In the face of hate, we must unite in love

WE KNOW that among the dead are children, little ones enjoying a concert by their favourite star. We know they were murdered by a suicide bomber simply because they were British. We know that to call their killer ‘evil’ is appropriate given the scale and horror of the crime.

Little children: how could anyone intentionally bomb them into oblivion? And yet, on Monday night in Manchester, someone set out with precisely that intention. As a parent, I am speechless before such wanton wickedness.

However, it is now more than a decade since I began writing on this form of terror threat. When, in 2004, I published a series of articles in a Sunday newspaper on Islamic fanaticism, I was threatened for my troubles. Despite proving that extremists were using Ireland as a base to wage jihad elsewhere, my revelations were routinely dismissed.

It is true that I was invited to brief the American ambassador, but our own authorities seemed, at best, apathetic. Indeed, the greatest support I received was from various sections of the Muslim community. Those brave people were so concerned at what was going on in their community that they verified all my reports, disclosed more astonishing revelations and offered to protect me from those who did not share their concerns.

Things are, of course, very different today. Slowly, as the terror menace spread its deadly tentacles across Europe, our leaders could no longer bury their heads.

They could no longer repeat their tiring mantra: ‘It could never happen here.’

Those who set out to murder children do not morally discriminate. Their slaughter is indiscriminate, their violence without conscience. As I have said so often: it is evil, pure and simple.

We, however, have a conscience, which is why we consider the killing of children such an act of barbarism. This means that we also take care to discriminate between those who would butcher the innocent and those who could never countenance such a crime. We can distinguish between murderous fanatics and those who share our revulsion at their atrocities.

What I learned during that fraught time covering Islamism in Ireland is that those who feel most shamed by the crimes of extremists are people from the same community. Those who rallied most to my cause were, by and large, Muslims who felt no less threatened by the fanatics in their midst.

They were noble people who valued life and love.

Indeed, they came to mind last week when, following an accident, I had to rush my youngest to A&E. After a long wait, we were seen by a Muslim doctor who treated my little son with tenderness and care. She was working in such a stressed environment, and yet she smiled her way through the procedure, chatting and laughing with a child she barely knew.

People of conscience cannot conflate those who would harm and those who heal – even if they both subscribe to the same faith.

For one, a child is something sacred, a revelation of the divine. For the other, children are targets just like any others.

We say the murder of children is unspeakable because words cannot adequately capture our abhorrence. It is an act so depraved that we struggle to make sense of it. That a person would plan to set off a bomb where he or she knows there will be large groups of children is as wicked as it gets.

Yet the IRA did it in Warrington in 1993. For that is the nature of terrorism: no matter what the cause, those who perpetrate the crimes are without a conscience.

THEY strike at young and old in the name of a deranged ideology to which only the most warped subscribe. The face of love comes in many forms. It is something universal, as obvious in that gentle Muslim doctor as it is in the countless Good Samaritans of every faith and none. It is a face that seeks to heal with a caring smile.

What unites fanatics and extremists of all persuasions is that they seek solely to harm. Side with them and you are safe. Oppose them and you automatically become a terror target.

It doesn’t matter what their political or religious slogans are. The fact that they would intentionally murder and maim little children reveals they are a threat to all people who value human life. They may differ in their goals, but they are united in their hate.

For that reason alone, we must remain united in our love.