ISIS have claimed responsibility.
Maybe we should ask the question of ISIS. What is it you want and what is it you stand for?
The pathetic thing is that they wouldn’t be able to say. They don’t want anything other than to harm the 99.99999% of the world that don’t share their twisted views. What do they ‘have’? An area of rocky desert that has been fled by most of the normal residents. Who do they govern? Cowed people who only go along with them out of fear and were unfortunate enough not to get out in time. How do they rule? By fear and fear alone.
So what is ISIS? It is not a political movement. The best description I have heard (in the guardian) was a “homoerotic death cult”. It is not representative of Islam any more than the Lebanese ‘christian’ phalangists who massacred people in refugee camps in 1982 are representative of Christianity.
Should we even try to understand such a thing? They have no programme, no demands, no positive desires. The very definition of nihilism.
We could torture ourselves into trying to find a rationale behind attacks like this, but the only answer we will come back to is nihilism and hatred.
Instead, we need to stand together in our free and embracing society and not be intimidated by a tiny minority of people who stand for nothing. We also must not make the mistake of associating these people with the vast, vast majority of Muslims who go about their daily lives with their faith and don’t find made-up reasons to hate others.
Love to Manchester and anyone who has been affected by this.