Ominous opening credits theme ebbs 
to silence. Fade in: shaky-cam footage 
from various news agencies; a montage 
establishing time, place and the threat
unfolding unstoppably on a global scale. 
Headlines whirl. Graphs and charts stamp 
stark projections onscreen. Editing ramps 
up urgency, drama, the stakes. The tale
about to unfold is one of humanity 
at its worst and best. The selflessness 
of carers and keyworkers put to the test 
and emerging heroic. Cut to: the inanity,
the dithering, the bullshit of those 
in high office, the Etonian provocateurs 
bluffing and blustering, pitifully unprepared 
for a crisis that can’t be diffused
by three-word slogans and posh-boy jeers 
during PMQs. We’re on shaky ground. 
Any half-aware test audience crowd 
would demand a hero they can cheer,
not some Greek chorus of doorstep applause 
curtailed in the second act as too political. 
This floundering narrative is antithetical 
to mainstream cinema. It’s like Star Wars
from the POV of an admin assistant filing 
the performance review of a storm-trooper 
who got shot two scenes ago, or the blooper 
reel from a public information film on tiling
or basic plumbing for beginners. It’s not 
the film you paid your money to see. 
You didn’t pay to watch the idiot-in-chief 
ignore the science, grin deathlessly, toss off
some half-arsed soundbite, execute 
a soft-shoe sidestep from responsibility. 
Whither the nurses, shop workers, delivery 
drivers &#8211; the real heroes? Let’s reboot
the project, focus on them; let’s weave 
multiple stories, Short Cuts style, celebrate 
the under-appreciated, the underpaid; 
let’s give the audience a reason to believe,,
a grand finale. Let’s put a Hollywood spin 
on this year-long real-time clusterfuck, 
flip the narrative, double-down on feelgood; 
rewrite, recast, re-edit. We can do this thing.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street</pre>

Boris Johnson Coronavirus Update Conference

Poem: The 2020 Movie

after Constantine Cavafy
What are they waiting for, 
the archbishops and casino owners 
clutching their bags of cocaine, 
the barman at Wetherspoons eyeing the clock, 
and the little people who live 
in Jacob Rees Mogg’s top hat 
who’ve been watching things 
go slowly downhill 
since thirteen eighty one?
Boris is to arrive today 
in a chariot driven 
by a man with syphilis.
Why so few new laws 
up for debate in the House? 
Why do the Lords seem happy 
to lie about the place waiting 
for aneurysms to take them, 
without even the energy 
to pay their assistants 
to give them one last beating 
with Daddy’s bloodstained walking stick?
Because Boris arrives today 
wearing an eye-patch he borrowed 
from Madonna.
Why should the Honourable Member 
for Cambridgeshire South bother 
crying her usual tears? 
Boris, when he gets here, 
will have everyone except himself in tears.
Why do the Chairs of Select Committees 
race up and down Whitehall 
wearing only ceremonial dicky-bows 
quoting passages from the Magna Carta 
and the new Ann Widdecombe cookbook 
into the surprised faces of tourists?
Why have the Speaker of the House 
and Lord Privy Seal exhumed 
from Westminster Abbey the bones 
of Alfred Lord Tennyson 
and dragged them to a cheap hotel near Waterloo 
to engage in a rattly threesome?
Because Boris arrives today 
and approves of such things.
And why doesn’t the Office for National Statistics 
give us the latest disastrous news? 
Because Boris arrives today 
and is bored by people who can add and subtract.
What does this sudden outbreak 
of accountants and High Court Judges 
vomiting on each other mean? 
How grey their jowls have grown. 
Why have all the escalators stopped moving? 
Why all the red buses crashing into the Thames?
Because the clock has rung 
and Boris is not coming. 
Some journalists formerly resident in Hell 
but now working for the Telegraph 
have been sent from the frontline to confirm 
there is no Boris. 
And now what will we become 
without Boris?
We must urgently set about inventing 
some other catastrophe 
to rescue us from ourselves.
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://flic.kr/p/21BwUm9">Kiril Konstantinov</a></pre>

