The post-Iraq war conflict has affected many countries, including Pakistan. But when something terrible happens in a city like London, it assumes supreme importance. How come a tragedy that hits the West is more worth noticing than the cloud of sorrow that hangs over the East?
IT is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. What you repeatedly fear often happens. That has been the psychological state of Londoners after 9/11. Since the WTC disaster, hardly a day has passed by when the British media has not predicted and anticipated terrorist attacks on London. In fact, the media has been almost writing the script for the terrorists. Numerous maps of the London underground appear regularly as target points in all publications, and all possible options have been discussed and debated on what could happen. Thus the blasts, though sad and shocking, had an air of inevitability about them.
The post-Iraq war conflict has affected many countries in the world like Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines etc, but, of course, when it happens to London, it assumes supreme importance. This event has once again revealed the horror of this bloody, ruthless and inhumane conflict between the Muslim and the Western worlds. As innocent lives are lost daily in Iraq, and occasionally in the West, the strategic intent of both parties to suppress and oppress the opposition by force and coercion gathers endless and horribly lethal proportions.
THE DAY AFTER: The hangover of winning the London 2012 Olympics was still not over, and people were dancing in the streets and celebrating with champagne, when in the early hours of the morning the fireworks of celebration turned into bomb blasts. At least 52 people were killed and more than 700 injured as the terrorists struck at the heart of London, causing the biggest loss of life in a terrorist attack on mainland Britain. In a series of coordinated strikes, explosive devices were detonated on three underground trains and a bus travelling through central London during the morning rush hour.
Emergency services rushed to east, west and central London as the bombs went off in sequence and without warning over a 50-minute period. The first device exploded at 8.51am on a Circle line train between Aldgate East and Liverpool Street stations. Seven people were killed. At 8.56am a second device exploded on a train between King’s Cross and Russell Square, killing 21 people. At 9.17am there was another blast on a train at Edgware Road station, which blew a hole through a wall into another train on an adjoining platform. Two other trains were affected and seven people were killed. At 9.47am a fourth blast blew the top off a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square, central London, possibly killing more than a dozen people. As emergency efforts swung into operation, the tube and bus network was shut down and ordinary Londoners began a desperate endeavour to help the terrified and the injured. Underground staff and passersby, their faces bloodied, blackened and cut, comforted passengers. Many rushed from offices and shops to help paramedics.
The media set the whole city alert and people were afraid to venture out expecting more attacks. As the commotion cleared, the most obvious suspect to be blamed was Al Qaeda. Nearly all authorities concerned claimed the attack had links with Al Qaeda. Intelligence and anti-terrorist officials said there was little doubt that a group affiliated to or inspired by Al Qaeda had carried out the attacks. Tony Blair praised the “stoicism and resilience” of Londoners in the face of onslaught on the capital’s transport system by bombers he implied were Islamist terrorists.
An Islamist website posted a statement claiming a European cell of Al Qaeda had carried out the attacks. A body calling itself the secret organization of the Al Qaeda Jihad in Europe said the attacks were in retaliation for Britain’s involvement in US-led operations. The statement, which could not be immediately confirmed, said: “Rejoice for it is time to take revenge against the British Zionist crusader government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan. The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern and western quarters.”
Scotland Yard said the four devices had been “conventional explosives”, not containing chemical or biological material, but could not initially say what size the devices were, whether suicide bombers had carried them or whether they had been left in packages on the trains and the bus. Whatever the nature of attacks, they have deepened the divide between the two opposing forces in the world.
THE MULTICULTURAL ILLUSION: London is definitely a melting pot of races, religions and cultures. In central London you will view all nationalities walking across the underground. Asians and Africans in huge numbers have migrated to this country in search of a better standard of living. Arriving as cheap labour, many of them are settlers of second or third generation by now and have really struggled their way to establish themselves as entrepreneurs or working class who have succeeded in entering the middle and upper classes of society. With their children obtaining education and awareness they have started posing an economic threat to their British counterparts.
Many of the richest streets now belong to Asians. The Arabs dominate Edgeware road, where one of the trains was blown away, while Southall known as little Asia, is a booming retail centre dominated by the Indians and Pakistanis. On a holiday tour London looks like an ideal place for all sorts of people to coexist peacefully, yet those who live there will tell you how big this illusion really is.
