WE like to talk of, and highlight, our Pride in Derby – its people, their achievements, its companies, organisations and buildings.
They all help to put Derby on the map for the right reasons.
Just occasionally, though, we get something or somebody who achieves precisely the opposite effect.
One such is Abu Sumayyah, whose terrorist-inspired posturing and threats have, indirectly, brought shame on Derby.
Not, one imagines, that this will cause a moment's worry to Sumayyah, who is understood to have walked out on his wife and family in Derby a year ago to join a training camp in Syria run by the militant Islamist group ISIS.
He has probably changed his name since being brought up in Derby, but some people in the Normanton area may recognise him from his photograph.
What would be rather more alarming would be if they recognised him from what he has been saying – since this would presumably indicate that he was voicing his extremist views while he was still living in our midst and people failed to bring him to the attention of the authorities at that time.
Derby was, unfairly, labelled as a breeding ground for terrorists 11 years ago when one Omar Sharif – not the film star – bungled his suicide bomber role.
His device failed in Tel Aviv and his body was found two weeks later in the sea.
He had lived in Derby and the one positive thing to emerge from his notoriety was that it focused attention on the issue within the city.
Schools made it their business to impress on youngsters of all religions the futility of acts of terrorism and of hatred between religious groups.
Derby does enjoy decidedly better relationships, and much less tension, between different nationalities and religious groups than do most cities.
The threats and incendiary remarks of Abu Sumayyah do nothing to jeopardise that.
In fact, the condemnation which they have provoked can only harden opinion against such extremists.
