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« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 » Ireland and Islamic extremismBrian Cathcart The events in Northern Ireland which reached a climax with the IRA’s renunciation of violence this week offer many lessons for those with responsibility for confronting Islamic extremism. Barring a calamity, a 35-year conflict in which 3,700 members of a small community lost their lives has come to an end, and if there can be a winner in such a sorry story, it is democracy. Religion, ethnicity, nationalism and imperialism played their parts in the long argument, and history, geography, economics and demography were invoked many times. All have a familiar ring in today’s debates about Islamic extremism. Northern Ireland, located unequivocally in the developed world, served for decades as a case study, almost a laboratory experiment, in politics without consensus and in the handling of political violence. What brought the “Troubles”, as they used to be known, to an end? Not military action, not the persistent violation of human rights by the state and not the mass marginalization or persecution of one community. It was dialogue, open-mindedness, flexibility and, where appropriate, firm principle. At times in the past dozen years it has seemed as though everyone was talking to everyone: the British government, Sinn Fein (the political wing of the Irish Republican Army), the Irish and US governments, the churches, the local political parties, the “loyalist” paramilitaries, Irish-Americans . . . the list was long. And although the romantic appeal of a “united Ireland” could be strong, particularly outside the island itself, one vital principle was never abandoned: that the people of Northern Ireland retained the right to decide their own future. When asked, they always voted to remain part of the United Kingdom and today that is what they remain, all those bombs and bullets and broken bodies notwithstanding. Even those British governments which adopted the most wrong-headed approach to the region’s difficulties managed to respect that one principle, and for that they deserve some credit. There were certainly mistakes along the way, and no one can claim an unblemished record. Imprisonment without trial, torture and clandestine killing probably added years to the conflict. Supposedly woolly-minded ideas like forgiveness, respect and “parity of esteem” shortened it. The day I realised things were changing came in the early 1990s, when I heard the far-sighted John Hume, then leader of the moderate, mainly Catholic, nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, respond in a new way to what was by then an old question. There had been another horror, and he was asked if he would condemn it. He shook his head and remarked that there was no merit in “the politics of the latest atrocity”. It was when people on all sides learned that lesson, learned to keep their heads and to avoid engagement with the self-fuelling cycle of grievance, that a political solution became possible. It was a cliché of living in Northern Ireland, and of writing about it, that despite all the headlines and the bloodshed, for most people life just went on. Indeed many parts of society thrived. This was not heroism or stoicism but reality: they went on working, shopping, playing, educating their children and mowing their lawns. At any given time, most people came to see, their chance of being a victim of violence was smaller than their chance of being knocked down in the road by a car. There is a lesson there too. Democratic societies are far stronger than we give them credit for – did even 9/11 stop the United States functioning as a society? – and they need not, should not flee from their values when challenged by bombers. Indeed, even as we in the west confront a weapon the IRA never employed, the suicide bomber, we should remember that in its time democracy has survived far, far worse. July 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack IRA ends armed campaignsSince roughly an hour
ago the Irish Republican Army (IRA) has stopped all armed campaigns. In a statement
issued today, the IRA calls for assistance to the "development
of purely political and democratic programmes through exclusively peaceful
means". July 28, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack openDemocracy discussion"London, 7 July 2005: What happened, what changed, what now?" was the name of yesterday's openDemocracy discussion held in collaboration with the Muslim magazine Q-News. After the events yesterday we did not expect full turnout, but surprisingly many guests attended the discussion in the end. There was a healthy mix of young and old and Muslim and non-Muslim people in the audience, which turned the debate into a sheer educational experience. The panel, chaired by openDemocracy editor Isabel Hilton, included Humare Khan (far left), founding member of An-Nisa Society, Hisham Hellyer, Fuad Nahdi, editor-in-chief of Q-News and playwright and actor Robin Soans. The discussion was based on the three main questions given in the topic but revolved mainly around the question of Muslim/British identity. Many members of the audience gave information on their personal experience with Islam and the Muslim community, others challenged cliches imposed by the media and the speakers' points of view.
After the discussion many stayed in front of Chatham House to discuss the topic further. I guess nobody really found an answer to the discussion's questions, but certainly left the event with a lot of ideas and encouragement for more exchange. July 22, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack More explosions in London todayJust to let all oD Today readers know after today's news, that the openDemocracy team is safe and sound. July 21, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack "London United"
When I went to Trafalgar Square just last week to witness London winning the Olympic Bid 2012 I encountered joy, happiness and excitement. The contrast to what Trafalgar Square looked like yesterday evening could not have been any starker. Instead of tears of joy people shed tears of sorrow. What struck me most was seeing London's mayor Next to Ken there were speakers of different faiths, together with celebrities, such as newsreader Sir Trevor McDonald, calling Londoners to stay strong together, regardless their faith or ethnicity. Everybody listened in silence, clapping every few seconds in agreement with statements of encouragement. TV crews and photographers were running in between the crowd, stopping to interview and photograph the spectators.
