London’s Hour of Reckoning

“Tinges of fear” aren’t confined to Ayodhya. London is “caught in the quagmire” of terror paralysis. The victorious slate of 2012 Olympic euphoria was wiped clean as a tidal wave of explosions ripped through the crippling capital leaving 37 dead and 700 gravely injured. Scenes of carnage ravage London.

A tensely dark mood redolent of September 11 swept over Londoners. Rolling newsflashes about casualties roared as the grey skies to which they once looked is now a covering of debris and ashes of dashed hope. A surreal silence and eerie calm haunts Europe. Yet Londoners display steely resilience in the eye of the terror tiger.

There were no straws in the wind by means of caveat. Unlike previous IRA attacks in London these explosions had no pre-emptive warnings. The bombs detonated on the epicenters of Aldgate, King’s Cross, Edgware Rd, Liverpool Street, Russell Square and Moorgate stations, and a double-decker bus in Woburn Square ripped open like a can of sardines. Packed with people, it was smashed to smithereens.

The orchestrated and synchronized attack bears the contemptible nomenclature and signature of Al-Qaeda. The international community sung a chorus of censure on the blasts as the UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution of condemnation.

Forensic evidence gains momentum as traces of explosives were found. Tony Blair shuttled back to London as the debacle unfolds. London Underground and bus circulation have been put on ice. Police officers, rescue operations and emergency and ambulance sirens festoon the city.

Flags flutter half-mast, punctuated silence intermittently streams with blood spattered, revolting burns, unspeakable amputations, fractured limbs, smoke inhalation, bodies piled in the wreckage, loathsome lacerations, fatalities and shards of glass.

Thousands of people poured into the streets from underground stations covered in blood, grief and soot. Patients are being treated at St Mary’s, Guys, University College, Royal London and Royal Free Hospital.

Rhetorical inferno spread like wildfire on the Al-Qal’ah ( Fortress) website, where a group designating themselves as the Secret Organisation Group of Al-Qa’ida of Jihad in Europe addressed the Nation of Islam warning that Denmark and Italy are going to be the next under peril. Yesterday marked a shrill political ejaculation and a coarse laughter from fundamentalists.

Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police Service, British Transport Police, k-9’s and fire-squads are working hand-in-hand to certify an alleviation of the mishap.

The commercial pulse and arteries of London, namely Canary Wharf and Liverpool street were cordoned off. Stocks sunk with an apprehension of economic deceleration. This debacle engenders downbeat corollaries for the tourism sector. In London trading, Hilton fell 7 % to 277.50 pence ($4.87) as traders wore frowns of aching trepidation and downturn in the industry.

Under such alarm inferences for the insurance industry are lacklustre Shares in Munich Re fell 4.2% to 85.35 euros. Investors flocked to safe harbor instruments such as gold, bonds and oil. The inevitable response — fixed income trend upward as equities plummet. The sterling nose-dives as the euro ascends.

The next few weeks treading the soil of London, a theatre of so many mighty world events, is punctured with pandemic hysteria. The London attacks ricochet attention away from the cosy golf-resort G-8 Gleneagles summit. The Hotel has been sealed off by an 8 kilometer no-fly zone and shielded by 10,000 police, a tethered blimp with infrared cameras.

The Ramifications:

Innocent Muslims are viewed through a distorted prism and yesterday’s act of savagery is a baptism of fire to further enflame a misconceived version of Islamic history that emphasizes with persecution. Trigger-happy “Orientalists” will be nimble to tar the “whole” Muslim community with a brush of harebrained terror-invoking zealots.

Tacit support for Anti-Islamism will further permeate into Westminster policy-making. Such proclamations and ministrations will manifest through rancorous inches and columns on broadsheets and rabble-rousing on e-forums, where mischief-makers are hell-bent on disgracefully portraying innocent Muslims as heathens.

Every Anti-Muslim, from Ayodhya to Buckingham Palace, will try to dethrone the crescent from each proud minaret, so that swelling domes shall never again resound with Azans. Machiavellian mullahs are no exception. There must be no chink in the armor against the caped-crusading bearded brigade.

These savage-looking beings by the fire, with their lank bodies, sunken eyes, and endless mouths bring a sepulchral and demoniacal appearance morally irredeemable to the cause of Islam. To see terrorism at such close range is unnerving.

Yet vitriol from the pulpits of the British Nationalist Party (BNP) and other fallow purveyors of hate will garner fanciful anti-Quranic fairytales. Imperial designs and xenophobic arrogance prostrates justice. Owing to a few footpads, the BNP, infused with missionary zeal and political supremacy, will pitch into hatred-propaganda voraciously devouring racial quiescence in Great Britain.

Muslim streamers traversing a moderate conduit have displayed stupendous faith and spewed deserved vitriol toward terror being an aberration in Islam. Misinterpretations on the concept of “jihad” have fed an anti-Muslim “frenzy”.

In essence “jihad” is an internal act of spiritual cleansing with solemnity and introspection. Seemingly peaceful Muslim immigrants will now bear the brunt of a rougher edge to the law.

As the years unfold, nobody can speculate how many “sleeper cell” termite terrorists will emerge from the woodworks.

A “moment of silence” for the 37 dead in London.

All humans bear the ark of liberties. It is only hoped that innocent Islamic citizenry escape from the recrimination of Islamic misinterpretation.

An indiscriminate slaughter of civilians can never be fathomed nor justified. The seeds of discord have taken too deep a root in our global age for lip-service and floundering fake diplomacy.

Freedom is an inalienable birthright – embracing one continent of earth –yet there is scant evidence today, despite the millions of dollars spent on flashy Muslim public relations sloganeering, that this will remedy the global legacy of terrorism.

Yearnings of harmony will be ill-gratified until a resolutely genuine peace process graces the Middle East.