Cause and Detect!

Can political differences be resolved by blowing up innocent people, asks Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta.

Since 7/7, the airwaves, internet and newspapers are full of pundits opining about the reasons behind the British Muslim bombers murderous terrorist act. I am a bit overwhelmed with this deluge of opinions and the variety of reasons that are given as part of this nice little terror exercise for root cause analysis. Now, if I had to stand back and think, hmmm, what is the general opinion across a cross section of commentators? I would find it very difficult, because this depends upon where you are standing. So I thought a better and firm place to start would be to be a fly on the wall behind an honourable bewigged British Judge. A bomber is in the dock, and each commentator is part of the bomber’s court trial as a defence witness.

I just finished reading one of the most moving books on terrorism, “Incendiary” by Chris Cleave and I would highly recommend this book to anybody who would like to understand how the survivors of a terrorist attack feel and how they go on living after the event. Without giving away anything much of the book, the lady is married and has one son. Both, husband and son, go to the new Arsenal football stadium where there is a huge bomb attack which kills them, along with hundreds more. She is writing a letter (grammatical, punctuation mistakes and all) to Osama Bin Laden.

These mistakes, the very ordinary emotions, the very human failings inside a mother and wife, who is missing her husband and son, turn this into a very emotional read. It isn’t bitter, the fabled British politeness and understatement come through. There are flashes of understated wit and this is driven from the same reason that makes the British famed prolific letter writers down the centuries. They want to let their feelings and outrage be known in a discreet yet determined way. The mother and wife of two terrorist victims is the most ordinary woman in real life, but her bravery comes through on every page. I frequently felt a lump in my throat. I had her in mind when I was thinking about a victim of terrorism; imagined her sitting in the courtroom, trying to understand.

Then there were the root cause analysts, who came from all over the world. Let us see the reasons which they have supplied. The war on Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, Spain, Crusades, Palestine, race, poverty, presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, western backing of kings and dictators in Muslim lands, non-assimilation and I guess Islamophobia. Please do remember that I am ignoring the conspiracy theorists, who are a real funny bunch, blaming it on the intelligence services, the police, the Zionists, the military industrial complex, capitalism, little green men from Uranus. I find these people very funny, so one day we will surely devote a column to poke fun at them. So for now, I don’t want to tease these poor sods any more.

I found one particular TV clip by this lady belonging to the UK Respect Party particularly puzzling. She was giving the standard words, “the bombing happened because these bombers disagreed with Blair’s foreign policy”. Gosh, here’s a member of a British Political Party, I presume committed to multi-party democracy, working different issues through the political process; actually stating that it was all right or perfectly explainable that political differences could be resolved by blowing up innocent people.

I find this form of thinking bizarre, but then speaking to my sister, an explanation was given (right or wrong, you decide), “BD, you have to realise that they are of Pakistani, Somalian or Eritrean etc. origin, when did those countries become the poster children of liberal democratic principles?, How would they know how to work through political differences through political processes and parties?” We digress, let us head into the solemn environs of the High Court and see what you may think of these root causes.

The first commentator talks about how the UK’s participation in the War on Terror in Afghanistan has caused British Muslims to get upset and go off to blow up innocent tube travellers. I hear the expert talk about the pain the bomber went through at the double standards, when he saw Muslims being attacked by the UK/US Special Forces and air forces or being tortured in Iraq’s prisons like Abu Gharib or suffering from the after-effects of depleted Uranium. Some more comments came through about US/UK being the reason behind the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the first place, who were recruited to fight the dirty war against communism for the Americans but then were abandoned when their purpose was served.

This gave rise to age old angst about how Muslims have always been used or attacked by the Christian forces and so decided to take matters into their own hands. The judge asked the question, “And how was Ms. Jane Doe, who was killed on the tube, related to the war in Afghanistan?” no answer except for a mumbled reply which said that her death was a message to Tony Blair, since she elected him in the first place and chose him to speak for her. But what if Jane Doe was an anti-war protestor like Rachel Corrie? Now we will never know. Then again, in certain rarefied circles, I suppose they are collateral damage. Secondly, if the reason was that she was a British Citizen, then, so are you, mate. Sort of an inconsistency there, no?