Britain’s Muslims have long complained of an upsurge in abuse since the September 11 attacks and the so-called war on terror, in which London has played a leading role. Britain’s Open Society Institute said in a report, that various forms of Islamophobia and racial discrimination are on the upswing since the 9/11 attacks alienating the sizable Muslim community in Britain.
According to the results of a survey by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) four out of five British Muslims have experienced discrimination in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Some 80 per cent of the country’s 1.8 million Muslims say they have been discriminated against because of their faith compared to 45 per cent in 2000 and 35 per cent in 1999. This means the number of British Muslims, which faced discrimination, has nearly doubled in the past four years. In the past women were more readily identifiable as Muslims because of their dress and headscarves. Now, however, Muslim men are equally visible — partly because the public has got used to seeing turbaned, bearded men like Osama bin Laden on their television sets. After the recent blasts things are not likely to improve.
THE BACKLASH COMPETITION: The West denies, but inwardly justifies, discrimination on the basis of Osama terrorism; the Muslim world explains the rise of terrorism as a reaction to American and British atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq. Who is responsible for this reaction and counter-reaction will never truly be revealed till the international bodies assessing human rights situations and the media reporting these events become unbiased and fair in portraying the true picture of the conflict. In Iraq these days and in Afghanistan during the war, 50 deaths were almost a daily ritual. Such happenings in Iraq warrant a rare mention in the western media.
In today’s global world where updated news are flashed across every household and every office on TV 24 hours a day, the Internet and other broadcast and print media, seeing is believing. The power of CNN and BBC to penetrate every nook and corner of the world has a great influence on shaping opinions and perceptions of the people being brainwashed by repeated dramatic scenes of buildings being blown off and people flinging themselves from high-rise buildings. It is unfortunate that the atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq where hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been massacred in houses, schools, mosques and hospitals by wayward US and British forces will never be shown in the media.
It is sad that the perverted, animalistic and indescribably revolting and repulsive behaviour of US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay will never get more than a few pictorial coverage in tabloids and an occasional mention in official speeches. It is almost certain that a video of some of the incredibly inhuman acts committed by US soldiers in Abu Gharib prison and Guantanamo Bay running repeatedly on these very media for some months would turn the most biased and ardent of American and British citizens against their own governments.
Unfortunately, the world for the next century or so will only see the two planes hitting WTC and see British and American people being blown away, rather than the almost daily massacre which has been going on in Palestine, Bosnia, Dafur, Afghanistan and in Iraq. The total number of deaths is in millions but they do not count. Just consider one case of Bosnia in which these very days 10 years ago, 7,500 Muslim teenagers were gagged, bound, tortured and shot by the Serbian police, on which the media has hardly spent some minutes to barely commemorate it. And you know why people do not feel aghast by atrocities of a much bigger scale than the current disasters. What counts are the 2,500 or so deaths at the WTC and the 52 deaths in the London blast, because that is what every pair of eyes will see on the media for a long time to follow.
DIVIDE AND RULE: United you stand and divided you fall. This ancient saying has deep truth in it as the West has understood this and used it fully to their advantage. The G8 have been united in their stand on what they classify as terrorism and despite some disagreement on the Iraq war, have given in to the policies of the US and the UK on the basis of keeping on the right side of power brokers. On the other hand, the Muslim world has always played into their hands and has never been united in their efforts to deal with the unethical and illegal encroachments of these powers in their Muslim homelands. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait have been used as bases for American occupational designs. With pro-American governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq remained a stumbling block in the way of American stampede. Pitting Muslims against Muslims has been the open secret of the super power. Iraq Vs Kuwait and then Iraq Vs Iran were the wars that ensured divide in the Muslim world. The recent tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan are yet another example of how to divide and rule.
