This week, the Istanbul Airport terrorist attack stands as the latest in a string of Islamist attacks resulting in mass casualties. These attacks are now occurring around the world each few weeks with near clockwork predictability. And like the clockwork predictability of these terrorist attacks are the predictable tokenistic gestures of compassion and moral posturing in response.
Following the attack, landmarks around the world were lit in the red and white of the Turkish flag, and while I haven’t seen any yet, I have little doubt that there are those who are signalling their virtue by adding a Turkish filter on their social media profiles.
Perhaps I wouldn’t be so critical if such actions, along with their flowers and candlelight vigils were accompanied with a resolve to honestly name and address the problem of Islamist terrorism, rather than then repeated, shallow pious attempts to avoid the real issue.
Such shallow tokens of solidarity and compassion do no justice to the mounting number of terrorist victims around the world.
Only a few weeks ago, rainbow filters, floodlights and flags were flown in solidarity with the gay community after the Orlando attack. A few weeks before that, it was the colours of the Belgian flag. A few weeks before that, the red white and blue of France. And before that…. You get the picture.
As my co-editor David Hiscox remarked, perhaps we should light up major landmarks in an automatic daily rotation of random colours? At least we’re likely to get it right about half the time, and we can feel satisfied in our no strings attached signalling of solidarity and compassion.