BY NEVILLE DE SILVA
Terrorism came to the heart of the British capital last Wednesday. Not for the first time though. What drove a single man with a car and a knife to engage in what would seem to most like a senseless act is not known. It will be discussed, debated and dozens of theories bisected and trisected by talking heads on TV and the print media and elsewhere.
Whether the country will really know the motive must remain, for the moment at least, a matter for conjecture. Police questioning of the some of the arrested as far away from the scene of the attack as Birmingham might eventually elicit some cause for this dastardly attack but hardly a rationale.
Among Sri Lankans who have for over 25 years suffered and endured terrorist attacks at home until the worst of them committed by the LTTE have at last ended with its military defeat, there would be some who would see this as retribution for the British authorities’ long indulgence of terrorist groups such as the LTTE on their soil.
While there is certainly some truth in this, it would be extremely unfair by those innocents who died and suffered as a result of the shortsighted policies of successive governments in Westminster and the neo-colonialist revival by those leaders who preached peace but engaged in imperial wars. The results of those outdated policies are now coming home to roost but at the expense of civilian lives though the Westminster attack might still be the act of a crazed individual with a criminal history.
The prime minister and other politicians have described the act as an attack on Britain’s political system, the Palace of Westminster being seen as the fount of parliamentary democracy. It is understandable that since it happened so near the Commons and the policeman killed was one on duty outside parliament and died trying to stop the assailant entering parliament that the attack was quickly interpreted as an attack on British democracy.
On sober reflection it might be considered somewhat overstated. Those who have lived for years under the cloud of