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Terror Attack On Westminster Bridge
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
I just woke to see a message from my son who lives in London about the Westminster bridge attack....
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/90749862/Assailant-shot-at-least-a-dozen-injured-in-incident-at-UK-parliament
Sadly two fatalities and many injured ...when a driver in a car started to run down people on the bridge, then started to stab people, a police officer was stabbed, before the driver was shot by another officer ....
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I go past Westminster Bridge a lot. My sister who I have just facetimed works in Westminster and was part of the lockdown. She is home and safe and had to take an alternative route.
Glad you and your sis are OK @lobster. When I was homeless in London many years ago I used to walk across that bridge all the time to get my breakfast at the mission in Waterloo and to spend a summer's afternoon up by the river.
Would that some unseen power of wisdom would penetrate the thick skulls of those hell-bent on destruction, and manipulate the sorry number of braincells therein, toward a more kindly disposition....
@lobster. I am happy that your sister is home and safe. I heard of the attack a short time ago.
Ditto.
I'm reading reports the terrorist was home grown from Hackney and British spokesman for a banned group - Al-Ghuraaba. If true, I find it really saddening that people who are born in the country they freely attack are being convinced to turn against their fellow countrymen.
Yeah, that kinda hacks me off too.....
Yeah it is kind of weird that the terrorists in these kind of attacks are pretty much entirely second or third generation immigrants.
That would be us.
Thanks guys for your kind wishes.
The unseen wisdom and kindly disposition is the one that protects and supports the good, useful and loving in our respective corner.
When religion and my fellow Londoners are perverted from their Peace (Islam), we are all impoverished. The Boddhisattva vow is not theoretical, nor need it be politicised and divisive:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit_Buddhist_movement#Twenty-two_vows_of_Ambedkar
Increase in Love (Sufi directive)
http://www.wildmind.org/mantras/figures/shanti
sabbe sattā sukhi hontu
Glad that you and your sister are safe @lobster...Sad about the deaths, they are now saying 5 people dead...May peace be with them and their families
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Thanks @Shoshin
Westminster bridge is usually very crowded. The palace of Westminster is a beautiful, stunning, historic building. My sister may have to work from home as the area is still cordoned off as a crime scene. My father worked on the South of Westminster Bridge at City Hall.
It is at moments like this I feel great calm and compassion for all those involved. Please do sadhana/mantra/practice/dedication for those effected.
This is a pic I took last year.
@lobster glad your sister is safe. I dedicate my sitting practice today to those who lost their lives and their families. Beautiful photo. I have visited London many times ( a very short flight from Cork) and its a beautiful city.
Yesterday whilst some feel their religious duty is to ram people with a car and stab police, I was developing my Puppy Linux based Prayer wheel . . .
I tuned into the radio today to hear the latest and got only silence (it was a minutes silence in memory). My sister is working from home as I suspected and we will Facetime (like Skype) her later when she is finished.
Thanks @Hozan and anyone else doing similar.
@dhammachick @federica it is strange, isn't it? That people born in a country feel drawn to attack it? Assuming the man is Muslim or a sympathizer, it seems that they attach more to their beliefs and/or ethnicity than their country. ISIS and other groups do a good job convincing people that they are not welcome where they are, even if they are born there. We have similar clusters here in the US but it seems most of them are drawn to go to the east rather than attack here. We've had a few though, of course.
It seems the 'soldier of ISIL' had mental health issues. Severe issues.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/24/london-attacker-khalid-masood-hard-drinking-drug-taking-village/
Very sad.
We need more Buddhist Inner Peace initiatives. Really we do. Booze, drugs and radical 'terrorism' is no solution ...
The whole thing is an unmitigated and catastrophic disaster from start to finish.
Prisons are miserable and at times violent places where much damage is done because of lack of funding, Policing, supervision and general administration and care.
It's clear to me that his incarceration time had much to do with developing his violent side, and culminating in the carnage of the other day.
He was a mental case. No doubt. And no doubt, he received absolutely none of the support, help, assistance or treatment he clearly, desperately needed.
If I could put this into its coldest perspective, the damage he created was actually, by Human Disaster calculations, minimal.
He drew attention to himself, and harmed a lot of people on the way, most assuredly.
That said, he was clearly mentally unstable, not to say deranged, but he "only" took 3 people with him. If his intention was to go on a mass-killing spree in the name of ISIL, he failed miserably. Thank goodness.
It's a tragedy, and one from which not everyone will healthily recover, and for that I am deeply saddened.
But Katie Hopkins was premature in her analysis of the situation, knowing nothing of this man's personal history, and the Polish Prime Minister, Beata Szydlo obviously missed the news that this man was, shall we say, "Home-Grown", and immigration had nothing to do with it.