It’s exactly five years today that London was thrown into a pandemonium of an unprecedented magnitude with many a home, family, Londoner and visitor left in perpetual anguish and sorrow. As we look back today with tears on our eyes and heavy sorrow in our hearts, we are immediately plunged into a state of trepidation and horrified by the frightful images that were the results of that satanic incidents- the many deaths that littered the underground, charred remains of bodies, blood everywhere on the ground, streets, tracks, blood gushing out of fellow Londoners and visitors alike, fractured bodies, maimed and destroyed beyond recognition.
But in the midst of our anguish, we are comforted by the fact that the bestial incidents brought out the very best in our humanity, civilization and “Londonness” – the spirit of compassion and milk of human kindness, all these together with Londoners uniting to defeat evil and extreme Islamism which sought to kill our liberty and freedom for which those before us had fought, and in most cases, gave their lives in order to plant their seeds, the fruits of such freedom and liberty the agents of dark forces – the terrorists do not want us to enjoy.
On July the 7th, 2005, evil did not win as it has never won any lasting battle since homosapiens found themselves on this planet, earth. Evil is a coward and a loser. And in all of life’s battles evil is the colossal loser. From the origin of civilization till date, the forces of evil have always been defeated by the forces of good – the many wars the human civilization has experienced in its various epochs have again and again confirmed that whatever be the magnitude of evil at any given time in the march of civilization through its teleological movement, the forces of good will always outlive the forces of evil. The various pre-historic wars and those that had been fought in the earliest times when our civilization had organised itself have not brought humanity to extinction, in Bible times, evil was consumed upon the Red Sea, in humanity’s most recent history, the First and the Second World Wars are, but once upon a time, slavery, colonialism, communism, apartheid have all been buried in the ash heap of history.
This is our confidence that the current evil of terrorism that threatens, not just the West or westernism, but the entire humanity, will also be defeated by the collective efforts of all humanity across the Atlantic. It is the business of Al-Qaida, other jihadists and all agents of dark forces in and around the world to cause mass destruction and leave the whole of humanity in a state of perpetual fear and sorrow, but it should be the business of the entire humanity too, to keep all agents of Satan out of business by tackling terrorism head on.
In the fight against terrorism and other vices in human community, if the whole world is sufficiently united, we will win, but if divided in any least way, we will fall and it will be easy for the forces of darkness to break our ranks and find fertile havens in and around the world to nurture the seeds of their evil – hatred, death and eventual annihilation of our world.
We have seen this unity displayed in 9/11, 7/7, 21/7, in Spain, in Pakistan, in India and all over the world, too numerous to recount here. When the world stood together in all of these incidents it triumphed over the forces of darkness and its unity became the very balm to cushion the effects of the pains left on individuals, families and nations in the wake of these evils.
Yes, each time terrorists have struck, they have always embarked on euphoric laughter, but their laughter has always been short-lived, while our liberty which they sought to kill, our civilization and its wheel of progress which often offend them continue to wheel on, and as ever unstoppable.
As we reflect on the ugliness of 7/7 today, our greatest tribute to all who lost their lives, those still in one pain or another following that disaster, those who have been maimed for life and consigned to wheel chairs, the heroes and heroines of 7/7 who risked their lives to save fellow human beings, will not be flowers that will be left on the sites of the incidents, and it will yet not be in the tears that will gush out of our eyes as we remember that day today, nor will it be in the flurry of condemnations of the perpetrators and their sponsors, which of course, is the right thing to do anyway, but our greatest tribute to all of these people dead and alive is eternal vigilance.