Manchester Attack

The extermination of a single mosquito does not eradicate malaria
Another approach is to target the breeding grounds, rivers, swamps etcetera.

At the heart of the Manchester tragedy is a young man who decided to end his own life
Irrespective of subsequent events this itself is a tragedy
The same is true for any person who resorts to suicide.

Communities should adapt and defend against forces that lead to fragmentation
Prejudice is such a force
Society members must get better at reading the signs of alienation
All must develop more effective treatments to help those who become desperate.

This act of suicide, however was also an act of mass murder.
The simultaneous combination of these acts changes everything.

Ultimately only the murderer knows what influenced his fatal decision, but we can speculate that:
They were derived from the suicide bomber behaviour pattern
Or influences that emanated from his immediate peers and family members
Or solely from his own determination, from entirely within his own mind.

Although it is difficult to separate the external from the internal influences, they must exist
Such external influences are nothing to do with religion
Religious belief gives us reason to live, not to die or take-away life
The architects of this terrible act are not Muslim
Wearing the cloak of a Muslim does not make it so.

Within the broad church of our plural society such facades create confusion
Complex societies lack the precision with which to see imposters
To rescue religion from the parasites embedded within, we must re-focus
We need to re-align religion to society and society to religion.

Evicting the fake Muslims is necessary to constrain the influence of terror
To be a Muslim (or a Jew, or a Christian) should anyway not require access to  privileged enclaves
Such divisions do not exist amongst the victims of the Manchester Attack
Nor should not exist within the institutions of religion.

Removing terrorism demands interventions that are both micro and macro
The micro interventions are to reduce suicide through greater social cohesion
And at the macro level, the challenge is to prevent religion from being a safe harbour for terrorists.

As social cohesion is an attribute of religion then we can put it more simply and say that
To eradicate terrorism we have to promote spirituality over everything

Even materialism.

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