London Has Fallen!
If I were to mention that a person was slain with a crossbow in London, one would rightfully be forgiven for thinking that I was referring to a Medieval bust-up within the city walls. However, such an attack straight out of the annals of English history has - perhaps almost predictably - reared its brutal head and fired a bolt right into the thick of reality!
On November 12th, 2018, a wife and mother of five children (and eight months pregnant with her sixth), Sana Muhammad, was doing the dishes in the kitchen of her family home, in the London suburb of Ilford. Sana's husband, Imtiaz Muhammad was outside in the family's back garden when he entered the shed. There, Imtiaz encountered 50-year-old Ramanodge Unmathallegado, wielding a crossbow.
Unmathallegado gave chase to Mr Muhammad; he fled the mystery assailant, who pursued Muhammad into the house, where he shot Sana Muhammad in the stomach. Despite being rushed to hospital, Sana Muhammad succumbed to her injuries, though staff managed to save the baby, via Caesarian. Further information has come to light reveals Sana Muhammad also had previously gone by the name Devi Unmathallegado, and as Ramanodge Unmathallegado's ex. It will take some time before greater details emerge, but evidence that Sana Muhammad has once shared the Unmathallegado surname is more than a little significant.
A deeper undercurrent is at work here than a violent crime using an archaic weapon. London is the United Kingdom's capital city; the Greater London area is home to more than 14 million people, which means the settlement is one of Earth's Megacities. As with all such vast conurbations, there will be criminal elements, because all the elements of life get thrown together into a melting pot. The term "melting pot" refers now to some naive, multicultural utopian dream and inevitably, cities like London will have some non-natives living there. Immigration is also part and parcel of living in an ever-shrinking world.
As with everything, there is nuance to immigration. Types and levels of people moving around the globe, either work to either better societies, or work towards its detriment. Take the Italian immigrants to Wales, for example. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, an employment gap in mining, combined with political upheaval in Italy, led to mass migration of Italians to South Wales. Due to genuine need for more miners in the region, the Italians settled in; bringing their rich culture with them. Additionally, the Windrush Generation from the Caribbean filled in much needed work gaps in the UK, following World War II. Likewise, many of the Indians fleeing Idi Amin from Uganda, settled in like the earlier Windrush arrivals (though not without some pushback against the demographic change).
Despite the teething problems from the late 40s until the early 70s, the variety and Commonwealth connections between migrants and the Mother Land enabled quite a comfortable blend. This changed with Free Movement throughout the European Union, in 2004. Added to this were extra agreements to free movement, such as the 1995 Barcelona Declaration that planned an open-door immigration, Mediterranean-wide economic area, this includes the Middle-East and North Africa. Add 9/11, The War on Terror, The Arab Spring/Syrian/Libyan Conflicts and the rise of ISIS meant large-scale destabilisation of the region, with countless refugees on the move. This growing radical element has infected the younger Muslims in the nations whose parents were settled into and with more fighting age men entering Europe sharing their ideology, barbarous acts like killing a pregnant woman with a crossbow are becoming more regular.
Where is London Mayor Sadiq Khan amid such horror? He is in Paris, touting a Pro-Remain agenda as Theresa May prepares her last subjugated gamble to keep Britain latched to Brussels, regardless of the will of 17.4 million Britons. I am from London. I was born and raised in the East End town of East Ham, which is around three miles - an eight-minute drive - from Ilford, where this murder occurred. I used to go Christmas shopping with my grandmother in Ilford's shopping centre, called The Exchange. There was also an upscale department store in Ilford, called Harrison Gibson. People in East Ham considered Ilford to be an upmarket area; my grandparent's generation regarded East Ham in the same way, dubbing East Ham as being all "Piss Pots and Pianos!" Both towns are far removed from their halcyon, "posh" image now; down to the destruction of so-called “Slum Housing” in the East End in the 60s. Rather than refurbishing and modernising these old houses in streets where whole families rented properties, living close to each other, these "slums" were instead demolished. Tenants in these houses were farmed out to "New Towns" like Milton Keynes and Basildon, or stuck in alienating tower blocks, alongside new migrants, unknown to the natives. Instead of a melting pot, the West has turned into a boiling one; frothing over into such crimes, like murders with a crossbow as the weapon, witnessed yesterday.
In all likelihood, Medieval London wouldn't even have borne witness to a murder with a crossbow. Firstly, English archers were famous for using the longbow and secondly, there was likely a moratorium on weapons inside London's walls too. We all know that this murder exemplifies how a Dark Ages faith is beginning to infiltrate Europe; exceeding anything Medieval minds could devise!