The Tories and the Labour party are at loggerheads regarding who to blame for the terrorist attack that shook the very heart of London. It is a reminder of a similar incident on London Bridge two years ago. The politicisation of a tragic incident such as this, brings one’s attention inevitably to how it could have been avoided.
This time, two people lost their lives. The number that could have been higher, if not for the heroism of members of the public who pursued the attacker and seized his knife, which included a few who were ex-convicts and present at the same conference as the terrorist himself. The swift and brave action from the police and security services was equally crucial.
The debate regarding who should be blamed- is perhaps natural, but the danger of such issues during election campaign is that rather than looking at evidence base and rationally thought out analyses, people are trying to use it for their own personal gains.
The Guardian in a piece wrote, “Priti Patel, the home secretary, tweeted yesterday that the last Labour government introduced legislation that meant ‘dangerous terrorists’ had to be released at the halfway point of their sentence. This is not true.” What happened on Friday was not just the responsibility of a policy that Labour drew up. The policy that the party actually drew up, had a clause of a parole board hearing. That was converted by the court of appeal into an extended term. David Cameron government scrapped the system of early release, but Usman Khan fell under the old policy, where he escaped half way, provided he wore an electronic tag.
Terrorists are unscrupulous. Terrorists are a different type of criminals. They are blinded by a belief that benefits no one. As a society, can we choose to lock up anyone with any proven terrorist connections forever, regardless of whether or not they have committed a serious crime, and throw away the civil liberties we hold dear?
Daily newspapers have repeatedly said that the number of prison officers have fallen by a quarter between 2010 and 2015, leaving an inexperienced and demoralised prison service. Overcrowding has reached unsafe levels. It is proved in rising rates of deaths, violence and self-harm on the prison estate. Rehabilitation services are desperately underfunded.
Johnson’s cynical focus on sentencing reform is surely a ploy to deflect from the sweeping cuts and botched reforms that have hampered the ability of the police force, and the prison and probation services, to manage the risks of terrorism.
What could have made the difference was the parole board hearing- the first and final step that could have stopped terrorists like Usman Khan. And this was an effect of unthoughtful cost cutting on prison budget- while the government spent thousands on three elections, since 2015 and a disaster named Brexit- where UK still hasn’t left EU, even after three years of negotiations, spreading lies and many thousands of pounds spent on various failed deals. This incident is not the failure of a single political party and their policies. It is the failure of a democracy, run by a broken political system, that simply has misplaced priorities.
New chapter in India-Lanka relations
The election of Gotabaya Rajapakse as Sri Lankan President opens the welcome prospect of a strong and steady rule in Colombo,putting an end to the confusion of the Srisena administration. President Gotabaya has mde a promising start, inviting the country’s legendary Tamil cricketer Muttiah Muralitheran to become Governor of the Tamil-dominated province in the Jaffna area in a bid to assuage Tamil anxieties on his victory, based overwhelmingly on the majority Sinhalese community. Following his resounding victory in the polls, President Gotabaya said he was President of the entire nation including those had voted against him. This was the language and of a statesman determined to address grievances and heal old wounds rather than letting these fester.
India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, himself a Tamil, made an early call to the Sri Lankan President, handing over to him a personal letter rom Prime Minister Narendra Modi inviting him to New Delhi for on resetting the button on bilateral ties, in keeping with the Modi doctrine giving precedence to India’s relations with neighbours. President Rajapakse arrived in the Indian capital to a red carpet welcome and a 21 gun salute, evidence of India’s desire to open a new era in bilateral ties. Significantly, this was first his overseas visit on coming to power, a message that he sets high store on his country’s relationship with India.
President Rajapakse’s conversation with Prime Minister Modi were warm, friendly and businesslike. To start with, the India Prime Minister announced $450 million line of credit to Sri Lanka, accompanied by an assurance by the Sri Lankan President that stalled Indian projects worth$100 million in his country would be speeded up to long overdue completion.
Mr Modi said: ‘I am confident the Sri Lankan Government will take forward the national reconciliation process to arrive at a solution that meets the aspiration of the Tamil community for equality, justice, peace and dignity. This includes the implementation of the 13th amendment to the Constitution.’
Turning to another fraught subject, Prime Minister Modi extended India’s unwavering support to Sri Lanka in her struggle against terrorism, making specific reference to the appalling Easter Sunday bombing of the country’s Christian churches in Colombo which left 247 worshippers dead and many maimed. It should be recalled that an intelligence tip-off from India was ignored by former Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sririsena.
For his part, President Rajapakse described India as Sri Lanka’s ‘closest neighbour and longstanding friend,’ declaring that he resolved to work with India toi bring their relations to a new level. The omens are propitious.
President Rajapakse held separate talks with India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval underlying mutual security concerns on extremism and need for close cooperation to meet the common threat. Trust and goodwill firmly established, the journey to the future should be memorable.
Pakistan’s rebranding a pipe dream
A British panel of academics and international South Asia specialists has called on Pakistan to rebrand itself from jihadi state to one with broad spectrum of acceptability to the international community. Whether such transformation is possible through peaceful, rational means is highly improbable, given its failure to become one in over 73 years of existence as a nation state.
It springs from an acute, debilitating disorder of the mind and spirit. Its genes sprouted a vision of a Subcontinent caliphate to be built on the ruins of an idolatrous neighbour called India. Its rape of Kashmir in 1947 is premised on the argument that this one act would not lead to another. In Bengali-speaking, Muslim majority East Pakistan it embarked on a holocaust to eradicate the Hindu cultural gene of the population, leading to a war with India, the loss of its province today Bangladesh, which enjoys excellent relations with India.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s lava flow of hysterical vituperation and abuse of India bears a likeness to the rhetoric of the late unlamented ISIIS leader al Baghdadi. Pakistan is a country where vaccination is denounced as un-Islamic, its consuming pride the thid-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, assembled, it must be said, courtesy the cynically passive acquiescence of the United States and the active indulgence of the country’s all weather friend, China. Pakistan’s economy, such as it is, is based largely on the export of terrorism. As birth control is denounced as un-Islam, Pakistan’s galloping population is assurance of the coming Malthusian dystopia.
