Thought #60. On #BritishThreatLevels hashtag.

In the wake of the Manchester terror attack, British citizens stoically stand up for their peculiar national character in an attempt to try to lift their mood. They would go to any lengths to turn a deaf ear to terrorists; in other words, if terrorists expect Brits to panic, they must be joking. So ingrained a sense of fun and humour can only be found in the UK. And that is dead good for them, an effective and natural antidote to terrorist threat.

Twitter is flooded with messages showing wry humour about #BritishThreatLevels hashtag. Just to put you in the picture, among the highlighted tweets with that hashtag you can find, for example:

- A photo of quirky man holding a pint of beer and asking “You want some?”.
- Another snapshot of a hedgehog typing in something on a computer keyboard with the message “Signing off an email with ‘Regards’ instead of 'Kind Regards' because the recipient has annoyed you”.
- A text like this “Overtaking someone while walking and having to keep up an uncomfortable pace to stay ahead of the person you overtook”.
- Or “When someone waves at you in the street and you wave back only to realise they’re waving at the person behind you”.
- This one was hilarious “Replying ‘You too’ when the waiter says ‘Enjoy your meal’.
- And last but not least, “We’re British, you don’t scare us until you raise the threat level to: ’The only tea we have is Lipton’”.

From today onward, Manchester dwellers will never be the same; it is something blatantly obvious. The victims were mostly children, the most innocent human beings. Not only did the suicide bomber perpetrate a barbaric act of violence last Monday, but the threat of imminent attack is looming on the horizon. However, the trail of destruction left by those losers (as Trump has called them yesterday) will not undermine the way British people live their life. At least, I do not think so.

But we cannot afford that a surge of Islamophobia emerges on account of fear, helplessness or hatred.  Islam has little to do with terrorism. It just so happens that there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the bombing. Only by upholding the principles of democracy and freedom, by integrating diversity of cultural expressions and religions, we will be able to overcome this tremendous problem and defeat those inhuman and savagely cruel losers.

If we turn to divide our societies out of religious beliefs, our behaviour could inadvertently come back to haunt us. Those fanatics are in deadly earnest when they say they want to destroy all forms of democracy. What do they do to persuade people to join their crusade? The brains behind terrorist organisations such as ISIS or Daesh frantically try to brainwash already empty-headed people. And they do it by using our hate and our desire for revenge which, in this case, is tantamount to our Achilles heel.

What we are seeing now should not be a country teetering on the brink of a war against Islam. I believe in humankind and Brits’ reaction to the increase in Thread Level is a powerful example of what we must do; to lead a live with hope and endurance. Maybe it is high time that European citizens thought about their present and future role in this ceaselessly changing world. Brexit may not come up trumps but some Brits are teaching us a lesson.