It was a touching an memorable event. Seeing thousands of Londoners shoulder to shoulder certainly proves that they stand united against the threats. July 15, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack 23 July: Downing Street Memo 3rd anniversary
At least eight events will be hosted by or participated in by members of Congress. The office of Congressman Conyers in Detroit has organised a further 105 house parties through their website. In London, on Downing Street itself (2pm) a group of activists will perform a recreation of the Downing Street Memo as a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Check out the cool map, and see if there is an event near you. For Immediate Release: July 14, 2005 Over 150 Events Planned on 3rd Anniversary of Downing Street Memo Congressional Town Hall Meetings, Public Forums, Dramatic Recreations, House Parties, Rallies, and Study Circles on July 23, 2005 On July 23, 2005, events around the United States will mark the three-year anniversary of the meeting at #10 Downing Street in London, England, that was recorded in the now infamous minutes known as the "Downing Street Memo." At least eight events will be hosted by or participated in by Members of Congress, including John Conyers in Detroit, Jim McDermott in Seattle, Barbara Lee in Oakland, Maxine Waters in Los Angeles, and Maurice Hinchey in New York. Congressman Charles Rangel will host an electronic town-hall meeting, answering questions from his New York constituents on the internet, from noon to 1 p.m., July 22. Congressman Xavier Becerra will host an event in Los Angeles on July 30, and Congressman Barney Frank in Boston on July 31. Co-Founder of the After Downing Street Coalition, constitutional attorney John Bonifaz will speak at a town hall meeting on July 23rd in Northampton, Mass. On July 23rd, in over 150 towns and cities, prominent speakers and ordinary citizens will hold public forums, perform dramatic recreations of the Downing Street meeting, and host house parties and study circles. Sixty-six events and counting are listed online at AfterDowningStreet.org. For details on events in any part of the country, see this map: http://heh.pl/&tm . Another 16 events on surrounding days are also listed on the site. In addition, Congressman Conyers' office has organized 105 house parties through their website. See http://johnconyers.com/. Conference Call for House Parties: Blogging All Day: Action Across the Atlantic: E-Town Hall on the 22nd: Agenda for National Day of Events: Participants around the country will be encouraged to Details for Each Event: Congressman John Conyers, Jr. Congresswoman Barbara Lee Congressmen Jim McDermott Congresswoman Maxine Waters New York City Town Hall Meeting AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups, which launched on May 26, 2005, a campaign to urge the U.S. Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. CONTACT: July 15, 2005 in News related | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Help: Iran's leading dissident is dyingWe've been covering this over in Iran Scan 1384. Journalist and human rights champion Akbar Ganji is on hunger strike in an Iranian prison, and his supporters seriously fear for his life. There's been some coverage in the Western press - mostly thanks to the New York Sun's Eli Lake (an Iran Scan contributor) who even seems to have managed to provoke comment in support of Ganji by President Bush. Activists are rallying together at the Release Ganji! campaign. And today I received a phone call from Human Rights First asking me to post this link: Click Here to Take Action. Please click on it, and visit Iran Scan for more links. Sign a petition, write a letter, and spread the word. It will make a difference. Today, we also received this article with the latest statement from Ganji's lawyer Shirin Ebadi. *** By Veronique Mistiaen Iran's most prominent jailed dissident, journalist Akbar Ganji has now been on hunger strike for more than month in Tehran's Evin prison, and his life is in danger. Ganji's lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2003, expressed grave concerns over his state of health and urged people around the world to publicize his plight and call for his release. "Ganji is a brave journalist and all of us should support him," said Ebadi, speaking trough an interpreter at a press conference at the Foreign Press Association in London on July 12. Ganji, one of the Iranian regime's most vocal critics, was arrested in May 2000 and sentenced in 2001 to six years in prison over articles he wrote linking government officials - including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani and former intelligence minister Ali Fallahian - to the murder of several Iranian dissidents and intellectuals. He has also been accused of taking part in a conference in Berlin about reform in Iran, which the regime deemed "anti-Islamic." After being granted a short leave on medical grounds, Ganji was re-imprisoned on June 11. He has been on hunger strike ever since - only drinking water with a bit of sugar - and has lost more than 40 pounds during the past month, Ebadi said. Ganji, who suffers from rheumatic pain and serious chronic asthma made worse by prison conditions, went on hunger strike to protest being denied medical treatment outside prison, which his doctors have recommended in writing. Ebadi said Ganji launched his hunger strike only after having exhausted all other legal avenues. As a political prisoner, he is also being denied many privileges afforded to other inmates, such as phone calls, family leave and meeting with his lawyer in private. In a new twist, the judiciary has recently declared hunger strike a criminal offence, Ebadi added. The leading journalist, who worked for the reformist daily paper Sobh-e-Emrooz, has already spent five years and three months in jail, making him the journalist imprisoned for the longest period in Iran, according to Reporters Without Borders, which has taken on his case. Other individuals and organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and PEN are also campaigning for his release. But time is pressing. Ganji is now very weak and ill, and Ebadi said she fears for his life. Sadly, she added, he is not the only political prisoner in Iran's jails. "Unfortunately, a