Category Archives: UK

So what do they want?

Posted on by Eddie Truman

‘Terrorism Expert’ Kevin Toolis does his best to whip up hysteria in The Mirror:

“If the Islamic fanatics who bombed London ever achieved their aims and took power, Britain would become an Iranian-style Islamic Republic…. The streets of every British city would be patrolled by special religious police who would enforce this Islamic dress code and arrest any suspected ‘courting couples’.

“Anyone suspected of committing adultery would be hanged or stoned to death in public at the new Wembley stadium. Britain would be ruled by a special council of Islamic Guardians who would oversee all laws and determine who could stand for Parliament….

“The Royal family would be killed or driven into exile. An Islamic Britain would declare war on the United States.”

Daily Mirror, 9 July 2005

Posted in UK

Arab view: ‘Enough, enough’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arabs and Muslims in Britain and across the world expressed outrage at the terrorist attacks in London, with the dominant viewpoint summed up by one person who wrote on a website, “Enough … enough.” The loud condemnation of the attacks that targeted civilians reverberated on the street, over the Internet, in newsrooms, and in Arab and Muslim seats of power. Minority voices praised the attacks with anti-Western invective, but they were largely drowned out.

CNN, 8 July 2005

Juan Cole on the London bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“After Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, many Muslims felt that Bin Laden’s dire warnings to them that the United States wanted to occupy their countries, rape their women, humiliate their men, and steal their assets had been vindicated. These claims were not credited by most of the world’s Muslims before the Iraq war. Opinion polls show that most of the world’s Muslims have great admiration for democracy and many other Western values. They object to the U.S. and the U.K. because of their policies, not their values….

“Long-term Western military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not going to be acceptable to many in the Muslim world. U.S. actions at Abu Ghraib and Fallujah created powerful new symbols of Muslim humiliation that the jihadis who sympathize with al-Qaida can use to recruit a new generation of terrorists.”

Juan Cole on the London bombings.

Salon.com, 8 July 2005

Fascists declare ‘war of civilizations’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The BNP on the London bus bomb: “It is in a way not surprising that the Government and the security services do not want to admit that a suicide bomber has struck. This, more than any other, is the weapon that indicates the extent to which our terrorist enemy is motivated by a religious fanaticism that is almost inexplicable by Western standards. More than anything else, the suicide bomber shows us that the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ is no longer just a catchy book title, but a fact of life and death that will plague the West until we stop trying to impose our values on other peoples in their countries – and insist that they must not be allowed to impose their values on us in ours.”

BNP news article, 9 July 2005

Islamist takeover: the inevitabilty of gradualness

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Islamists could make huge strides in their campaign to undermine Western societies if they used any tactic other than terror. And, in fact, in Great Britain, they have made incredible progress by playing upon Britain’s overindulgence of any minority complaint. Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes keeps a running chronicle of British abjectness on his website….

“If the Islamists had but the patience to play upon the guilt-ridden West’s weakness, they might have their victory in a few decades. Leaning over backwards has become so common in the West that its enemies could reasonably wonder whether any spine remained at all. Brutal attacks like that in London snap us back to reality and remind all but the most weak-minded Europeans and Americans that appeasement is nothing less than slow surrender.”

Mona Charen offers tactical advice.

TownHall.com, 8 July 2005

London Muslims fear backlash after bombs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thousands of Muslims crowded London mosques for Friday prayers, condemning the bombings, but also wary they could be made scapegoats and fearful of reprisals against their growing and vibrant community.

At the East London Mosque, near the site of one of Thursday’s attacks, an imam told the 8,000 worshippers to be “confident in our identity” as part of London’s multicultural fabric.

The mosque said it had received hate e-mails and a telephone threat to disrupt Friday prayers. A few police officers stood outside during the prayers, which ended peacefully.

Outside, some Muslims said the attacks had made them more cautious on the streets, but others said they were secure in their identity as Londoners _ confident of the city’s tolerant traditions.