Poem_ Waiting for Boris_Kevin Higgins_21_06_19_SG

Poem: Waiting for Boris

The appointment of the UK foreign secretary quashes the importance of political responsibility 
&nbsp; 
As senior duty minister, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is currently in charge of <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-running-country-while-theresa-may-on-holiday-10537633">running the country</a> during Theresa May’s holiday in Switzerland. His already eventful career as journalist, politician and public figure has thus taken yet another turn, although the omnipresent and media-savvy Bojo (as he is casually known) decided not to stand for the party leadership after repeatedly and vociferously proclaiming that Britain would be better off outside the EU. Together with fellow <a href="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/2016/07/19/the-prime-minister-who-never-was-michael-gove-and-his-populist-rhetoric/">Tory politician Michael Gove</a> and former <a href="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/2016/06/29/editorial-the-brexit-die-is-cast/">UKIP leader Nigel Farage</a>, Johnson was not only among the most visible campaigners, he was also widely believed to become Britain’s next prime minister. 
Johnson’s biographer Sonia Purnell, who wrote Just Boris: A Tale of Blond Ambition, saw his seemingly inexorable “march to Downing Street” begin as far back as 2014 when she wrote an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/07/rivals-boris-johnson-march-downing-street-theresa-may-george-osborne">opinion piece</a> for the Guardian. Yet, it was Johnson himself who recently gave his supporters a surprise when he decided not to stand for the leadership of the Conservative party after David Cameron’s resignation. This could very well have been the unglamorous end of a once promising career of one of the most iridescent characters in contemporary European politics. However, the modern Proteus was to rise again under the auspices of the new prime minister, Theresa May. 
Well-read and classically educated, Johnson would likely appear in front of the next microphone or camera with his characteristically mischievous and boyish smirk upon hearing such a comparison. Proteus, an ancient Greek god of fluvial and maritime bodies of water, is capable of predicting the future if he can be caught. But just as the natural element he represents, Proteus constantly changes his shape in order to avoid any questions about the future whatsoever. Homer’s hero Menelaos, King of Sparta, an important character in both the Iliad and Odyssey, is one of the lucky few ever to have got hold of him. By virtue of the god’s shape shifting abilities, the adjective ‘protean’ has come to mean ‘versatile’, ‘mutable’ and ‘ever-changing’ but also carries connotations of ‘inconsistency’, ‘volatility’ and ‘fluctuation’. While adaptability and quickness of mind are laudable, if not essential, in holders of public office, the postmodern evisceration of the language of political responsibility has made possible such careers as that of Boris Johnson. Despite having unleashed a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/14/boris-johnson-life-xenophobic-gaffes">whole barrage of insults</a> on friend and foe alike in the recent past, May appointed him foreign secretary in her new cabinet. Johnson’s protean talent for personal (re-)invention notwithstanding, his long record of journalistic and media blunders quickly proved a millstone around his neck. 
Immediately after taking office, Johnson held his first press conference as foreign secretary alongside US secretary of state John Kerry. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/19/boris-johnson-grilled-past-outright-lies-uneasy-press-conference-john-kerry">Asked by a persevering journalist</a> about his past insults and “outright lies”, Johnson was, according to Patrick Wintour, “embarrassingly forced onto the back foot”. As Johnson awkwardly tried to stand his ground, he responded by saying that his comments had been “misconstrued”, his “journalism taken out of context” and world leaders signalled they “fully understood” his remarks. Only a little later, the former London mayor jumped to an unfounded, and ultimately unjustifiable conclusion when he <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/24/boris-johnson-foreign-secretary-criticised-munich-shooting-islamist-terrorists">blamed the shooting in Munich</a>, in which 10 people died, on Islamist terrorists. Boris being Boris, he delivered the remedy for what he chose to call a “global sickness” in the same breath: the problem needs to be tackled “in the areas where the cancer is being incubated in the Middle East”. Unfortunately for Boris, the shooter, who