There have been two stories in the news recently that highlight how Western and especially British administrations and governmental entities have failed dismally to learn lessons about Islam-derived violence and act upon those lessons. This failure to learn and act has brought about the deaths of both non-Muslims and those from a Muslim background themselves.

The first failure to learn and act is very prominent in the case of the Manchester Arena bombing attack. The government failed to learn from other Islamist attacks, such as 9/11 and 7/7 and allowed a violent Islamist to run around virtually unimpeded, despite there being a significant amount of evidence that both the bomber and his family had connections to Islamic extremism.

The whole Manchester bombing atrocity is a whole world of missed opportunities to stop the bomber and also contains a lot of ‘what if’s’. What if for example the UK government had decided to prioritise the safety and security of Britons and not given shelter to Libyan ‘refugees’ who, like all too any other Islamic ‘refugees’, were likely to turn violently upon Britons at the earliest opportunity? What if the failures in security highlighted by a terror drill held prior to the bombing had led to better security for the venue?

What if those that we rely on for our security, such as the highly paid and allegedly highly skilled MI5 operatives from Thames House, who flagged up the bomber 18 times in seven years as a potential threat, had made the correct connections between this Islamic savage and potential violence? Also what if the mosque that the bomber attended was looked at more closely by security forces because of the history that the bomber had of coming to the attention of the security authorities. The venue, Greater Manchester Police and the data analysts and operatives of the Security Service, had they learned the lessons of previous terror attacks both in the UK and elsewhere, might have stopped the bomber and saved 22 lives. Unfortunately they learned bugger all. The Security Service failed to join the dots regarding the bomber, the venue and Greater Manchester Police didn’t take into account known security failings and reports of the bomber acting suspiciously were ignored by security staff.

We now move on to a second story where lessons about Islamic violence have failed to be learned and procedure’s changed. Islam has an appalling ‘honour’ culture and although other faiths that hail from the East have similar types of culture, it is in Islamic societies where this culture of killing women who will not obey family diktats has become the most common and in some cases all too socially acceptable.

Back in 2006 a young Muslim woman Banaz Mahmod who lived in South London, disappeared from her home never to be seen again. She was the victim of a so-called ‘honour’ killing. Banaz left an abusive arranged marriage and by doing so was seen by her Muslim family to have brought shame on the family. Banaz’s ‘punishment’ for breaching the strict ‘honour’ codes of Islamic family life was to be raped and murdered.

Prior to the murder Banaz brought her concerns that she was being stalked and abused to the Metropolitan Police who basically ignored her. She provided the police with the names of five men who had been following her, abusing her and stalking her. She was dismissed by officers as ‘melodramatic’ and ‘manipulative’. The results of the Met’s horrific inactions were that Banaz’s father and uncles were able to plot and carry out her murder. It was only the actions of one individual Detective Chief Inspector who was appalled at the attitude of the Met, that got this case investigated, Banaz’s pre-mortem complaints examined and Banaz’s father, uncle and cousins convicted of murder.

You would think wouldn’t you that such a high profile and tragic case would make the police more aware of ‘honour’ based violence and murder. Sadly like the Manchester Bombing, the lessons have not been learned. According to the Guardian newspaper, in 2015, nine years after Banaz’s murder, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Police found that only three out of forty three police forces in England and Wales had any policy to prevent or investigate ‘honour’ based violence. The report found that they were ‘inadequately prepared’ to deal with either protecting victims or bringing prosecutions.

In both the Manchester Arena Bombing and in the case of ‘honour’ violence, those who could have learned something that could have prevented the bombing or protected future victims of ‘honour’ based violence but have failed to do so. Whilst I am among the first to say that not every Muslim individual is a terrorist or the sort of person who would murder their own child over ‘honour’, I also admit that it is undeniable that Islamic violent extremism and a murderous ‘honour’ culture exist.

I find it inexplicable that those who govern, administer and police us, are not acknowledging and acting upon the fact that Islam does produce a disproportionate number of terrorists and Islamic culture does treat women as disposable slaves. It is almost as if those agencies and entities that rule, administer and police us have a blind spot when it comes to Islam? This blind spot means that these entities cannot acknowledge or protect the vast majority of us from Islamic extremism nor can they protect those from within the Islamic community who are targetted for death by other Muslims. Nothing will change until the authorities, whether they be policing or otherwise, start to be more questioning and realistic about the threat that violent currents in Islam pose to us and to those Muslims who just want to live a free life like anybody else. The lessons MUST be learned or more innocent people will die.