The symbolism is devastating. Wednesday’s carnage outside the Palace of Westminster was an attack on democracy in its cradle. The death of five persons, including an unarmed policeman and the assailant, is but a symptom of an enormous tragedy, recalling London’s 7/7 more than a decade ago. Prime Minister Theresa May has hit the bull’s eye with her succinct comment ~ “sick and depraved”, a searing condemnation that has summed up the hideous intent of the terrorist across the world. Yet the outlook must be frightful when one reflects that the current wave of global terrorism has now struck the heart of London. Mercifully, the attacker failed to enter Parliament; the consequence is too chilling to imagine if he had. The inbuilt and massive security around the Commons and the Lords was effective in protecting the rarefied assembly.

The tragedy deepens, however, with the death of innocents, as in Paris, Brussels, Tunis, and other parts of the world. This week is the anniversary of the ISIS outrage at Brussels airport, where 32 people were killed in a coordinated assault. Predictably, Parliament is under “lockdown”; yet it is testament to the resilience of British democracy that Ms May has expressed the hope that the renewed bedlam and butchery in London ~ if on a far lesser scale compared to 7/7 ~ will not undermine the country’s values. As yet, nothing is known of the attacker’s nationality, still less the motive save that it is another bout of calculated malevolence. The country is poised to step out of EU, but Europe shall remain the geographical expression that it is. This is the primary distinction that is yet to be sufficiently grasped. It must be accepted nonetheless that an outrage in any part of Europe is an attack on the Continent. This is the sinister thread between the killings in Berlin on Christmas eve and Wednesday’s mayhem in London. Both were assaults on Europe’s centres of power.

The horror by the Thames has roiled the nerve-centre of the democratic engagement, historical landmarks, and tourist attractions. London does have the resilience to recover soon enough, as it did after the carnage in the Underground. It is obvious that the attack on Westminster was timed on a crucial day of the week ~ a Wednesday, the day of the “Prime Minister’s questions” when her movements would be fairly well known. There will be questions in coming days about the identity of the assailant and his associates, if any. For now, however, the world must appreciate the professionalism with which the police countenanced the horrible and the brutal. Even as it braces for the possibility of lone, indoctrinated radicals dismantling, attack after attack, civilization as we know it.