killed himself before being caught by the police, turned out to be <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/23/munich-shooting-german-iranian-gunman-targeted-children-outside/">a German-Iranian teenager</a> harbouring a fierce hatred for (Muslim) foreigners. What is more, Ali David Sonboly felt inspired by the Norwegian right-wing terrorist <a href="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/2012/08/24/security-lessons-from-the-breivik-court-verdict/">Anders Breivik</a>, committing his shooting rampage on the fifth anniversary of the Oslo and Utoya massacres. Instead of waiting for verified news and background information from the Bavarian capital, Johnson dropped another brick by embarrassing not only himself, but also the office he holds. 
Facts, it seems, matter little these days. In an article written for Granta magazine, Peter Pomerantsev goes even further, claiming that we are living in a <a href="http://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/">&#8220;post-fact&#8221; or &#8220;post-truth&#8221; world</a>. In this world, politicians and media, Pomerantsev argues, do not merely habitually lie as they have always done, they simply “don’t care whether they tell the truth or not”. The truth, facts and evidence are merely ballast in this postmodern game of arbitrariness and relativism: “There is some sort of teenage joy in throwing off the weight of facts – those heavy symbols of education and authority, reminders of our place and limitations…”. Both Johnson’s career and public image are perfectly in keeping with this trend “which has trickled down over the past thirty years from academia to the media and then everywhere else”. 
Of course, this brand of postmodernism is only a crudely reductive version of what used to be a ground-breaking departure from bequeathed wisdom, that took place in the humanities from the late-1960s onwards. In its early stages, postmodern philosophy enabled iconoclasts from a wide range of backgrounds to test received knowledge and break the seemingly unassailable aura of tradition. In conceptual terms, it was no less revolutionary than Marx’s philosophy had been a century earlier. Tragically enough, however, it eventually degenerated into a vehicle for anti-modern recidivism, fostering a climate in which we are led “into echo chambers of similar-minded people, feeding us only the things that make us feel better, whether they are true or not”, as Pomerantsev puts it. It is almost as if the Enlightenment endeavours to comprehend the world in rational terms, had never seen the light of day. Accordingly, Islamist terrorism has become a shorthand solution for attacks in the public domain. Reframing such attacks when the evidence suggests otherwise seems too cumbersome for agents in the public sphere, as Johnson’s premature judgement demonstrates. 
In a recent article, Jonathan Freedland <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/15/boris-johnson-in-charge-diplomacy-britain-insulted-world">expressed his concerns</a> about Theresa May’s doubtful choice, contending that “by making Johnson our public face we have made insult our official response” to global, and especially European, challenges. In both arenas, Johnson’s past articles, columns and public statements will continue to haunt him. While many progressive commentators and voters are genuinely outraged as a consequence of his appointment, his past comments on Africa have been particularly offensive. In a series of articles written in 2002, Johnson fired several neo-colonial broadsides at this continent. In the Telegraph, he infamously described African children as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3571742/If-Blairs-so-good-at-running-the-Congo-let-him-stay-there.html">“piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”</a>, while in a Spectator article a month later, Africa’s central problem was the <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/2nd-february-2002/14/cancel-the-guilt-trip">absence of British colonial rule</a> – “The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more.” 
The mutually reinforcing triangle of Britain’s imperial hangover, dangerously nostalgic jingoism and unquestioned white privilege makes possible such borderline racist statements, which are unbecoming of a cabinet minister. But our readiness to accept buffoons in our midst is part of the problem in this age of ephemeral media attention and its need to produce eventful, even shocking, news stories. If Johnson had a shred of decency left, he would at once apologise for his outrageously ignorant remarks and resign in order to make way for a chief diplomat deserving of this post.
<pre>Photo Credit: Ben Pruchnie / Getty Images</pre>

