It is hard to fathom events that unfolded in Ottawa on Wednesday morning, wherein a lone gunman shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a soldier standing on ceremonial guard duty at Canada’s National War Monument. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a 32-year-old Montrealer who was a convert to Islam, entered the Houses of Parliament building metres away. There, intent on doing evil, Zehaf-Bibeau was killed by the alert Sergeant-at-Arms for the House of Commons after being pursued by armed police and security guards.
In any place, these remarkable events would be hard to believe. That they occurred in the Canadian capital, a city that is something of a sleepy backwater, is incredulous.
But the moral is that terror can strike anywhere and at any time through individuals or groups who are determined to make an ignominious stand for their twisted cause. Like other nations that believe that Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is a threat to the Middle East, perverts the message of Islam and is made up of radicals bent on inflicting their own narrow and medieval interpretation on many, Canada joined the coalition of the willing in sending men and materiel in the fight against Daesh. Corporal Cirillo paid the ultimate price as he stood on guard honouring generations of Canadian soldiers, who laid down their lives for their country.
And the warning is that all who fight extremists, whether in Canada or on the front lines in Iraq and Syria or in the coalition of Arab and western nations who have taken up the mantle against Daesh, are potential targets from cowards who cower behind their twisted religious beliefs.
The lesson to be learnt is that we must all remain vigilant and on guard against extremists. They seek weakness and probe for openings to strike at soft targets in free societies, determined to spread evil and terror where the light of education and knowledge thrives.
The resolution from this attack is to carry on and be unswayed by radicals. They will always be defeated.
