Tomorrow: one year on from last year’s awful attacks here in London. It will be marked by a two-minute silence at noon - to remember the victims, and presumably - more generally - mark the tragedy of loss of life. A public ceremony is also being held in the evening at Regent’s Park.

A terribly difficult time for anyone who lost a loved one in the attack.
And in a lesser way, for Londoners who will possibly be reminded how it could have been one of them - given the vagaries of the Tube, there’s no accounting for which line you have to hop on when. Overall, it’s relevant i think to highlight and reflect on what such terrorist attacks have achieved: terror, reduction of civil liberties, mutually suspicious ‘communities’, about a million steps ‘back’ basically. What does the violence achieve - nothing. What does violence ever achieve - nothing? just further violence - a vicious cycle. in this kind of nightmarish world, it’s more important than ever to hang on to the notion of a universal human right to peace, which cannot be ‘protected’ and ‘furthered’ by violent action, but promoted through democracy and dialogue.

People talk about ‘just wars’ - to me that’s the same as justifying ‘terrorism’. there are many ‘just’ causes and ideals - but violence and war and terror are never just.

A Londoner takes a walk and reflects..

Rachel from North London writes this..

Update:

..Guardian...

“The anniversary has brought renewed calls for a public inquiry into the bombings from some survivors and relatives of the victims.

Marie Fatayi-Williams, 51, who lost her 26-year-old son Anthony in the bus bombing, yesterday added her support to the campaign. “We need to ask ourselves, almost a year on from 7/7, whether we are safer now than then,” she said.

“We need to know what led to 7/7, we need to know the real reasons behind 7/7 and other such atrocities that seem to occur on an almost daily basis the world over.”

Earlier this week, the prime minister reiterated his opposition to an inquiry, saying it was essential that the police and security services concentrated on the terrorist threat facing the country.”