London Bombings: A reflection broadcast on Radio 4 BBC by Archbishop Rowan Williams

Notes: The Archbishop of Canterbury reflects on the 7 July 2005 terrorist bombing in London: ""Dead silence, except for the occasional sirens". "Terrorist violence aims at just such a reaction and wants it to last. They want to silence human speech -- not only by killing, but by paralysing us all. The terrorist's goal is a situation in which our fear of violence and our grief and pain over violence have become stronger than our positive hopes and commitments". He contrasts this with the hope that surrounded the G8 meetings which were being held in Scotland in the same week. "But that sick desolation is what the terrorist wants. If our passion for justice, renewal, reconciliation is silenced, the path is open for whatever distorted and inhuman agenda is ready to fill the gap. So we have to ask `do we have the strength still to say no to this ? Do we truly, commitedly, want what we wanted before this tragedy erupted ?' We must take courage. We may not feel we have much strength, we may still feel partly paralysed. There's a passage in the New Testament where Paul says something like this: `we don't know how to pray or what to hope for sometimes. But the spirit of God is working with us, and even our wordless cries and groans become part of the Spirit's action'.

Subjects: London Terrorist Bombings, London, England, 2005; Bombings - England - London, 2005; Terrorism - Religious aspects - Church of England; Despair - Religious aspects - Church of England; Hope - Religious aspects - Church of England