“It will have some impact on people. But this is London, a cosmopolitan city,” said student Ali Ayubi. “Maybe after one or two months it will go back to normal.”

Associated Press report, 9 July 2005

Telegraph poll on attitudes towards British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A YouGov poll for the Telegraph finds that only 23% of people believe that “practically all British Muslims are peaceful, law-abiding citizens who deplore the bombings as much as everyone else”. A further 64% believe while that the “great majority” of British Muslims are peaceful, there is a “dangerous minority” willing to support or engage in terrorism. Another 10% believe that a “large proportion” of British Muslims “are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism”. Furthermore, 81% believe that “the threat is so serious that the authorities should act against suspected terrorists even if they have not committed any offence”.

‘Where is the Gandhi of Islam?’ Charles Moore wants to know

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“When Britain was afflicted by Irish republican terrorism, most Irish people repudiated that terrorism. It was nevertheless the case that the great majority of the terrorists – more than 95 per cent – were Irish, or of Irish origin, and they drew overwhelmingly on Irish people to help and hide them. This was not a funny coincidence. It was because the IRA preached a doctrine about Ireland and called on the loyalty of a perverted version of Irishness. Therefore, the words ‘Irish’ and ‘terrorist’ went together, hard though this was on the majority of Irish people…. So it must be with Muslims in Britain….

“We flap around, looking for moderates and giving them knighthoods, making placatory noises, putting bits of Islam on to the multi-faith menu in schools, banishing Bibles from hospital beds, trying to criminalise the expression of ‘religious hatred’, blaming George Bush and Tony Blair….

“If you look at the Koran, you will find many glorifications of violence. In Sura No 8, for example, God is quoted as saying: ‘I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers!’ This punishment comes to them for having ‘defied God and His apostle’. It seems reasonable to ask Muslims what this sort of remark means in the modern world….

“When did you last hear criticisms of named extremist groups and organisations by Muslim leaders, or support for their expulsion, imprisonment or extradition? How often do you see fatwas issued against suicide bombers and other terrorists, or statements by learned men declaring that people who commit such deeds will go to hell?… When did a British Muslim last go after a Muslim who advocates or practises violence with anything like the zeal with which so many went after Salman Rushdie?”

Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph, 9 July 2005

Update:  See “We don’t need a Gandhi”, Indigo Jo Blogs. 12 July 2005

‘And this is why they did it’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There are many Muslims who believe that the idea that all other faiths have been ‘abrogated’ and that the whole of mankind should be united under the banner of Islam must be dropped as a dangerous anachronism. But to the Islamist those Muslims who think like that are themselves regarded as lapsed, and deserving of death.”

Right-wing Iranian exile Amir Taheri, one of the “thinkers” promoted by the neocon PR company Benador Associates, offers his explanation of the motives behind the London bombings. Note that Taheri adopts the same approach as the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty – blurring the difference between political Islam and terrorism in order to suggest that all “Islamists” are terrorists.

Times, 8 July 2005

Indeed, for Taheri, there is a clear overlap between mainstream Islam and terrorism: “Go to any mosque in the West (let alone in the Islamic countries) on any Friday and you are sure to hear a litany of woes about how the ‘cross-worshippers’ have allied themselves with the ‘plotting Jews’ in order to destroy Islam, which, as God’s final message, is the only true faith.”

New York Post, 8 July 2005

AWL blames ‘political Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Alliance for Workers’ Liberty statement on the London bombings blames “political Islam”. It adds:

“Political Islam is a political current; and the mass of people of Muslim religion or background are its prime victims and opponents. It is ‘anti-imperialist’ only in a reactionary sense. Its hatred of US imperialism is no more progressive than fascists’ hatred of Jewish finance-capitalists.”

AWL website, 7 July 2005

Given that the AWL includes organisations like MAB under that heading, the irresponsibility of this accusation is really quite disgraceful.

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