Westminster attack fuels the fires of extremist hate

East or west, we can only defeat the terrorists by remembering our humanity, says Omar Afzal

Two weeks on from the horrific attack at Westminster, we are still in the dark over Khalid Masood/ Adrian Elms’ motive for the attack.

The Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu pointed out: “We must all accept that there is a possibility we will never understand why he did this… That understanding may have died with him.”

When Elms went on that 82second murderous rampage killing four and wounding more than 50, he wasn’t singling out non-muslims. It was indiscriminate violence. In the aftermath of the attacks, however, the far right were immediately on the scene, using these deaths despicably to spread hatred. “We are at war,” they hissed. With that, the lens focused squarely again on the Muslim community.

Whilst Elms’ motives may never be known, what is clear though is that the far right and the likes of Daesh are two sides of the same extremist coin; fuelling and relying on each other.

Thomas Mair, who murdered MP Jo Cox, was a far right radical. So was Pavlo Lapshyn, the murderer of 82-year-old Mohammed Saleem. Lapshyn also planted bombs outside three mosques in and around Birmingham in the hope of starting the war they crave.

The far right have been able to fuse populism with nationalism, racism and xenophobia. They claim to understand the fears, frustrations and struggles of their fellow citizens. They point to a convenient scapegoat as the reason for all their ills; namely foreigners, in particular, Muslim (or Muslim-looking) refugees backed by shady “elites”.

What’s most worrying is how much far right rhetoric has become mainstream. This is because of the emergence of what I call the “near right”– politicians trying to woo voters away from the far right by adopting some of their language.

When a British Prime Minister calls people a “swarm”, we are doing the work of the extremists for them. Coming from the Prime Minister, that kind of language gains a credence it doesn’t deserve. It serves only to dehumanise people.

So when allied bombs fall on Mosul killing over 200 innocents, we are numb to it. Or when Pakistan is in the midst of a wave of terrorist attacks killing dozens, it doesn’t even register in our media. Neither does the persecution of the Rohingya, nor the allied bombs raining down on Syria or Britishmade bombs in Yemen. It seems like there is a hierarchy of life at play, with any life west of Turkey worth more than anyone else’s.

This inevitably feeds the narrative of the extremists and so the extremism coin keeps flipping.

When terrorists strike, they do so indiscriminately. In order to defeat them, we have to treat all life as equal. We need to be indiscriminate in our outrage at needless loss of life, wherever it may be and we need to use the language of humanity in order to defeat our enemies. ● Omar Afzal is self-employed. He comes from Glasgow and serves on the board of the Muslim Council of Scotland