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Editorial Of good and evil
July 21st, 2005 -- The language of good and evil has proved one of the most persistent weapons in the “war against terror”. The “axis of evil”, “the evildoers”, the “evil ideology”. If for many the atrocities of 7 July throw up nothing but questions, there are those who appear ready to provide all the answers. “What we are confronting here”, Tony Blair told the Labour Party national conference with moral certitude on 17 July, “is an evil ideology”. The extremists’ cause “is not founded on an injustice. It is founded on a belief, one whose fanaticism is such it cannot be moderated. It can’t be remedied. It has to be stood up to. And, of course,” the prime minister knowingly added, “they will use any issue that is a matter of dissent within our democracy. But we should lay bare the almost devilish logic behind such manipulation.” Well, perhaps not any issue that is a matter of dissent. The evildoers, for example, are yet to exploit the divisions within Britain’s democracy over university top-up fees or “foundation” hospitals. Their “almost devilish logic” is employed in manipulation almost exclusively of domestic dissent over the war on terror, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Abu Ghurayb, Guantanamo and British foreign policy’s dogged adherence to US diktat. But British political leaders are uncommonly united in their denial of any causal link between the terrorist outrages in London, now known to have been committed by four British Muslims, and the foreign policy of the Blair government. Isolated voices of dissent in parliament or the media serve only to underscore the primacy of the accepted orthodoxy that attempts subtly to define efforts to understand the bombers’ motives as perverse attempts to justify or defend their crimes. But if the 7 July attacks came as a shock to many, they came as a surprise to very few. For the majority here, it was a matter of when, not if, Britain would be targeted. The government rejected the conclusions of a report on its counter-terrorism policy published by an influential London-based think-tank on 18 July. The Chatham House briefing paper does not claim that anger over the invasion of Iraq was behind the London bombings, but it does suggest that “the situation over Iraq has posed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism”. Forgetting perhaps that he was warned by the Joint Intelligence Committee shortly before the invasion of Iraq that such an action would increase the terrorist threat to Britain, Blair moved quickly to place the London bombings in an entirely international context. If this line of argument is wilfully misleading, so too is the claim that these are attacks aimed at destroying our “way of life”. British foreign policy has deepened this country’s unpopularity among Muslims at home and abroad, but it is Britain’s conduct well beyond its own shores that is at the root of Muslim discontent. If a repeat of the events of 7 July is to be avoided, an honest discussion of what motivated the bombers must begin. The perception of double standards and hypocrisy may fuel Muslim anger, but not all Muslims, of course, are potential al-Qa’ida constituents. One might look to the Pakistani community in Britain and ask what drove three of its members to commit such abhorrent crimes, but the fourth bomber, Germaine Lindsay, was a Jamaican-born convert to Islam, whose radicalization apparently took place in Afghanistan. One might point to the modern sense of youth alienation and ask if that is to blame. Unlike those few American youths whose anger is manifested in suicidal attacks on classmates and teachers, young British Muslims who experience a sense of disconnection are more vulnerable perhaps to the extremist belief system that locates their individual grievances within those of the wider Muslim community. If the truth be told, however, there is as yet little real understanding of what drove the bombers. It is imperative that the government address this question. Blair’s claim that the ideology which drives the bombers cannot be beaten “except by confronting it, symptoms and causes, head on” may offer some hope in this direction. But if he genuinely intends to confront the reasons why a small number of young Muslims appear to be susceptible to such virulent influence, a serious examination of Britain’s foreign policy, albeit in conjunction with other issues, cannot be avoided. |
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