WESTMINSTER is a close second to Buckingham Palace as a symbol of British history and traditions. Whenever I have entered it, I have been struck by the soaring ceilings and the sense of continuity. I have also noted the heavy security that protects the building, with a close inspection of personal belongings and invitations.

Yet on that fateful day last week when the heart of the kingdom came under attack from a seemingly deranged individual, these layers of security failed utterly.

However, it is doubtful that any measures would have stopped Khalid Masood from ramming his car into a barrier and killing a policeman with a knife. But most of his victims were on nearby Westminster Bridge where they were hit by the killer’s car.

Again, no security measures can stop such a random attack short of blocking a busy road.

Whenever there’s breaking news about a terrorist attack, our first tendency is to pray that a Muslim wasn’t involved; and when this is confirmed, we next hope it wasn’t a Pakistani. However, the fact that the perpetrator of the Westminster attack was a Brit provides scant solace to the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis living in the UK. The backlash has been predictably swift.

One unfortunate young woman wearing a hijab who was crossing the bridge minutes after the attack was photographed looking at her cellphone. Immediately, the image went viral on Islamophobic sites. The media contrasted this with a photo of a Conservative MP, Tobias Ellwood, helping a victim of the attack. One caption read: “The main difference between Christians and Muslims.” Fortunately for the maligned Muslim woman, a photographer caught her seconds later looking distraught.

Even though the terrorist was born and brought up in the UK, the fact that he converted to Islam a decade ago has given the media an open licence to launch into a paroxysm of rage against Muslims and Islam. The central mosque in Birmingham where he is supposed to have prayed has been subjected to threats, and is being protected by the police. Across Britain, Muslims are feeling the heat. Many are resentful at the way an entire faith and community is being demonised.

The truth is that since the 7/7 attacks on London’s transport system, Britain has suffered only one death from terrorism, with most other plots being uncovered in time. Since 9/11, Britain has strengthened its laws and security forces enormously to deal with the threat. And while the cops occasionally get it wrong and arrest innocent people, they have the support of the public who don’t mind the constant surveillance they are subjected to.

In Pakistan, we have become so hardened to regular acts of terrorism that for us, five victims killed in an attack hardly merit the front page. But in a country that is home to nearly two million Muslims, the thought that many of them constitute a deadly fifth column is deeply alarming. So when many Muslims make their identity obvious through veils and beards, they are viewed as potential suicide bombers.

Few Brits make the connection between government policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya and terrorist attacks at home. To them, attacks within the country by Muslims who have benefited from their British citizenship are acts of betrayal. Thus, the common perception is that the hundreds of British Muslims who made their way to Syria to fight under the IS banner are traitors.

For its part, IS is happy to claim credit for random, lone wolf attacks anywhere in the world. On the verge of defeat in Mosul, and in danger of being evicted from its capital in Raqqa, it needs all the small victories it can score to show its supporters that it is still effective and relevant. And while it is increasingly difficult to put together a coordinated attack in the UK due to the country’s sophisticated intelligence measures, one-man attacks that require no communications or funding that can be detected are almost impossible to halt.

There is bound to be an inquest on how Khalid Masood had slipped under the radar of British security. After all, he had a long criminal record going back some twenty years and had been sentenced twice for violent crimes. However, according to the police, he had no known links to jihadist groups, or been involved in extremist Islamic activities.

It is virtually impossible to place every known suspect under constant surveillance. The resources involved in keeping constant track of even a single individual are considerable, so to monitor the movements and communications of thousands would strain the resources of any security service beyond breaking point.

The other aspect of this recent atrocity is the perceived role of the social media in radicalising gullible people around the world. The British government has demanded that social media platforms do more to police their online traffic. The recent attack will only add greater pressure. Ironically, this demand echoes the crusade launched by Chaudhry Nisar, our hyperactive interior minister, to curb blasphemous content on the internet. But while the latter appears to be a stunt to distract attention from his failure to curb terrorism, the British government is determined to reduce extremist content on the internet. Whether it succeeds remains to be seen.

As we saw in Nice last year when a demented Tunisian rammed a truck into a crowd of Bastille Day holidaymakers, such attacks are impossible to stop. No doubt Masood was inspired by this violent example. Two days after the Westminster attack, a man was stopped as he tried to mow down pedestrians in the Belgian city of Antwerp. Clearly, such copycat attacks are here to stay. Welcome to the new normal.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2017