large number of our young people - political activists, journalists and intellectuals - are in prison now and you may not have heard their names. "I am hoping for the release of all political prisoners in Iran. By freeing political prisoners, our government will take an important step toward national reconciliation and unity, so that the Iranian family won't be torn apart." July 15, 2005 in News related | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack A Muslim culture of victimhood?Rachel Bloul A Muslim culture of victimhood? This is the wrong diagnosis of a political, not religious or cultural, problem. There is a very popular argument which sees the popularity of radical Muslim activism of the kind which finds its most extreme expression in bombing attacks, as being fed by a ‘culture of victimhood’ among Muslims in various places around the world. Such a culture of victimhood, it is said, nourishes anti-Western sentiments, and can more or less easily become the breeding ground of violent expressions of resentment. As I reflect upon the latest bombings in London and the sociological profiles of those Leeds young men implicated in the attacks, the possibly pernicious consequences of the assumptions behind the ‘culture of victimhood’ argument become clear. The ‘surprise’ and ‘astonishment’ upon learning the identity of the ‘homegrown’ perpetrators as expressed by various acquaintances, informed bystanders and the like were echoed all over the media. But what is so surprising or astonishing? There are two points that I want to discuss here. Firstly, there is the question of perceived injustice and the role played by identification with perceived victims. Why should we be surprised that some ordinary young British Muslim men committed these crimes? A stark contrast is drawn between supposedly ‘victimized perpetrators’ and these ‘ordinary young men’ who, while definitively of humble origins, were not by any means pathetic losers such as Richard Reid for one was portrayed to be. But why should ordinary young men not identify as Muslims with perceived injustices suffered by other Muslims (Palestinians, Iraqis, Chechens, the list could go on and on…)? I do not know what drove their identification with other Muslims whom they perceived as being victims of generalized injustices. What I do know is that one does not need to be a victim oneself to feel the victimization of others. And I do comprehend the possibility that any young people may empathize with perceived victims with whom they share a religion. In fact it is a fairly ordinary moral response to such a situation, which leads me to my second point. There is in certain Islamist milieus a culture of jihad & martyrdom which I think is very different from a culture of victimhood. Victims are to a large extent disempowered by their victimization. Often the term victim has a certain aura of passivity and even inferiority. Victims often lack the resources to act. Jihadis committed to a bombing attack however are praised, probably see themselves as committing a praiseworthy deed on behalf of victims whom they see themselves as revenging. They have therefore a notion of self-worth (whether deluded or not is not the point here), of agency that plain victims do not have. This explains why perpetrators do not have an easy-to-assess profile – which has so perplexed analysts, why they can indeed be ‘ordinary young men’ with ‘nothing’ a priori predisposing them to bombing attacks. Nothing that is, except the identification with perceived victims, a desire to do something about it and a political assessment of the situation such that they feel themselves not only allowed to act, but maybe in a privileged position to act. They may feel a sense of obligation. How such identification comes to be is easy enough to understand. Why these young men felt a need to do something as drastic as bombing attacks about it is another question. A question which has to do with a particular political interpretation of the situation and of what they saw, or were meant to see, as a possible and maybe necessary solution. So apocalyptic a scenario is something that various political “final solutions” share, and indeed we have seen far too many of those in the last century. Dr Rachel Bloul, School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University July 14, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack From a concerned bystanderAaron Rosenthal We had to wait at the ticket barriers at London Bridge for a couple of minutes; we were told there had been a power surge. It’s not uncommon to wait to get down onto the tube at London Bridge, and we all rushed down to get a tube to work once they opened up. It was as busy as usual and a bit of a squeeze. I spotted an attractive girl on the train and was trying to make eye contact with her. We were told the train was bypassing Bank because of the power surge. Then Moorgate. A few people grumbled; I was alright as I had to go all the way to Kentish Town. I was getting quite uncomfortable standing in the heat with little room to stand, but I swear the girl looked at me and smiled so it wasn’t too bad. Then the driver announced we were not stopping until we got to Euston. I was confused now but not too concerned. We stopped in the tunnel just before Kings Cross. After a while, I became concerned; I daydreamed about what would happen if there was a bomb. I didn’t seriously think that would be though. We were told they were evacuating passengers ahead; why has a power surge caused all this? Eventually, after around half an hour waiting, the train edged into Kings Cross and we walked up the train and out of the driver’s door. I looked to see how far behind me the girl was. I still didn’t realise what had happened. As we walked up through the station, I soon forgot about the girl. People were covered in blood and soot. One man was bleeding heavily. The thing that affected me the most was the crying. So many people were openly crying; I realised afterwards you rarely see anyone cry in public. I was a bit confused and phoned work to say I was going to be late. I was worried about my brother as I knew he took a similar route to me; he was fine but told me there had been more bombs. I couldn’t get my head around it; I walked around aimlessly for a while