Boyish Smirks and Outrageous Insults:  Why Boris Johnson Is the Postmodern Proteus

The use of water cannons to stymie protests paves the way for the curtailing of democratic rights in a vibrant civil society 
  
The proposal for water cannons on the streets of London is picking up steam, with Mayor Boris Johnson writing to Home Secretary Theresa May to urge her to bring them to London. If Boris has his way we could see water cannons on the streets by this summer, and the UK taking yet another step towards the criminalisation of protest. 
When the mayor announced his support for the use of water cannons by the Metropolitan Police, it was despite widespread public opposition. In fact, Johnson’s own consultation received over 2600 responses &#8211; only 59 of which were in favour of water cannons compared to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-mayor-boris-johnson-backs-water-cannon-use-in-the-capital-9203592.html">2,547 against</a>. 
The reason that so many people are concerned about the introduction of such cannons is because they are weapons. Their impact on a crowd is indiscriminate and they have been known to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-dangers-of-water-cannon-blinded-german-man-tells-britain-dont-make-the-same-mistakes-as-other-countries-9134670.html">injure and blind</a> those who are unfortunate enough to find themselves on the receiving end. 
This was underlined by an otherwise supportive <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/22/police-home-secretary-approve-use-water-cannon-austerity-protest">report</a> from the Association of Chief Police Officers, which noted that &#8220;the full-pressure jet from a water cannon is capable of causing serious injury or even death” and states that there are also possible injuries from the impact on the streets including furniture or other debris. This point is backed up by <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2014/02/27/water-cannon-a-creeping-infringement-on-right-to-protest">Joanne McCartney</a>, the chair of the London Assembly’s police and crime panel, who went further in saying that there is “no convincing argument” for their deployment. Moreover, the committee she chairs has accused the mayor of “preventing a full and proper national public debate” on the issue. 
However, the mayor sees it differently. He has described their deployment as a ‘<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/29/boris-johnson-backs-water-cannon-london">moral issue</a>’, saying that politicians should not refuse the police something they needed for their operations: “How would we live with ourselves if we denied the police something that could have saved a life or prevented serious injury?” 
The fact that the police are pushing for them should be neither here nor there. The police are often pushing for additional powers and equipment. Politicians are not there to merely agree to whatever the police ask for. They are there to represent the public. There are already far too many examples of police officers abusing their power and using unnecessary force to break up protests. One high profile example is the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/alfie-meadows-calls-on-ipcc-to-reopen-investigation-into-student-protest-8529544.html">assault</a> on student Alfie Meadows who suffered life-threatening injuries after a student protest. There is also no reason to believe that allowing them access to water cannons would make these abuses any less common. 
In 2010 Boris himself was opposed to the introduction of the cannons, saying that he did not think it was right to get into an <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2010/12/13/water-cannon-at-protests-would-spark-arms-race-says-boris-johnson-611432/">“arms race”</a> with protesters. Similarly, Theresa May said in 2011, “The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannons. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.” 
Of course, the big event which has happened since then is the London riots of 2011. The disruption may have stopped but the tensions that caused it are still prevalent. What is needed to avoid a repeat of the riots is not the growing militarisation of the police force, but a far-reaching cultural change and a political culture that focuses on the real issues that fuel these divisions, like economic inequality, austerity and cuts to public services. 
There is also no reason to think that water cannons could have either stopped the riots, or can deter future unrest, a point <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/29/boris-johnson-backs-water-cannon-london">already conceded</a> by Johnson. 
As part of the consultation, West Mercia Chief Constable, David Shaw, <a href="http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/ACPO%20Water%20Cannon%20Briefing%20Document,%20Jan%202014_0.pdf">said</a>, “There is no intelligence to suggest that there is an increased likelihood of serious disorder within England and Wales. However, it would be fair to assume that the ongoing and potential future austerity measures are likely to lead to continued protest.” This is an important point; not only are water cannons dangerous to the public, but they reinforce the notion that it is legitimate for the police to use excessive force to suppress peaceful and democratic dissent. 
Over the last few years the Metropolitan Police has been hit by scandal after scandal, and there is already widespread distrust which cannons would only help to increase. Their acceptance in the UK would be merely the latest step in a wider trend. We have already seen a significant increase in police powers and a move towards greater surveillance. The introduction of water cannons to the mainland would set yet another negative precedent and yet another move towards oppressive policing and the criminalisation of protest.
<pre>Photo Credits: Picture: Ammar rasool / APAimages / Rex Fea</pre>

