Hope is not a strategy to keep Canada safe from terrorism
The reassurance of kindness is a comfort after the horror, but we need more than that
It was as if two bookends of love enveloped an encyclopedia of hatred.
Arriving in London two weeks ago, the front-page image was two youngsters from the town of my birth. They’d been among the 22 victims of the bombing in Manchester.
Fast forward 10 days and, returning to Canadian shores, this newspaper’s front page portrayed another victim of another outburst of savagery, a young woman who’d studied here and then worked with the downtrodden. She was among eight cut down and killed in the English capital I’d just left. Yet hatred shouldn’t be the common ground for a most unlikely link between Chloe Rutherford and Liam Curry from South Shields, alongside former Calgarian Christine Archibald. No, far better that such convergence arose instead from reactions of those left grieving the passing of these three — parents separated by distance but, unknowingly, bound together with love.
“They lived to go to new places together and explore different cities. They wanted to be together forever and now they are,” is how the parents of Chloe, 17, and Liam, 19, described their reactions after the inseparable pair were caught in a suicide bomber’s ugly web of hatred leaving the Ariana Grande concert.
“Volunteer your time and labour or donate to a homeless shelter. Tell them Chrissy sent you,” was Christine’s parents’ reaction. And, in a remarkable outpouring of support, thousands in our city and far beyond are doing exactly that: volunteering and donating in her name as #chrissysentme goes viral.
We need this collective reassurance of our own humanity that such generosity of spirit provides. It reminds us not all is anger and hatred in our world; indeed, there’s much goodness in ordinary people.
Yet in others, there’s a depth of darkness acknowledging neither restraint nor reason. Targeting children, strangers, and lovers walking hand in hand for the sick pleasure of causing as much grief as possible is a vile manifestation of the worst side of any nature.
Of course, those who wallow in this mire can never win. Neither hearts nor minds bend to such philosophy. They are up against something so vast and powerful, it’s beyond their comprehension. The simple words of grieving parents, lovers and friends of those touched by this horror sweep away the toxic debris as penicillin destroys virulent bacteria. We would never have made it this far were that not the case.
But that doesn’t excuse laxity on behalf of those we choose to protect and serve. No, that’s not the police and medics, the people who run toward violence as we run away. They’d do the same in our city as their colleagues in Manchester and London. Sometimes we forget that.
No, it’s the politicians whom we’ve elected who need to display courage and not simply hide behind flowery rhetoric, bowed heads and offers of condolence. That’s the easy part.
How to stop this mayhem? How to balance individual rights with our common good? How to keep us safe without erecting a cage? No, not easy at all.
Yet, we have a prime minister who wanders away, camera in hand, distancing himself from any true discussion of national security and the potential tradeoffs involved. Then, he tweets everyone’s welcome in Canada.
Oh yes? Maybe Salman Abedi, Youssef Zaghba, Khuram Butt and Rachid Redouane would have been welcome too?
These are tough issues. How to allow needed immigration as well as offering humanitarian help to desperate refugees, yet still calm the safety anxieties of ordinary Canadians.
Oh, so it can’t happen here? Sorry, that plane already flew. Look back to June 1985 and the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in which 329 people died. That wickedness originated right here in good, old Canada; though, given the atrocious bungling of the subsequent investigation, both Ottawa and the RCMP prefer not to talk about it.
So, God bless Chloe, Liam and Christine. We can do better. We must, before it’s too late.