of the way so-called British values also reflect the values of Islam, used his authority to protect the attacker from the understandable anger of his captors. A man is now in police custody facing charges of attempted murder. |
| Once more, a highly diverse community, along with police and politicians – including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who is the local MP and was alerted quickly to the attack – have responded with the kind of urgent compassion and generosity that is the exact opposite of the division that terror is intended to achieve. Theresa May, in a statement in Downing Street and then on a visit to Finsbury Park, managed to do the right thing with reasonable timing. It will not be enough to redeem her standing, but at least it suggests she has learned something from the past few dreadful days. | Once more, a highly diverse community, along with police and politicians – including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who is the local MP and was alerted quickly to the attack – have responded with the kind of urgent compassion and generosity that is the exact opposite of the division that terror is intended to achieve. Theresa May, in a statement in Downing Street and then on a visit to Finsbury Park, managed to do the right thing with reasonable timing. It will not be enough to redeem her standing, but at least it suggests she has learned something from the past few dreadful days. |
| It is also revealing, and alarming, that almost as soon as social media started reporting on the attack in the early hours of the morning, some people were unfavourably contrasting the official response with the way emergency services reacted to the London Bridge attack. The official response was said to be too slow, although the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, reported that the first response was on the scene in minutes, with backup arriving soon after, and it was declared a terror attack within minutes. That makes a nonsense of the second allegation, that the branding of the attack as terrorism came only reluctantly. There were also early reports of two other men in the van who had escaped. The rumour of multiple attackers is a common impression when there is chaos, fear and violence; the police are now confident there was only one man involved. All the same, there is a lesson in the lack of trust of some in the Muslim community, even in an area where, according to Mr Corbyn, relations with the local police are good. | It is also revealing, and alarming, that almost as soon as social media started reporting on the attack in the early hours of the morning, some people were unfavourably contrasting the official response with the way emergency services reacted to the London Bridge attack. The official response was said to be too slow, although the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, reported that the first response was on the scene in minutes, with backup arriving soon after, and it was declared a terror attack within minutes. That makes a nonsense of the second allegation, that the branding of the attack as terrorism came only reluctantly. There were also early reports of two other men in the van who had escaped. The rumour of multiple attackers is a common impression when there is chaos, fear and violence; the police are now confident there was only one man involved. All the same, there is a lesson in the lack of trust of some in the Muslim community, even in an area where, according to Mr Corbyn, relations with the local police are good. |
| One reason for it must be the daily experience of many Muslims, living in a constant atmosphere of Islamophobia. It is statistically evident in a denial of access to jobs and housing, and in the sharp rise of religious hate crime. But for thousands more, it is the experience, impossible to measure, of passive hostility, online abuse and offensive behaviour that political rhetoric about “Islamist extremism” often appears to endorse. The prime minister made a belated attempt to acknowledge that perception in her remarks in Downing Street. For the first time, she explicitly included Islamophobia when she repeated her “enough is enough” attack on the tolerance of extremism that she first made after the London Bridge attack. | One reason for it must be the daily experience of many Muslims, living in a constant atmosphere of Islamophobia. It is statistically evident in a denial of access to jobs and housing, and in the sharp rise of religious hate crime. But for thousands more, it is the experience, impossible to measure, of passive hostility, online abuse and offensive behaviour that political rhetoric about “Islamist extremism” often appears to endorse. The prime minister made a belated attempt to acknowledge that perception in her remarks in Downing Street. For the first time, she explicitly included Islamophobia when she repeated her “enough is enough” attack on the tolerance of extremism that she first made after the London Bridge attack. |
| Mrs May’s recognition of the hostility faced by Muslims is an advance. But the new commission to counter extremism that she intends to set up illustrates the government’s tangled struggle against what it calls ideologies of extremism. It is deeply confused. Actions can be violent, and should be proscribed, punished and prevented where possible. Ideas, on the other hand, even though they may be used to justify violence, should not be criminalised. They should be exposed, argued against, mocked even. Where they conflict with the deeper values of British society, they should be actively condemned. But this is not a matter for the criminal law, which should be confined to actions, and to those speech acts that constitute an immediate credible incitement to violence or to hatred. | Mrs May’s recognition of the hostility faced by Muslims is an advance. But the new commission to counter extremism that she intends to set up illustrates the government’s tangled struggle against what it calls ideologies of extremism. It is deeply confused. Actions can be violent, and should be proscribed, punished and prevented where possible. Ideas, on the other hand, even though they may be used to justify violence, should not be criminalised. They should be exposed, argued against, mocked even. Where they conflict with the deeper values of British society, they should be actively condemned. But this is not a matter for the criminal law, which should be confined to actions, and to those speech acts that constitute an immediate credible incitement to violence or to hatred. |
| Mrs May’s definition of “extremism” seems to include obnoxious and sometimes illegal practices found in some socially segregated communities, such as female genital mutilation and the subjugation of women. These should not be tolerated, but they are not part of a conveyor belt leading inexorably to terrorist acts. They should not be treated, or talked about, as if they were. Have a schools policy, or a housing policy, that works against them but be clear this has nothing to do with counter-terrorism, unless it’s used to promote a sense of persecution among communities affected – which makes some arguments for terrorist violence seem more credible. | Mrs May’s definition of “extremism” seems to include obnoxious and sometimes illegal practices found in some socially segregated communities, such as female genital mutilation and the subjugation of women. These should not be tolerated, but they are not part of a conveyor belt leading inexorably to terrorist acts. They should not be treated, or talked about, as if they were. Have a schools policy, or a housing policy, that works against them but be clear this has nothing to do with counter-terrorism, unless it’s used to promote a sense of persecution among communities affected – which makes some arguments for terrorist violence seem more credible. |
| The Finsbury Park attack was all the more terrible for coming when it did, after a weekend when thousands of people had attended Great Get Together events in memory of Jo Cox, the MP murdered a year ago by the rightwing extremist Thomas Mair. Terror, whether religiously or politically motivated, intends to divide; solidarity is a necessary answer to it. | The Finsbury Park attack was all the more terrible for coming when it did, after a weekend when thousands of people had attended Great Get Together events in memory of Jo Cox, the MP murdered a year ago by the rightwing extremist Thomas Mair. Terror, whether religiously or politically motivated, intends to divide; solidarity is a necessary answer to it. |
| Finsbury Park van attack | |
| Opinion | |
| Race issues | |
| Police | |
| Islam | |
| Jeremy Corbyn | |
| Theresa May | |
| editorials | |
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