and looked for a bus. Only 100 yards away I heard people complaining that they had to get off the train; they had no idea what had happened. I gave up on the bus because they were barely moving and were so busy; shortly afterwards the number 30 bus exploded. I tried to find my way through Euston and closed streets to work. I tried to phone and text people I knew worked in London; it stopped working quite quickly. I got the papers for work from the newsagent; the news of the Olympic bid was already redundant at 11 in the morning. I explained what had happened to a confused young woman. By this point the horror had sunk in and it was quite awkward parting ways. I walked into work in a funk; colleagues were concerned and told me to eat but I just wanted information. What the hell had happened? I emailed everyone I could saying I was ok and asking them to tell me; I had 8 messages already asking where I was. A couple of friends took a while to check in and our close circle became concerned, but no one I knew personally was hurt. I eventually walked down through the centre of London to Charing Cross to get a train home and met a friend. He had been very concerned, and I gradually received frenzied texts he had sent in the morning asking where I was; swear words were injected more and more as time went on. I got home, went to the pub and saw friends. I had been weird all day and I wanted to have a beer and look forward. I went to bed drunk enough and late enough to sleep so I didn’t think about it. Now we have to get on with our lives. This weekend I moved into my new flat in London as planned. I am proud to live here and we will not bow to terrorism. We must remember those who died; I personally never forget the pain I saw or the young Asian girl I saw who suddenly burst into tears at the bus stop, I assume as the impact sunk in. But we must travel to work without fear; I want to travel on the tube and make eye contact with attractive girls; we must live as we did before; terrorists cannot make our decisions. Thanks for reading the thoughts of a concerned bystander. July 12, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack The politics of denialAllen Feldman Throughout the 1970s and 80s the Provisional IRA set off bombs in London for one major strategic purpose: shifting the front line of warfare from the streets of Belfast and Derry to the streets of London-- in short these bombs were an attempt to deghettoize the Northern Irish conflict and to transform it into a UK wide issue and everyday reality for the British public. For almost three decades, internecine sectarian conflict, state torture and shoot-to-kill arrests, and the suspension of common rules of law and civil liberties were facts of life in one part of the United Kingdom, which by and large were ignored, accepted or normalized by the rest of the British body politic. The IRA strategy was a misguided and inexcusable attempt to confront this politics of denial among the general British public and to create a politics of collective accountability for what they perceived as the social suffering of the minority community in Northern Ireland. The 7/7 attack on London effectively moved the frontline of the insurgency/counter insurgency in Iraq to the streets of London, just as the front line was moved into the streets of Madrid last year due to the Spanish military presence in Iraq. The attack has also mobilized a new politics of denial: that the London bombings were inevitable due to long-term Islamic fanaticism and have only an incidental connection to Tony Blair’s foreign policy in Iraq. Even if the attack was a cynical manipulation of in-place Arab resentment, this collectivization of everyday terror will win support among a significant section of the increasingly isolated Iraqi population, who have lived with escalating daily terror from all sides since the American invasion, and from Arabs who resent a foreign neo-colonial presence in the Middle East. There is no moral or political excuse for the London bombings, but neither is there any moral and political excuse for politicians like Tony Blair, George Bush or Condoleezza Rice who disconnect their policies from this attack, and rather attribute it to a fundamentalist irrationality. Blair, Bush and company point to 9/11 as evidence that the London attacks were not a response to current foreign policy but a generic expression of long-term fundamentalist resentment. Such rationalization whitewashes American interventionism in the Middle East prior to 1991 including long-term support for oppressive regimes in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. We are now witnessing a desperate attempt at historical falsification, equivalent to the myth of WMD in Iraq, whose sole aim is to forestall a Madrid political scenario for Blair and his government in the wake of the London attacks. Part and parcel of this historical falsification is the increasing moral legitimacy of rendering death and suffering in the Middle East invisible and without consequence. We knew in 24 hours the specific number of dead and wounded in London, but to this day the American government, with media complicity, censors the number of Iraqi casualties since the invasion. Such censorship inhibits the capacity of the polity to connect attacks in Madrid and London to the dead, tortured and wounded in Iraq. In her interview with the BBC on July 7,2005, Rice rehearsed a litany of two decades of "Islamic" terrorist attacks (primarily against American targets) from 1988 onward as the chain of causation that led to the present tragedy in London. For Rice “Islamic” terrorism is a free-floating perpetual motion machine of endless war against the West, she called it “…a world-wide war against ideals..." In response to the BBC reporter's attempt to link the London attack to Anglo-American policies in Iraq she replied: "Nothing is being fueled here except that they are being confronted...it is not normal for people to fly airplanes into buildings...” This is the politics of civilizational war-- a theory that denies political rationality to Arab resistance to Anglo-American foreign policy, and which authorizes a free-floating endless war against terrorism by the so-called “West.” However the attacks Rice recounted were committed by different