November 05, 2006

Muslims and Islam today are in a state of siege, subject to a relentless barrage of attacks by the West. Many of them, unable to cope with the situation are seeking refuge in apologetic self-flagellation. Others have even joined the cacophony from the West. At this crucial juncture Milan Rai’s 7/7: The London Bombings, Islam & the Iraq War comes as a most pleasant surprise, offering them, like the “gentle rain from heaven on the place beneath”, a refreshing release from the asphyxiating pressure.

Until July 7, 2005, London was a peaceful city, as Madrid had been until March 11, 2004, except for the sporadic race riots as in 2001. Then, suddenly, like in Madrid, all hell broke loose as London experienced its first terrorist attack in the underground and on a bus, killing dozens of people as well as the bombers.

The four perpetrators were all young men. The eldest, Mohammad Siddique Khan was 30, and the youngest Hasib Hussain, 18. Three of them were born and raised in Britain. The fourth, Abdullah Jamal, 19, was a Jamaican British resident who, upon conversion to Islam in 2001 had changed his original name Germaine Lindsay.

All of them were described by their friends and acquaintances as quite “nice” people in every respect.

Accusations began to fly right and left, with Islam as the usual target. Deliberately missing the wood for the trees, the government offered some facile explanations and announced some dramatic actions to divert public outrage. But it did not answer why “young men born and bred in Britain, with all the rights and freedoms a British citizen enjoys, could decide to blow themselves up and kill other innocent people”. Tony Blair even firmly rejected all requests for a royal commission of inquiry.

This is an odyssey in quest of truth. It is no tongue-in-cheek discourse. In his relentless pursuit Milan Rai explores every nook and cranny and comes out with such bold assertions as “Tony Blair lied” and “Islam is not to blame.”

Almost every page offers some startling revelation, some fascinating and thought-provoking observation. The first such is that the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and MI5 had listed the factors that bred extremism among young Muslims in its report to the government in 2004.

Were the four bombers “brainwashed” or driven to violence by their “inherently brutal” religion or cultural oppression and socio-economic deprivation? Did “an ideology of violence, a brutal interpretation of Islam and their community background play a part in their radicalisation?” Or, “were the bombers motivated by the Iraq war?” These are the questions examined with meticulous detail in the book.

Discussing the life-sketches and background of the four actors, Rai rejects the allegation of “brainwashing” as well as the role of any mosque, imam, madressah or “preacher of hate”. Indeed, none was needed to prod them on. Today’s Muslim youths are self-recruited, do-it-yourself types. The bond of ummah acts like an umbilical cord. They see scenes of barbaric atrocities perpetrated on Muslims elsewhere in the media. That is what stirs their passions and acts as the most effective recruiter.

Though statistics show that Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslims are the largest and the poorest among ethnic groups, yet, neither social deprivation nor cultural alienation had any significant role in turning the minds of the bombers. It is the videos and television showing the atrocities perpetrated on Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir et al that sets their minds afire. And in the instant case it was Britain’s Iraq war that turned them on.

To make his case that “Islam is not to blame” and shatter the myth that Islam preaches violence, Rai draws attention to the West’s provocative attitude against Islam and Muslims. Why “Islamic terrorism, fundamentalism or extremism”, or “Islamists”, he asks, and why not “Christian or Jewish terrorism, fundamentalism or extremism” or “Christianists?” He even asserts and proves that “fundamentalism” is not “extremism”.

Rai’s basic postulate is that though other factors might also have contributed in turning the minds of the London bombers, their influence was only peripheral. It was the Iraq war that really turned them on.

At the very outset he presents statistics to show that a majority of the British people believed in a direct nexus between the Iraq war and the London bombings. This is followed up with a mass of irrefutable and undeniable evidence from a wide spectrum of unimpeachable sources. But the most forceful endorsement of Rai’s thesis comes from the recent report of the US National Intelligence Estimates (NIA), which admits, that the “Iraq war is the cause celebre for radicalising Muslims and spawning terrorism.” It also exposes Tony Blair as a “practiced and confirmed” liar.

It is a marvellous piece of work which leaves the reader a “wiser and sadder man” like the wedding guest in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.