When I read about the attacks in London, my heart broke. Tears came to my eyes. Fear clawed at my stomach. A man intentionally drove his car onto the sidewalk of Westminster Bridge, killing three people. He then exited his car, and fatally stabbed an unarmed police officer guarding an entrance to the British Parliament. The attacker was then shot and killed on the scene.
Here I am, a few months back from spending my fall semester traveling Europe. I have friends in London now, friends spread across the country, across the continent. The fear in my stomach, however, is not for them. It is the same fear I felt when reading about the terrible attack in Dallas last summer where five police officers were killed. The same scared voice that whispered, “please don’t let the shooter be black.” Now, that voice whispers, “please oh please don’t let him be a radical terrorist. Please don’t let ISIS claim this attack.”
I click open the article identifying the attacker with apprehension. “Attacker thought to be linked to Islamist ideology,” one sentence reads. “ISIS-affiliated news agency claims ISIS was behind the attack,” another one blares.
My heart drops. That is all it takes. It doesn’t matter that these are mere speculations. It doesn’t matter that there is no evidence connecting the attacker to ISIS. All that matter are those two lines in a news story. Those lines, the attackers’ actions, will affect the lives of millions. Millions more than the five lives already lost.
Great Britain has already voted to leave the EU, partially based on anti-Islamist sentiment and fear. Other countries, including the United States, have been shutting their borders, letting fear outweigh humanitarian need. Letting xenophobia outweigh basic human rights for all. Attacks like these increase this fear and xenophobia, and in the process hurt millions of people who are merely attempting to escape the violence and persecution.
His actions will affect a generation of children who are stuck in refugee camps around the world without access to education. His actions will affect every refugee in Greece, every refugee in Turkey, in Iran, in Pakistan, in Lebanon. The future of the EU. The future of immigration in the United States. The future of millions of Muslim people who have nothing in common with this attacker but a shared connection to Allah, who will be barred from opportunity, discriminated against, and subject to violence.
To the attacker, I would like to ask one thing: was it worth it? Did it do what you wanted? Was the future of millions of people worth two minutes of violently expressed frustration? The death of five now means the loss of life for so many more.