organizations in diverse political contexts and were only loosely related by an opposition to American policies in these local conflicts. Rice's counter-factual chain of causation relieves the United States from any present political and moral responsibility for reactive terrorist responses and cynically evades the consequence that British civilians have now paid the ultimate price for their government’s complicity with American foreign policy in Iraq. We now can see that proactive military interventionism is not a strategy for eradicating or even managing the risk of political terror, but rather is a formula for terrorist escalation. Allen Feldman is author of Formations of Violence: the Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland (1991); and “Abu Ghraib: Ceremonies of Nostalgia” (openDemocracy, 18 Oct 2004) July 11, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack A World CitizenToday oD's London office received sad news from a friend and contributor to openDemocracy, John Adeleke, illustrating only too starkly the ongoing pain and suffering caused by Thursday's terrorist attacks. He writes: "Glad you're recovering from the cruel acts of Thursday. We've just had some sad news. The son of family friends Marie and Alan Fatayi-Williams, it appears may have been killed by one of the bombs. Ironically his late grand-father was one one of our most respected Chief Justices, and a staunch moslem, from Lagos. We're all hoping that it might just be a case of mistaken identity." Marie has travelled to London from Nigeria to try to find her son Anthony Fatayi-Williams, whom she describes as a "world citizen". The BBC carries a report on her story, as she calls for an end to "this vicious cycle of killing": http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4671367.stm July 11, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Who was behind the London attacks?Peter Neumann Just in case you wondered what the authorities are doing at this very moment: the police are reviewing 1800 hours of CCTV footage from across London, and the forensic scientists are piecing together the four explosive devices from tons of rubble. Both activities are aimed at finding out who was responsible for the London attacks: the viewing of the CCTV tapes will help to identify the individuals that carried the bombs onto the trains, whereas the reconstruction of the bomb will provide vital clues as to what group was responsible. (Bomb-making is a special skill that terrorist groups entrust to a relatively small number of people. As a result, almost every bomb carries the ‘handwriting' of a particular individual or group.) At the moment, everything you hear about the identity or the modus operandus of the possible attackers is pure speculation. Generally, though, there are two theories which should be taken seriously. The first is that this was an attack by a completely new group, which has little if any association with the existing networks. This would explain why the police had no indication at all that an attack was on the way. It would also make it plausible why there was no increased chatter or activity among known Islamists, which the intelligence services would have picked up. The second is that this attack is somehow linked to Al Qaeda. This would make sense given the nature of the attacks, which - with multiple, no warning bombings aimed at the transport infrastructure - are almost identical to previous Al Qaeda attacks, most prominently those in Madrid last year. It would also tie in with the two claims of responsibility that have been received thus far. Considering how sophisticated the attack (some experts estimate that there would have been 30-40 people involved in the planning, the pre-attack surveillance, logistics, etc.), it seems rather unlikely that this was the work of a bunch of deprived Muslim youths, who wanted to take it out on the people of London. At the same time, the Al Qaeda claims are somewhat misleading too. Al Qaeda is not a hierarchical terrorist organisations along the lines of the IRA, with a chief of staff directing and authorising every operational detail. As many authors have pointed out (and Jason Burke is but the most prominent), Al Qaeda is a loose association of networks with a small hardcore. Al Qaeda will support local Islamist groups if it thinks their operations or aims are worthwhile, but has always been reluctant to get involved in the day to day running of Islamist groups. Now that the Al Qaeda leadership is hiding somewhere in the mountains of Baluchistan, it is more than unlikely that Osama bin Laden himself would have directed, or even known of, the next operation to come. It is instructive to look at the history of the attacks in Madrid as a possible way of reconciling the two theories. Javier Jordan a Spanish professor in intelligence studies - recently published an academic article in which he reconstructed the planning of the attack, as well as the background of the bombers. He concluded that the Madrid train bombings were conceived of by a loose network of Islamists who met through a mosque in Madrid. Crucially, though, they were assisted by at least one so-called Arab-Afghan - an experienced fighter, who had been through one of the training camps in Afghanistan and is likely to have been in touch with Bin Laden or one of his men at some point. This was the link to "Al Qaeda", and while the connection consisted of just one person, it was nevertheless essential. He brought the knowledge and expertise necessary in order to pull off a co-ordinated attack. In other words, he made it the success which, from the terrorist point of view, it undoubtedly was. If I had to bet my house on one of those scenarios, I would choose the latter. If there was assistance from an Al-Qaeda linked individual, this would explain why the attack was so similar to previous ones, and why it was carried out in such a smooth, professional manner. On the other hand, the total absence of any previous chatter or communication indicates that new people, and perhaps quite a number, were involved, most probably home-grown. If, indeed, this turns out to be new Al Qaeda model, it may be more dangerous and threatening than the classical terrorism we have seen before. It will become almost impossible for intelligence