This policy is not only successful at the national level but also at the socio-cultural level. In Britain, for example, there are two types of Muslim families. Those who are genuine immigrants and seek support from each other to fight against discrimination; and those who are pseudo-Muslims whose desire to be part of the English society makes them look down upon their fellow Muslims and thus they take a pleasure in joining the English ranks to condemn their own people. These pseudo-Muslims take pride in not living in a desi dominated neighbourhood, change their Muslim names to English nick names, and feel ashamed of the “uncouth” behaviour of their black and brown fellowmen. This inter-religious divide further weakens the case of a united voice fighting for their rights and making significant protests against the wrongs of the western society.
CONCLUSION: The implications of these blasts are far deeper than finding Osama and nailing Al Qaeda. As Hosni Mubarik of Egypt warned the western world, the unjust abuse of power against the Muslim world will give birth to hundreds of Osamas all over the world. It has already happened. The West must learn that no amount of homeland and inland security can prevent a man willing to give up his life from breaking every security system. As the western society becomes more retaliatory towards the Muslims, they will strengthen the resolve of the terrorists to lash out, no matter how irrational and self-destructive it may be.
The last two years have seen anybody with a Muslim name in America finding himself at the receiving end. Cases of discrimination and bias against the Muslims rose sharply last year. According to a survey released in May by a national Islamic group, nationwide hate crimes against the Muslims rose 52 per cent to 141 last year compared with 2003, and civil rights violations reported to the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, jumped 49 per cent to 1,522. In New Jersey, incidents of discrimination or bias crimes surged by more than 72 per cent, to 69 in 2004 compared to the previous year.
Being a Muslim — and that also of Pakistani origin — is perhaps the worst credentials you can have in Britain and the US these days. Despite Pakistan being acclaimed as America’s staunch ally in the war against terror, Pakistan is reputed to be a hub of all terrorists in the world. Last year, the British media was full of the scandal about a conspiracy of targeting the London underground, World Bank HQ and Citigroup building in the US by a terrorist group. Of course, the master planner of this conspiracy was suspected to be Noor Khan, a young student of computer science from where else but Lahore, who seemed to have devised a genius plan for breaking into the security system of these buildings.
Similarly, in present blasts, some men of Pakistani descent having British nationality are being questioned on the basis of suspected involvement in the attacks. Hamid Karzai has claimed that Mullah Omar and Osama are hiding in Pakistan. All these are allegations, which make the life of the Pakistanis living within the country and overseas very difficult. Leaders of this country must reflect on how their policies have not only failed to improve the credibility of Pakistanis in the western world, but is increasingly unleashing the wrath of a betrayed Muslim world on them in the form of continuous conflict across the border and unrest within the country. Is complete subjugation to western designs really worth it? Not really.
IT is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. What you repeatedly fear often happens. That has been the psychological state of Londoners after 9/11. Since the WTC disaster, hardly a day has passed by when the British media has not predicted and anticipated terrorist attacks on London. In fact, the media has been almost writing the script for the terrorists. Numerous maps of the London underground appear regularly as target points in all publications, and all possible options have been discussed and debated on what could happen. Thus the blasts, though sad and shocking, had an air of inevitability about them.
THE MULTICULTURAL ILLUSION: London is definitely a melting pot of races, religions and cultures. In central London you will view all nationalities walking across the underground. Asians and Africans in huge numbers have migrated to this country in search of a better standard of living. Arriving as cheap labour, many of them are settlers of second or third generation by now and have really struggled their way to establish themselves as entrepreneurs or working class who have succeeded in entering the middle and upper classes of society. With their children obtaining education and awareness they have started posing an economic threat to their British counterparts.
DIVIDE AND RULE: United you stand and divided you fall. This ancient saying has deep truth in it as the West has understood this and used it fully to their advantage. The G8 have been united in their stand on what they classify as terrorism and despite some disagreement on the Iraq war, have given in to the policies of the US and the UK on the basis of keeping on the right side of power brokers. On the other hand, the Muslim world has always played into their hands and has never been united in their efforts to deal with the unethical and illegal encroachments of these powers in their Muslim homelands. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait have been used as bases for American occupational designs. With pro-American governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq remained a stumbling block in the way of American stampede. Pitting Muslims against Muslims has been the open secret of the super power. Iraq Vs Kuwait and then Iraq Vs Iran were the wars that ensured divide in the Muslim world. The recent tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan are yet another example of how to divide and rule.
