London bombs

So this was the day that the security warnings were preparing us for. The day after we celebrated London’s getting the 2012 Olympic Games, we’re plunged into the horrors of a bombing campaign on the Underground and the destruction of a bus near Tavistock Square.

For a detailed description of what happened it’s worthing looking at the BBC News website and the Going Underground blog for Thursday 7 June.

I happened to be the day’s opening speaker at a Sufi conference on non-violence at Goldsmiths College in New Cross first thing this morning. I arrived at New Cross by about 8.30am and so missed the disruption on the way there. And I was able to get back from New Cross Gate to London Bridge by about 11.30am, but from there on, I had to walk back to Knightsbridge and my office. There were no tubes, no buses and the taxis were all occupied. It’s quite a long walk - it took me about two hours (but I did take half-an-hour out for a sandwich on the way). I walked along the south bank of the Thames, past Southwark Cathedral and the Tate Modern, under a lowring sky and with my umbrella raised against drizzle blown on the keen wind (and increasing to quite a downpour by the time I got as far as Knightsbridge Tube station).

The Thames Clippers river buses were still going up and down the river and I later found out that they were offering free rides. I could have gone up river to Westminster Pier and saved my feet and my shoe leather.

Police boats were speeding up and down the river, as was a large inflatable carrying a number of what looked like police marksmen.

Londoners are pretty phlegmatic at times like these and I saw many people in business suits walking, presumably to meetings with their brief cases. However, I did hear one fairly idiotic comment from three blokes walking along the Embankment in the same direction as me. One of them commented, “Any excuse not to run trains on the Underground.” I thought a series of explosions was a pretty good excuse, and I don’t think Transport for London could have done anything other than close down the Underground and the buses.

I walked along the south bank as far as Blackfriars and crossed the river by the Blackfriars bridge. Walked along the Embankment, past Temple, Waterloo Bridge, Charing Cross, until I got to Westminster and then turned inland, Parliament Square, Victoria Street, Grosvenor Place, Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge.

The pictures on the BBC news tonight were horrific. This morning as I was on the train from London Bridge to New Cross Gate I thought with some pride and excitement about the fact that London has been awarded the Olympic Games. What a great city London is, I thought. But on the way back, I thought with sorrow and horror about the impact of the bombs on London. We were plunged so quickly from the joy of victory in the contest for the games to the fear and terror of these attacks.

In such circumstances the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá I quoted in my address to the Sufi conference are particularly relevant:

“The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion. War shall cease 20 between nations, and by the will of God the Most Great Peace shall come; the world will be seen as a new world, and all men will live as brothers.”

“O peoples of the world! The Sun of Truth hath risen to illumine the whole earth, and to spiritualize the community of man. Laudable are the results and the fruits thereof, abundant the holy evidences deriving from this grace. This is mercy unalloyed and purest bounty; it is light for the world and all its peoples; it is harmony and fellowship, and love and solidarity; indeed it is compassion and unity, and the end of foreignness; it is the being at one, in complete dignity and freedom, with all on earth.

“The Blessed Beauty saith: ‘Ye are all the fruits of one tree, the leaves of one branch.’ Thus hath He likened this world of being to a single tree, and all its peoples to the leaves thereof, and the blossoms and fruits. It is needful for the bough to blossom, and leaf and fruit to flourish, and upon the interconnection of all parts of the world-tree, dependeth the flourishing of leaf and blossom, and the sweetness of the fruit.

“For this reason must all human beings powerfully sustain one another and seek for everlasting life; and for this reason must the lovers of God in this contingent world become the mercies and the blessings sent forth by that clement King of the seen and unseen realms. Let them purify their sight and behold all humankind as leaves and blossoms and fruits of the tree of being. Let them at all times concern themselves with doing a kindly thing for one of their fellows, offering to someone love, consideration, thoughtful help. Let them see no one as their enemy, or as wishing them ill, but think of all humankind as their friends; regarding the alien as an intimate, the stranger as a companion, staying free of prejudice, drawing no lines.”