services to infiltrate these groups, because they are ad hoc and consist of 'new' people with little, if any, previous associations to radical Islamist circles. Unless we want to put the Muslim community as a whole under 24/7 surveillance, it will not be possible to achieve the security that many people rightly expect. It is a tough challenge to answer for everyone who wants civil liberties and multiculturalism in the West to be preserved. Peter R. Neumann is research fellow in international terrorism at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. July 11, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Nature’s GrenadeNature’s Grenade We found the spot, and you bent to pick up something Today, wishing myself back beneath that tree, July 9, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Bring back reason ...Lisa Appignanesi Irony. I first heard that anything was amiss on the day, at around ten, from my daughter who was in a field somewhere in the vicinity of the G8. 'Secure' in a double cordon of police, she was worrying about those of us on the front-line in London. I turned on one telly, then another, then a radio, all the time trying to get hold of my son whose tube-line could all too easily have coincided with the first of the devastated ones on the screen. There was no response. And no response. Numbness. An internal crossing of fingers. The hospital rang, but it wasn't about my son. I was being told that my partner who had gone in for a minor op that morning of all mornings was being sent home. There were other priorities. Then, at last, the news that Josh was fine. He had arrived at the tube when it was already closed and ended up in a taxi. He was amongst the lucky ones. I took a very deep breath. I recount all this because I'm certain it's a story that can be replicated with slightly different inflections over the entire map of london - and indeed abroad amongst the friends and relatives of visitors. One of its effects is that I find myself weeping (not something I'm prone to) over stories of people who are still searching for loved ones, or who have suffered loss, or who have been damaged in the fray. When I go to the greengrocer, the streets feel quiet, the passers-by, the shopkeepers, tender - as if newly aware of human vulnerability. We all share this fragile carapace, kept in motion by a mere breath. People phone and write from all over the world, aware of it too. My rage comes at politicians or journalists who want to make political capital out of suffering, score points, settle scores in an endless charade of power or virtue. There are few rights here, but an awful lot of wrongs. It is senseless to say that Britain deserved this for its role in Iraq or Afghanistan; just as it was senseless to say America deserved 9/11. The people who died or suffered were African, European, Asian, from a variety of faiths and none. They certainly didn't deserve terror. No one does. I don't feel particularly angry at those who may have set off the bombs, kids probably, misguided. Might as well feel angry at the individual African who doesn't wear a condom out of political or papal injunction. My rage is all directed at those men of power - and they are mostly men, in their clerical robes, or politician's suits, or teachers specs - who fill young hotheads with ludicrous and dangerous notions, who divide the world into good and evil, heaven and hell, blameless virtue and capitalist greed, homelands and no-lands, point fingers of blame and send out their crusaders. Reason has had a bad press these last twenty years or so. Bring it back with all its ordinary everydayness. At least it will allow us to live together. July 9, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Blog from America...by Todd Gitlin 8 July 2005 Hearing the news, a pall came over America, and then: solidarity, horror, memory, resolve, dark fatalism, and regrettably, some smugness (we got hit first so welcome to the club, New York Governor George Pataki seemed to brag while relaying good wishes to London). Police poured into the subway cars. Calls for spending money on rail safety, subdued for months, years, revved up. And inevitably there were lunatic spasms. Unimpressed by new fact, barking heads launched into messages that sounded prerecorded. “Finish the job,” “stay the course”—these were among the cant phrases that spilled through the airwaves. Right-wingers lurched into rhetorical high gear. Kimberly Strassel, a Wall Street Journal leader writer on public television tonight, thirsted for an expansion of the Patriot Act—this on a half-hour show whose entire cast of characters comes from the most right-wing editorial page in the United States. Another Journal editor gamely maintained that the attacks proved that al-Qaeda is fading. This had a bit of the aroma of Dick Cheney maintaining that the Iraqi insurgency is “in its last throes.” The second most visited right-wing blog in the U. S., and the largest that allows comments, featured comments including these, according to http://www.mydd.com: * "Can we eradicate Islam now, please?" * "If there are no Arabs there are no attacks. How many more need be sacrificed?" * "Britain should END ALL ISLAMIC IMMIGRATION NOW....Continuing to welcome the enemy into your country is insane." * "Martyring Muslims doesn't seem to make much of a difference to the fanatics. What is needed is to take their human capital out their hands - their children. No more warped children, no more jihadis. " The wacko guru of antiwar.com, Justin Raimondo, seemed obsessed with the question of…Israel, whose former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, canceled a conference appearance near one of the bomb sites in London, he says. “What did Netanyahu know, when did he know it, and how did he know it?” Raimondo asks. Actually, he seems to know a good deal, for example: “Netanyahu was no doubt a target of the bomb plot.” I suppose this is original. On second thought, not. Don’t get me wrong. The jingos are whooping, but most of America is sane: worried but sane. The New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman, the reliable center-point of American opinion, properly warns: “The more Western societies - particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America - look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.” July 9, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack Yesterday at Russell SquareYesterday the place where I spent four years of my life – a place which I have always associated with friends, the SOAS bar, naps in the library and even exams, but above all good times - turned into a place of uncertainty, fear and grief. My local Tesco’s, directly opposite Russell Square tube station, was packed as usual. Tourists stocking up for the day, office workers taking all the fresh croissants, residents of the Brunswick centre doing early morning shopping (now that the Safeways has shut down) and other unidentifiable people, maybe people like me who live nearby, waiting in the line. Sometimes I recognise people, first years in my last year at SOAS, library staff, security guards. Yesterday morning was no different, except for the ongoing sounds of sirens, police cars, fire engines. I imagine them roaring off somewhere else, but they don’t. It comes right outside, suddenly a huge commotion at the station. Staff get out from behind their tills, shoppers hesitate but we leave the queue and our shopping. Soon after we are caught up amongst crowds of people, blue Tesco uniforms, men in orange suits, the police, fire engines, and we stood there, jostled, worried, panicked, watching people emerge from underground, and then stretchers. The police cordon off the area. We all stand around waiting, not knowing what to do, or where to go. The tube staff are still saying it is a power surge. Tourists start asking directions. Some Irish students need to get to the Generator hostel off Judd street. For a second I contemplate giving directions but in the end take them there myself. More fire engines go past me. I hear fragments of conversation. An explosion at Kings Cross, Euston evacuated. I get my mobile to call my best friend who lives just off Euston road, and I realise it doesn’t work. I quicken my pace, but I don’t know where I’m going. I meet another cordon and am caught up in another crowd. This time we’re stuck. Somewhere between Marchmont street and Tavistock Place. Then just after quarter to nine, we all hear the explosion. Standing where I was, on a street I had been down so many times, I didn’t know where I was. Suddenly something snaps. People around me are terrified. People with wheelie suitcases and maps, not knowing where to go. Of course I knew where I was, but these people didn’t. A weird maternal instinct, a surge of protection of London and everyone around me kicks in. The B & Bs on the street open their doors – people are let in, given access to pay phones, and – something which made me smile and feel proud – provided with cups of tea. A policeman who bizarrely enough I recognise tells me to get out of here and home, and not to leave my house. I finally get out and on to Guilford street, with throngs of other people. Instead of going straight down towards my flat, I take a right onto Lambs Conduit, then down Great Ormond Street to the hospital. People come with me and we wait in line to give blood. July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack ResponsibilitiesNaima Bouteldja It is still very hard to forecast how the ‘British public’ will react although it has largely shown in the past a greater degree of tolerance and wisdom than its ruling class. However there is a great fear that the British government could use these terrible and totally unjustified attacks to push forward its assault on civil liberties, with its anti-terror legislation and the probable introduction of ID biometric cards, inflicting even more suffering on innocent people at home and abroad. When the IRA was committing attacks on British soil, a few courageous politicians such as former ‘Red’ Ken Livingstone, continued to lobby for the withdrawal of British troops from Northern Ireland, seeing the violence as a manifestation of a political situation of Britain’s making. It is now the responsibility of the anti-war movement and the British people to take the streets again and to demand, “troops out of Iraq and justice not vengeance”. It is also the responsibility of all Muslims not to isolate themselves and to keep working jointly with all the many progressive forces at a grassroots level, as they have been doing over the last four years. Finally, it is the responsibility of the journalists and media not to fuel fear and anger amongst ordinary people, but to perform their duties with accuracy and independence for the sake of community cohesion. r July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack The Real ThingI had a call from Sam in the office warning me not to get the tube as there had been a power surge at Liverpool Street. Then a shout from my partner, "its the real thing". I had left my computer at the office! Unlike Bill Thompson (see below) I had to fall back to the steam age and watch television. I saw a police officer tell me he was in operational control of my city and everyone should stay where they are. The mobile phone connection went dead. It was terrible over the course of the morning to know that people were dying below ground. There was one advantage of watching TV. You could see how the broadcasters were eager to stir, seeking sensation, demanding to know about panic and alarm! Despite this, even when shaken and bleeding, eyewitnesses were careful and matter of fact. This morning, I went down to catch the tube. I missed a train. Saw it pulling out in front of me. Usually I curse at the prospect of a wait for the next one, as London Transport is not famous for its frequency and reliability. Today, as I saw the carriages pass, my heart filled and I smiled. There were full. Everyone was behaving - no, was choosing to behave - as normal. On the next train too. We were all there, the ugly and the attractive; the resigned and those with hope; even those with haliotosis - I was glad to see them all. A friend said when she walked out this morning she saw buses with more people on top than below. Deciding to go about your business as normal is not the same as everyday normal. It makes the everyday a small act of freedom. Fearless? No, it isn’t rhetorical or exaggerated. It isn’t war. It is simply choosing to live. And I did not have to wait too long for the next train either.
