The horrors of Wednesday afternoon in Woolwich will stay in the minds of many for years. It will be perpetually in the thoughts of the family of Drummer Lee Rigby for the rest of their lives and I can't even begin to imagine the pain and torment they must be going through today and for many future years. None would have given a thought that their son/husband/father/brother/uncle would not have been safe while serving in his own country.
Drummer Lee Rigby leaves behind a wife and a two year old son. His murder was a hellish tragedy.
But how many of you felt the media were goulish in their reporting? The repeated pictures of the murderers were disgusting and must have been extremely upsetting for Drummer Rigby's family.
The wall-to-wall reporting on the BBC and Sky only fuelled the murderers' desire for publicity and they've certainly had that. Every detail of their lives is being reported and too much information being divulged; all in is an attempt to instil more fear into the public's minds.
Our politicians' and media's reaction to this horrific crime has been to over-react and it's this image which has been whirling round the world. Why did the PM need to call a COBRA meeting twice and create more fear? Terrorism gets its momentum from such fearful responses. From the PM trying his best - and failing miserably - to appear statesman-like on the street outside No 10, to the knee-jerk suggestion that soldiers openly wear their uniforms outside barracks, was an insult to the intelligence of our military. In the 80s our service personnel were instructed not to wear uniform outside military areas unless absolutely necessary as they were targets for terrorists. The same ruling should stand today. To suggest otherwise is asking far too much from our military and politicians are shunting the responsibility of their poor decisions in the past on to the shoulders of today's HM Forces.
One of the murderers was born in England, but surely we shouldn't be surprised that a couple of young, converted radical Islamists decided they would do what the Islamic extremist Parviz Khan attempted to do in 2008; kidnap and behead a British soldier. This terrorist was sentenced and shut away for life only this month and perhaps the publicity from that motivated these individuals, who knows? Richard Littlejohn has his opinion and you don't need to be a Daily Mail reader to agree with much of his article.
The BBC had two interviews yesterday which caught my attention, Apart from the continual 'It's nothing to do with Muslims' and 'Muslims have been betrayed', the two interviewees gave an insight into Britain's Muslim world. Both men were Muslims themselves and were interviewed at different times of day. One was from the Quilliam Foundation and the other from Centri; two organisations involved in counter-extremism and they supplied a similar message: much more needs to be done to rid the country of Muslims who preach extreme Islam and both admitted there are still mosques and imams who do this openly, without protest from their Muslim community or the wider population.
The Centi speaker said our politicians are afraid or refusing to really tackle the groups and organisations that call for actions like this horrible crime. He was passionate in his plea for politicians to stop pandering to the Muslim leaders who insist that all is well within their communities and recognise that past attempts to bring radicalisation to a halt has failed. We need different tactics and more honest communication between the parties. If one side insists there are no problems yet the other side has the evidence there is, then surely it's the responsibility of the other side to ensure their evidence is accepted by the other party? We adhere to a Human Rights Act which protects criminals and will, eventually, be the straw that breaks society in these islands. Other countries deport villains yet we spend millions every year going through the court system, only to have another judge say no to the deportation of many whose aim is to pit one section of society against another.
None of this will be of help to the family of Drummer Lee Rigby. He wasn't even wearing uniform but a Help for Heroes T-shirt. His killers had a plan and it worked.
His family and himself would also have had plans. These have now been torn apart because our political leaders refuse to acknowledge there are on-going problems within the Muslim community. We pride ourselves on being a tolerant society, but there's responsible tolerance and ignorant tolerance. We need to see much more responsible tolerance in this country. There is no place in this country for preachers of hate and murder, yet they walk the streets. The British style of toleration is not responsible and an incorrect ideology.
RIP Drummer Lee Rigby. I do hope your murder results in serious action instead of wall-to-wall talk. You deserve nothing less and a whole lot more.
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