Militarisation of the Police to the Criminalisation of Dissent

A backlash of anti-Muslim attacks since the Woolwich murder coupled with flawed assessments by certain policymakers raises serious concerns 
&nbsp; 
Since the shocking murder last week of Drummer (Private) Lee Rigby, a soldier and young father, there has been much due condemnation and commiseration from all quarters, including from the Muslim community. <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/05/not-in-the-name-of-islam-british-muslims-denounce-the-woolwich-attack/">Social media</a> has been alive with disgust, while <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2013/05/new-voices-european-islam">community leaders</a> have spoken out against the crime unreservedly. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Britain’s largest representative umbrella body, has shared a <a href="http://mcb.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=2333:pr-template&amp;catid=40:press-release">message of denunciation</a> and thoughts for the victim, his family and friends. 
Nonetheless, there has been a disturbing <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/05/facing-aftermath-putting-woolwich-attack-context">backlash</a> faced by the Muslim community, both from violent English Defence League (EDL) activists as well as certain policymakers; a wave of attacks on Mosques, Islamic centres and Muslims across the country. Meanwhile within hours of the Woolwich incident our government saw fit to identify it with the highly charged term of “<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/23/woolwich-attack-terrorism-blowback">terror</a>”, holding emergency Cobra meetings, calling in MI5 and informing the Queen. With investigations barely begun, it is curious the authorities were so quick to label this incident as such. 
On Saturday, <a href="http://faith-matters.org/">Faith Matters</a> reported 162 calls of anti-Muslim attacks on their helpline, up from the daily average of six. <a href="http://tellmamauk.org/">Tell MAMA UK</a>, an anti-Muslim abuse reporting service, has reported 193 cases of anti-Muslim attacks and 11 mosques attacked as of Sunday. These included <a href="http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/BREAKING-updated-Petrol-bombs-thrown-inside/story-19096477-detail/story.html#axzz2URvmdx4j">firebombs</a> at mosques and assaults on Muslim women. Fiyaz Mughal, Director of Faith Matters, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22664835">observed</a>, &#8220;What&#8217;s really concerning is the spread of these incidents. They&#8217;re coming in from right across the country.” In a joint statement with Tell MAMA UK, the organisations stated: “The terrible events in Woolwich this week can in no way justify reprisal attacks or threats to British Muslims, a huge number of which have spoken out against the atrocious murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.” They further observed, “There also seems to be significant online activity, suggesting co-ordination of incidents and attacks against institutions or places where Muslims congregate.” 
By the government’s definition in the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1">Terrorism Act 2000</a>, terrorism includes a threat designed “to intimidate the public or a section of the public” to advance a “racial or ideological cause”. Its actions include serious violence against person or property and creating “a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public”. One can then term the current onslaught on British Muslims, which has spread fear in the community, as terrorism. However, over 200 attacks later we have yet to witness any Cobra meetings addressing far-right terror or any statements on the need to address the susceptibility of people to far-right radicalisation. Unless the authorities urgently clarify their position, people must be forgiven for thinking that the state-bandied version of terrorism selectively excludes Muslim communities as victims. 
The rhetoric of some of our policy makers does little to reassure. Home Secretary Theresa May, was soon speaking of the “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/26/theresa-may-extremists_n_3338596.html">thousands</a>” of specifically British Muslims allegedly susceptible to radicalisation and outlining a series of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/27/theresa-may-woolwich-radicalisation">more draconian measures</a> to combat this perceived threat, including more stringent website censorship, a lower threshold for banning groups deemed extreme and renewed pressure on universities and mosques to reject &#8220;hate preachers&#8221;. The MCB has <a href="http://mcb.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=2332:muslim-council-of-britain-responds-to-announcement-of-the-prime-ministers-taskforce-on-extremism&amp;catid=40:press-release">responded</a> by calling for new and effective strategies rather than <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/26/muslim-groups-consult-government-plan-extremism">knee-jerk policies</a> that threaten to create a “society less free, divided and suspicious of each other.” 
Ms May is the same person who allowed the detention of Britons <a href="http://www.freebabarahmad.com/">Babar Ahmad</a> and <a href="http://freetalha.org/">Talha Ahsan</a> for years without charge under controversial anti-terror legislation and then their <a href="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/2012/04/17/mehanna-ahmad-and-the-curious-case-of-modern-justice/">extradition</a> to the US under a deeply problematic treaty. Both men are now incarcerated in notorious US supermax prisons. The Home Secretary’s response to Woolwich may then be considered characteristic. It is worth considering that while the authorities saw fit to inflict such injustice on Ahmad and Ahsan, an openly inciteful and notoriously <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4mnUAWmROE">publicity hungry</a> figure like <a href="http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/britain-s-press-corp-journalists-producers-planners-and-writers-stop-giving-a-platform-to-anjem-chaudary">Anjem Choudary</a> is permitted to freely continue spewing messages of divisive hate, especially through disproportionate media attention. One must ask why. 
