Love and hate

by Rick Johansen

Once again, I agree with everyone. I agree with everyone who says our lives should carry on as they were before the suicide murders in Manchester on Monday night. But I also agree with those who are frightened about the future, especially those with children. I agree with those who are critical of the government in general and Theresa May in particular for cutting police numbers so deeply. I agree with people who are calling for stronger measures, whatever they are supposed to be, against potential jihadis. I agree with everyone all at the same time. One thing I am sure of is that this cowardly, sick and evil attack will change our country for ever.

My one relatively close brush with terrorism came in 1974 when on the bus to a night out at the Tiffany’s night club (for the weekly ‘heavy night’) an IRA bomb exploded around 10 minutes after we passed by. My mum, many miles away in Brislington, heard the blast, as I did, but this was before the days of ‘rolling news’ and the internet. We only found out the truth the next day when we bought the local newspaper. The point is that I never forgot it and even today when I pass the area where the explosion took place I am transported back 42 years. No one died but the bomb had a lasting effect on me.

I aim to carry on and to keep calm but now I have others to think of. My partner, my children, my friends, their children, people I have never met and never will meet. Life can be a series of what ifs and what could have beens. Had we decided to go to X instead of Y, would we be here today? If I had decided to go to Corfu from Manchester in 1985, instead of Bristol, would I still be here to talk about it? It was, after all, an option for us. How could that not play on one’s mind, probably forever. I don’t think about it all the time but then again, I never forget it.

I don’t think we have a choice other than to get on with our lives in one way or another. We might decide to avoid flying on an aircraft or going to a concert, but the grim reaper has all manner of ways to end it all for us. After what happened in Nice or in Westminster, or what happened to poor Lee Rigby, we cannot be sure of anything.

The choice is surely between love and hate. The love has been represented by just about everything that occurred following the suicide murders. The hate was the suicide murderer himself, followed by the hate from certain individuals like that woman who used to be in the Apprentice who writes about “the final solution”, effectively calling for a genocidal response. Yes, I want to see those sick death cult murderers taken off the streets for good and if they are cut down by police bullets when caught in the act, it’s just too bad. But I still want us to retain our decency when those around us are losing theirs.

Like it or not, we have a law and order system that means one is innicent before being found guilty. That cannot change, no matter how we’d like to bang up everyone just in case. Our sense of decency, of respecting law and order, puts us firmly on the moral high ground. And there we need to remain, always.

Because love will eventually win through, as it will in Manchester. Sometimes, love is all we have and love is all we need. It beats the alternative every time.

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