Manchester attack will affect UK’s general election

The timing of the attack follows a well-known pattern among modern terrorist groups, writes Shelina Janmohamed.

A man is detained by police near Buckingham Palace in London on Wednesday, two days after a terrorist attack at a music concert in Manchester. Carl Court / Getty Images

The timing of the attack follows a well-known pattern among modern terrorist groups

On Tuesday morning, the front pages of Britain’s newspapers carried one striking image: the aftermath of an attack in Manchester.

The city is one of the UK’s largest and most diverse. The image was of a young woman, injured in the bombing, surrounded by the emergency services, with a backdrop of neon night-time colours. She was a survivor. But at least 22 others were killed, and more than 50 injured. At least 12 of those dead were children under the age of 16, including one eight year old.

The country spent the day in shock. Parents recounted their own memories as children of the excitement of attending a concert. This one was by Ariana Grande, a popular star among young girls. For many in the audience the day would have started out as one of the most exciting of their lives. Its ending was something out of a horror movie.

The attack fell in the middle of the current election campaign cycle in the UK, as the country gears up for a general election on June 8.

The motive is not yet clear, but the effect of this horror at such a sensitive political time follows a well- known pattern among modern terrorist groups: terrorise, mobilise and polarise. By creating a visceral fear the aim is to inject hatred into spaces of pluralism and diversity.

We saw it in the stream of atrocities in France during their election cycle. It gave Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right party the Front National, a platform for her hatred. In today’s world, it was the immigrants and Muslims who were demonised for an attack that was timed to create hate. In the same breath she denied the Holocaust. Even with history she created hate.

In the UK, there were plenty who were ready to feast on the bodies of children killed in the Manchester attack.

Katie Hopkins, a controversial news columnist who has previously likened refugees fleeing war zones to “cockroaches” said what was needed was a “final solution”. This is a stomach churning phrase used by the Nazis to refer to the Holocaust and the objective to annihilate the Jewish populations of Germany.

Another journalist for a leading newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Allison Pearson said that what was needed was the internment of thousands of terror suspects.

This did not work during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and again echoes the horrors of genocide.

And Piers Morgan, a disgraced newspaper editor turned TV presenter, explained that attacks wouldn’t happen if Muslims stepped up and dealt with extremists. He was trotting out the old race tropes, as though all Muslims know each other, as though there is collective guilt, as though Muslims are separate and other.

The ugly genie of hatred had been let out of the bottle and granted the hatemongers the fodder to fuel their hatred.

Last year, in mid-June, British MP Jo Cox was murdered in the street.

The murderer was called a terrorist by the judge. He shouted white supremacist slogans and had been brought to a frenzy by the imminent public vote on Britain leaving the EU.

The campaign rhetoric had focused heavily on immigration, with references to a “swarm” made by then prime minister David Cameron, and a poster showing Syrian refugees and the caption explaining Britain was at “breaking point”.

The timing of such events and their intersection with the cycle of elections and democracy entrenches a view that draconian measures, security, surveillance and increased state powers are the answer to public demand. It is proposed that a strong state is required and its citizens in these moments of flux are facilitated into giving away their rights.

They do it of course because they believe it will only affect others and not themselves. They do it, because when the timing of terror coincides with periods of change, then fear turns into hatred. They do it because they have learnt nothing from history, and that this is how horrors start.

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author of the books Generation M: Young Muslims Changing the World and Love in a Headscarf