July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Brick Lane in the morningI never realised how busy Brick Lane always is until it wasn’t. I was sorely aware this morning on my way to openDemocracy’s office that I had no tikka touts, courier bicycles or even asymmetrical haircuts to bustle past. I guess all London is still slowly returning from the shadows, but something about a quiet Brick Lane was particularly potent. Brick Lane has long been a first generation immigrant community; from Huguenots to Irish, Jews to the current Bangladeshi community. Traces from all these groups are visible all around in architecture, shops and cafes, but something’s changed recently. Nothing tangible, but the air somehow hardened when a van of riot police drove up Hanbury Street, in anticipation of violence, on 5 May. Bethnal Green and Bow, long a safe Labour seat, was taken by George Galloway (of the Respect coalition) in the general elections amid a venomous and divisive campaign. Galloway rode victoriously into Tower Hamlets on a single issue – the Iraq war, his choice of a predominantly Muslim ward coolly calculated. Not that this was an inherently bad tactic. Of course the anti-war movement felt frustrated and politically marginalised, but there’s an acute difference between uniting people around a particular cause and dividing them over it. Galloway’s victory speech was the antithesis of pragmatic reconciliation and nobility, and he’s done little but condemn the “murdering” Messrs Blair and Bush since. Galloway hasn’t offered any leadership or consolations for the families of the dead and wounded at Aldgate station, in his constituency, but has rather inflamed the situation with his accusations that Blair brought this to London, that somehow terrorism is a justified reaction to war. When my dear precious city is attacked like this, when it is physically shaken, I want my MP to be local, just for a while. July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack The phantom of MadridIvan Briscoe, Editor English edition of El Pais Madrid, however, has generated its lessons. The first is obvious, but very hard to digest: this is not over yet. If they were not suicide bombers, then they may be ready to continue the campaign, just as the March 11 ring sought to do with an attack on a high-speed train. Second, avoid at all costs politicizing the bombings, for the dispute will wrangle on and amplify and end up turning corpses into cheap arguments - which is what the terrorist themselves maintain. In Spain, the timing of the attacks three days before the elections served to polarize political opinion on a multitude of issues (there is no agreement any more in Madrid). This will not be London or Britain's problem. But in other ways, venom, as Ken Livingstone warned, will seek its way into the body social and politic. This is the other phantom waiting to reappear. July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack Extraordinary LondonHuda Jawad I feel shock, anger, dread and intimidation. I and my friends have individually shed personal tears yesterday for what happened, all those innocent individuals who chose London as their home, place of work or tourist destination - believing it (and rightly so) to be one of the most unique cities in the world with much history, character and above all a place where everyone can be, can belong - were randomly and callously caught up in the carnage. I remember when I was a young girl living in Damascus, hearing adults talking about London being a city where you can be anything, wear anything and eat anything without people batting an eyelid. I used to sit listening in wonderment at such a magical place where dreams and wishes were realised if you really worked hard. And above all, this is why I think multi-cultural London was targeted. The bombs were not planted near or targeted at government institutions, financial blocks or politicians. The target was the extraordinary Londoner, who easily and skilfully manages to walk and sail through the complex and confusing actual and imagined boundaries of London, where you gain your uniqueness and ‘extra-ordinariness’ by giving and taking from living in the city. Targeting the extraordinary Londoner was a way to strip us and take away from us the wonderful gift of being a people of multiple identities, cultures and interests and our ability to be united in our love and loyalty to London. The sheer number of people that turned out to work in quiet defiance this morning dashes the hopes of these criminals who thought that they could disable our resolve to stay true to our London heritage, that of valuing difference, seeking respect in diversity and loving others through tolerance and acceptance. Oh what little they know about London and its people. July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack "It didn't seem like London"Louisa Hart, 21, Sales Analyst "I work right next to Aldgate tube station. Luckily, I was already safe at my desk when the bomb here exploded. At first noone here was sure of what was going on. We were all viewing the happening from the window. There were hundreds of police, ambulances and fire engines pulling up outside the station. There were also a few unmarked cars with sirens which were making people suspicious about the fact that it was only supposedly a power surge. After the third bombing we were then asked to stay in the building and all the streets around were closed off. This morning on my way to work it just didn't seem like I was in London. I walked from Bank to Aldgate and the streets were really empty. The streets are still all closed off and it is extremly quiet around the office. It will take London a while to get back to normal as now anything slightly suspicious is going to be taken as a serious concern." July 8, 2005 in The London Bombings | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack "We heard the blast of the bus"Melanie Clements, Researcher, University College London "Yesterday was a long-awaited day in London and my over-riding view is that it was not in any way as bad as I expected it to be. Although we have no idea of the final numbers of people involved and my thoughts go out to them, considering the numbers of people who move through London every morning the devastation caused could have been so much worse. I was on the northern line tube when the tunnel blasts went off and we were all informed that due to a power failure our train was not stopping after Euston on the Bank branch. I got off at Euston so wasn't worried but was concerned when thousands of people were trying to get out of Euston station and was just contemplating what a disaster there would be if there was a fire at that point in time. Little did we know what had already occurred less than a mile down the
tunnel. Having arrived at work thought nothing more of it other than
usual tube problems until we heard the blast of the bus and were aware
of all the medics from the building rushing to UCH hospital to do what
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