Can Tony Blair win?
The main stumbling block in the UK's counter terrorism initiatives is riding as a pillion passenger with the US in the war against terror, writes Binay Kumar.
Last week in this column we had made an impassioned appeal to separate Tony Blair's short-sighted policies on Iraq from the intrinsic nature of British-ness. To target the latter for the myopia of the former is to miss the true nature of home-grown terrorism in Britain.
Even though there was all round admiration for the very dramatic and swift progress made by Scotland Yard in their hunt for the terrorists responsible for at least 52 deaths and hundreds of injuries in the London bombings on 7/07, there was also growing disquiet and utter dismay at each advance they made in their investigation.
To the horror of the generally unsuspecting public in Britain, it emerged soon enough that at least three of the so-called terrorists were British-born men of Pakistani origin who had been living in northern England.
Nothing could be more disturbing to learn after all that these men were our own, from an innocuous circle of friendly neighborhood lads in the next street which was actually supportive of hard-core terrorism, rather than those misguided foreign zealots who arrived from some Muslim rogue state on a single coordinated mission of revenge and mayhem.
Let us look at the most ominous and obvious facts of the case: the suspects were of Pakistani origin, born and raised in Britain, in the provincial city of Leeds in Yorkshire. One of the bombers is thought to be from Luton, another industrial town in rapid decline just north of London.
What both cities have in common are the gloom and doom of an industrial wasteland populated by a largely deprived community of immigrant Muslims living on the fringes of society. The roots of their alienation are not far to seek. For all we know and care, they could have been still 'living' in the Pakistan their parents left behind in the sixties.
With no real opportunities for professional and career advancement or social mobility, the specter of racism at the hands of the majority white population which his parents undeniably suffered yesterday is today an imagined enemy easy to resurrect. Self-persecution fast envelops a man at crossroads with the society in which he lives.
This is the breeding ground we now know that became the easy prey of fundamentalist propaganda, a fertile soil for secretly nurturing British citizens for a major attack on its own cities and brethren. That it was possible to do so under the noses of the police and intelligence communities does not get washed away by the rapid strides made in the current investigations.
The facts of the case as they stand today have serious implications for the future, particularly for any strategy that may seek to stem the rot that has set in our midst. To live in denial, as Blair continues to do, is to persist on a more perilous course of self-destruction. Blair is still saying that the London atrocities had nothing to do with the injustices in the Middle East and Iraq; to see such a link, according to the beleaguered Prime Minister, would be to fall victim to the "almost-devilish logic of extremists to play on western guilt". Did you say 'Western guilt' Mr Prime Minister? You did, and that is precisely what is at the heart of all this talk of linkage and culpability. As the leading anti-war Labor MP John McDonnell said recently it was 'intellectually unsustainable' to pretend terrorism and Iraq were not related.
'The mindset of many young Muslims across the world is being framed by images of the shock and awe bombing of Baghdad, of the massacres in Fallujah, of torture in Abu Ghraib, of the orange-clad, chained prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and, of course, the continuing oppression of the Palestinian people,' he told a London conference called by the Labour Representative Committee on Saturday.
The most damning indictment of Blair's botched up foreign policy came today from the highly respected think tank Chatham House, previously known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London. According to them, the main stumbling block in the UK hampering counter terrorism initiatives at home is "riding as a pillion passenger with the United States in the war against terror".
Chatham House concludes there is "no doubt" the invasion of Iraq has "given a boost to the al-Qaida network" in "propaganda, recruitment and fundraising", while providing an ideal targeting and training area for terrorists. The crux of their argument runs counter to the trend of demonizing all Muslims for all the troubles facing the world. Terrorism, Mr Blair, has no religion but we know religion feeds on vulnerabilities that you have created.
Azzam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain told a rally in Russell Square, near the scene of the bus bombing, that the Muslim community would not suffer in silence for the crimes of the suicide bombers. "Say, 'No, I'm not responsible for what happened on July 7. My heart bleeds, I condemn it, yes, but I did not make those boys angry. I did not send those bombs to Iraq. I do not keep people locked in Guantánamo Bay and I do not have anything to do with Abu Ghraib, except to denounce it.' Politicians, see what you have done to this world?"
Can you win Blair if Britain loses?