Blair is not Britain!
Britain's maturity was on full display in London as emergency services swung into action immediately after the terror blasts, writes Binay Kumar.
Unlike the United States, Britain has been exposed to terrorism for decades. Not surprisingly, the British know very well how to respond to such attacks on its innocent civilians. And the maturity of this experience was on full display in London as emergency services swung into action last Thursday immediately after the terror blasts occurred at the peak of the morning rush hour.
Any terror attack of such magnitude necessarily brings comparisons with 9/11 in New York. By all accounts, London's public emergency services responded to the task brilliantly. There was none of the chaos or jingoism we saw after 9/11 in New York. Britons uniformly exhibited stiff upper lips, defiant calm and measured conservative coolness for which they are deservedly admired. There was not a glimmer of hint of any hysteria and hyperbole that has become the hallmark of this country's strategy to deal with terrorism.
Ironically, as I write today on the 60th anniversary of the Second World War's conclusion, I was particularly moved by the typically British response of London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, who chose to speak directly to the perpetrators of last week's tragedy, "I can tell you now that you will fail in your long-term objectives to destroy our free society. In the days that follow, look at our airports and seaports, and even after your cowardly attacks, you will still see people from around the world coming to London to achieve their dreams." His statement made yesterday was even more forceful:
"I say to those who planned this dreadful attack, whether they are still in London in hiding, or if they are abroad: watch next week as we bury our dead, and mourn them. But see also in these same days new people coming into this city to make it their home and call themselves Londoners, and do so for that freedom to be themselves."
I take pride in being a former Londoner. And Ken Livingstone delivered in that statement the most eloquent articulation of what it means to live in a liberal, tolerant, multi-cultural city like London. The city has endured far terrible tragedies in the past and nothing in the world can possibly wilt its spirit of all embracing accommodation and its zealous protection of unfettered freedom for all its inhabitants.
Nothing could capture this spirit better than an innocuous news clip I saw on ITV yesterday in which a young Muslim boy named Ali was interviewed while appealing for desperate help in searching his missing Hindu/Jain girlfriend, Meetu. You didn't need any all-faith prayer meeting to drive home the point more emphatically: this is not about religion, its all about the politics of hate!
And inevitably that brings me to the politicians. Even though Blair lost no time in parroting a no-brainer theory of Islamic jehadis being the obvious culprits, a senior British police officer demonstrated far greater political wisdom when he declared dispassionately there is no reason why the words "Islamic" and "terrorist" should go together. The Police Officer knew better indeed: for all we know, the perpetrators may have been of Islamic pursuasion, but their primary goal was political, not religious.
We, as members of the affected public, need to understand the kernel of this simple argument or else the politicians would continue to exploit our fear, as the terrorists in tandem fan them, to win elections and run crony governments. Blair may have proven to be luckier at the hustings than José Maria Aznar, the former prime minister of Spain. We know what happened to him. Voters ousted his pro-U.S. government days after the Madrid bombing, and the new prime minister immediately announced a troop withdrawal from Iraq. The ghost of London's 7/07 tragedy, however, would haunt Blair's legacy as long as London lives.
That the attack should have taken place in the British capital on a day when the security in the country must have been at its highest level of alertness in view of the G8 summit at Gleneagles, where leaders of the world's eight most influential nations were gathered, is a telling testimony to the futility of the so-called war on terror. When 9/11 struck New York, everybody was taken by surprise. We do not have the luxury of such an excuse, if there can be anything like that ever, on this occasion.
There is a clear distinction between solidarity with a nation and the support for its government; as history tells us, they need not necessarily converge on all issues of vital public concern. Despite her sycophants' arduous attempts, Indira could not become India. Similarly, Blair is not Britain.
Breaking ranks, the controversial British MP, George Galloway, ignored the outpouring of platitudes from politicians of all shades to bluntly nail responsibility where it lies: "Londoners paid the price for Tony Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Writing in The New York Times yesterday, Alan Cowell noted, "Perhaps the crudest lesson to be drawn was that, in adopting the stance he took after the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Blair had finally reaped the bitter harvest of the war on terrorism - so often forecast but never quite seeming real until the explosions boomed across London." This is however no time for recriminations; that would be playing into the hands of the terrorists.
Despite a triumphant Blairite creed whose appeal has denuded in direct proportion to the loss of the protagonist's boyish charm, the wider public view in Britain has been to consider the war on terror, or more specifically, the war on Iraq and its people, nothing more than a political stunt. Almost three cynical years on, the tragedy in London can only sharpen the realization of the Iraq misadventure as a morally dubious stunt that has gone horribly wrong.
As Plato put it, "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." Stop exploiting the political apathy of the defenseless public; please wake up Mr Blair. Terror cannot be fought with terror and, if you choose to do so, you run the risk of becoming one with the terrorists.