Letter: Nail-bomb courage

Sir: In the pictures of Friday's bombing you may have seen our Christian meeting room sign, bizarrely unscathed next to the Admiral Duncan Pub.

The bombers are wrong in their thinking, as much as in their actions. The wave of compassion and care which has come since the tragedy tells me that our networks of love and friendship are stronger than those awful shards of evil. Such love breeds courage: we are not going to go away!

This was an attack on the nature of British society. We must try to turn it into a call for all to be respected as full citizens, black or white, gay or straight.

The "revenge" we can take is to demand equality before the law and to act justly for our neighbour, for the sake of whole communities; to work for more understanding of one another because our diversity must bring common understand-ing, as much as common laws.

The production and possession of violently racist or homophobic material should be illegal. Clause 28 has to be done away with. Anti-racist policies have to be taken much more seriously by every institution and business.

We cannot bring back those who have lost their lives, but we can bring good out of this. In so doing we honour those who died and achieve precisely the opposite of the bombers' wishes.

The Rev NEIL WHITEHOUSE

Kairos in Soho

London W1