In an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/10081928/By-standing-united-we-can-isolate-the-virus-of-Islamism.html">op-ed</a> Mayor of London Boris Johnson was swift to point a simplistic finger at the “Islamist” bogeyman and their purported desire to force everyone into Sharia law. Mr Johnson speaks freely of the “virus” of Islamism that we must “stamp out” rather than engage with, summing it up thus: 
&#8220;This is a sinister political agenda that promotes a sense of grievance and victimhood among a minority of Muslims. The Islamists want universal sharia law, and other mumbo jumbo…. [They say] the only way to avenge these injustices is jihad.&#8221; 
The oversimplification and seeming ignorance displayed by the mayor of one of the world’s most diverse cities is astonishing. Neither is Sharia a monolithic entity nor is Islamism. Both are nuanced, both have their spectrum of interpretations. The former is a complex legal tradition with a 1400 year history of interpretative scholarship and maturation. And, much as Mr Johnson may dismiss the “mumbo jumbo” of Sharia law, our government is falling over itself to make the City of London <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9922440/City-in-fresh-bid-to-become-Sharia-finance-hub.html">a hub of Sharia compliant finance</a> to boost the economy. 
Islamism too is a varied political tradition. Like the shades of rightist politics, including the extremists in the EDL, Norway’s mass murderer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik">Anders Breivik</a> and the moderate Conservatives now in our government, Islamism has its spectrum. From the extreme al-Qaeda to the balanced AK Party of Turkey and Ennahda of Tunisia that actively participate in democratic processes and do not call for Sharia upon all nor advocate militant jihad. 
Over 500 richly diverse Muslim organisations constitute the MCB, the same democratic umbrella body that has been campaigning for British Muslim civic participation and integration for years and condemning vile crimes like Woolwich. A few offshoot organisations of balanced democratic Islamism are also among their many affiliates. The Mayor of London must understand those he represents before making sweeping statements. It is doubtful he would enjoy having his own political persuasion clumped in with the EDL and BNP, amid calls to “stamp out” the “virus”. Furthermore, an important and informed discussion must be had as to what in fact constitutes extremism and who defines it; for too long it has been a term problematically defined and disproportionately associated with a particular community. As the EDL and Breivik have proven, the reach of extremism is not limited. 
Mr Johnson, who has made <a href="http://on.aol.com/video/johnson--dont-blame-islam-or-uk-policy-517790098">adamant statements</a> dismissing the role of UK foreign policy in these crimes in spite of the suspects clear evocation of it, also issued <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/borisjohnson/10081763/Boris-Johnson-Ban-Islamic-groups-teaching-segregated-university-lectures.html">troubling statements</a> on campus Islamic Societies including on <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mohamed-harrath/muslim-students-stop-demonising-them_b_3273224.html">gender segregation</a> at events and the need for universities to be “much, much tougher in their monitoring of Islamic societies.” Such references are absurd for two simple reasons: firstly to suggest segregation at events promotes extremism is similar to suggesting segregation in public toilets helps create terrorists. Secondly, the alleged killer Michael Adebolajo had nothing to do with campus Islamic Societies. If anything, the <a href="http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-suspect-kenya-torture">press has been buzzing</a> with news that Adebolajo had been <a href="http://www.cageprisoners.com/images/files/1-28052013complaintAbuNusaybahtoIntelligenceandsecucommitee.pdf">tortured in Kenya</a> at the alleged behest of the British authorities and approached for <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-how-mi5-blackmails-british-muslims-1688618.html">recruitment by M15</a> – something his friend Abu Nusaybah <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22664468">informed the BBC</a> of (Abu Nusaybah was curiously <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/may/25/woolwich-suspect-kenya-torture">arrested</a> immediately following this interview). As such, to bring up student Islamic Societies in this context is inaccurate, irresponsible and harmful for Muslim students already <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mohamed-harrath/muslim-students-stop-demonising-them_b_3273224.html">under immense and undue</a> pressure. 
The horrific Woolwich murder shocked the nation for its inhumane and callous brutality. The correct way to respond to this is by coming together as a nation; building partnerships, sharing in our grief and joining in a shared commitment to build a better Britain. Further targeted and divisive alienation is not the answer. Rather it is that ingredient which contributes to fostering extremism in the first place.
<pre>Image source: <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/471216/20130525/anti-muslim-woolwich-beheading-lee-rigby-english.htm">http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/471216/20130525/anti-muslim-woolwich-beheading-lee-rigby-english.htm</a></pre>