May reflects new attitude on terror
No mincing words over fight vs. Islamist extremism
For those of us who were in Boston on Patriots’ Day 2013, the parallels with London are obvious:
People out enjoying themselves when carnage comes. The weapons are mundane kitchen wares (plus in the case of London, a van). The killers are locals, immigrants who lived for years among the people they would choose to kill. And in London, as in Boston four years ago, the eventual attackers were known to law enforcement as potential jihadists, but the authorities chose not to act.
For Bostonians, the London Bridge attacks have a certain “been there, done that” feel. But maybe, just maybe, this time is different.
Remember what then-Gov. Deval Patrick said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” after Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shoot-out and his brother Dzhokhar was dragged out of a Watertown boat? When host Bob Schieffer asked Patrick what the Tsarnaevs’ motive was, he replied:
“It’s hard for me and for many of us to imagine what could motivate people to harm innocent men, women, and children in the way that these two fellows did.”
Yes, those two inscrutable “fellows,” one of whom posted jihadi videos on YouTube and the other literally wrote an Islamist screed on the bloodcovered walls of the boat where he hid. What could they have been thinking?
After the Tsarnaevs’ connections to jihad were widely reported, The Boston Globe was still running headlines like “Islam Might Have Had A Secondary Role In Boston Attacks,” and editorializing against irrational concerns about Islamist-inspired violence.
And don’t forget Rolling Stone and its “Terrorist Teen Beat” cover with “the heartbreaking story” of “a charming kid with a bright future.”
And so it goes. Now fast forward to British Prime Minister Theresa May, just hours after the London attacks:
“[These attacks] are bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism.”
“There is — to be frank — far too much tolerance of extremism in our country. So we need to become far more robust in identifying it and stamping it out … That will require some difficult, and often embarrassing, conversations.
“It is time to say ‘enough is enough.’ ”
Calling out Islam? Denouncing “tolerance?”
Try to imagine any Massachusetts politician responding this way to the Marathon bombing.
What’s obvious today is that Prime Minister May is right. What’s annoying is that many of us knew that four years ago in Boston. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, perhaps it’s the audacity of hope, but I wouldn’t bet on Khuram Shazad Butt or Rachid Redouane — two of the London attackers identified by police — getting their pictures on the cover of Rolling Stone. Yes there’s some grousing in the European media about May’s speech perhaps making life more difficult for Muslims generally, but it comes across as cursory. So perhaps the thinking may have changed — there and here. And maybe, you know, we knuckledragging regular Joes who think it’s not crazy to expect to be able to have dinner without getting run over or stabbed to death in the name of jihad now have a right to say so.