The innocent always bear the scars, suffer the ultimate sacrifice, of mistaken political policies.

However, the sadness of the deaths and casualties of 7/7 have been compounded by the reckless language of lawyers who should know better. Prime Minister Blair and Foreign Secreatry Jack Straw near instantly pointed the finger in intemporate language, at Islam. The pieces, the injured, the bodies and body parts were still being treated, accounted for and retrieved – there is no evidence as to who committed these acts. ‘Guilty until proved innocent’ is a new facet to British justice.

A white tent has been erected at the side of the Thames, in London’s Embankment Gardens now designated a Memorial Garden. Flowers have been planted and white bouquets left by Ministers and Church dignitaries and a book of condolence opened. ‘We are all Londoners today’, we were told on the day of the tragedy.

A white tent is often erected at Muslim mournings, of course. So may we add also the humblest and most inadequate of apologies to those to whom in our name, the same unimaginable grief has been visited. There is a countless humanity who are not alone ‘all Londoners today’. Today, we are also ‘all’ Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, the forgotten of the Balkans war.

We are also all from the numerous other nations, forgotten victims of American aggression, since the ‘liberation’ of Europe in 1945.

Any human heart bleeds for any tragedy, anywhere. And that is the key. Humanity shares tragedy. John Donne, British thinker and poet, dead nearly four hundred years is as poignant, now as then. He truly speaks for our common humanity which transcends race, language, location, colour:

‘No man is an island, entire unto itself,
Every man is a piece of the -globe –
A part of the main.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
I am involved in Mankind,
And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.’