Europe in silence” “

Christian and Moslem leaders in Britain have issued a joint statement asking their respective faith communities throughout England to join publicly together with others to observe two minutes silence at midday on Thursday, 14 July, exactly a week after the terrorist attacks in London in which 50 persons lost their lives. The initiative was promoted by the ecumenical network “Churches together in Britain and Ireland” (which brings together the most important Christian churches of the UK, Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Orthodox and Pentecostal) and the Muslim Council of Britain. The religious leaders of London, and the mosques, churches, temples and Gurdwara (places of worship of the Sikhs) also of other cities in Britain, lent their support to the initiative. The intention of the two minutes’ silence was to “express the deepest solidarity with those who have suffered and their families” and reaffirm that “no just end can be achieved with so cruel and indiscriminate a use of terror”. “LET US NOT MAKE HASTY JUDGEMENTS”. “It would be grossly wrong and inaccurate to presume that any section of our society to which the perpetrators of the London bombings belonged were themselves either terrorist sympathizers or in any way to blame for the actions of a few highly criminal and deluded people”, urges Bishop Arthur Roche of Leeds, the English city in West Yorkshire where, according to the first revelations of Scotland Yard, one of the four London bombers lived: Shahzad Tanweer, a 22-year-old youth, who was born and brought up in Leeds, son of a shopkeeper. Bishop Roche also expressed his solidarity with the Islamic community of Leeds. “I live right in the centre of the area where all the police are concentrating their investigations – he says – and yesterday I was really dismayed. The young men who perpetrated these crimes are irrational persons, who live in darkness. The fact that there are persons who have clearly plotted for terrorist purposes of course creates great difficulties: what I can say to people today is the need to pay attention, be reasonable, and not reach hasty judgements, not give summary judgements about our neighbours”. The bishop explains the appeal he has made to the city in support of its Islamic communities as follows. “We cannot turn them into scapegoats nor throw on them the shame for the fact that these terrorists had been recruited in our community. I think that the English will be equal to the situation and that society will respond in the right way. This morning I will walk through the streets of Leeds and visit the Islamic community: I wish to bring them the solidarity of the Christian community, but I also want to share their sense of suffering and grief in this moment. For here, in our diocese, a large Islamic community lives; it is present in the city of Bradford, in Leeds and in Dewsbury where we have the second theological centre for Islam, after that of Teheran. It’s a very important area”. YOUNG MUSLIMS OF ITALY: “AN ENORMOUS SORROW”. “It is an enormous sorrow because it is scarcely conceivable that a 22-year-old could have perpetrated such an act. But it must be clear, and we thank God, that not all the second generations are like this. It is an enormous problem that we as the Muslim Youth of Italy are trying to tackle”, declares Osama al Saghir, chairman of the GMI, the youth section of the Union of the Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII). “I fail to understand – he adds – what might have impelled a young man to such desperate remedies. I think I am in the same situation as Italians in trying to come to terms with this news. What is absolutely clear is that the young man of Leeds does not represent the majority or even the minority of Muslims but only a particular case. Evidently he failed to find his own identity”. According to Osama, the problem needs to be tackled at a cultural level of “real integration”. “It’s true that the perpetrators of the London bombings were British – he explains – but they were only so on paper. I think what we really need is a real social integration which must be accompanied by a culture and a strong sense of citizenship and total belonging to European society”. Commenting on the risk of young people being recruited by terrorists, Osama says that “this type of terrorism is almost impossible to prevent solely by security measures and special laws. A cultural process needs to be begun. We’re ready to play our part”.