Reacties over Londen - o.a. van Tariq Ramadan

[Ron Haleber]

Ik geef hier drie artikelen uit the Guardian over Londen. Zeker 2 en 3 zijn niet in de NL-pers te vinden!

1. Ramadan - legt de nadruk op het multicultureel samenleven maar gaat niet in op het MO.

2. Clark - oud adviseur van Blair die scherp tegen hem ingaat: roer moet om.

3. Tariq Ali te zien in Nova. Idem scherpe analyse!

bron http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/0,16132,1524135,00.html



Living together takes effort

Every individual can play a part in fighting terror

Tariq Ramadan

Saturday July 9, 2005
The Guardian

The message of the criminals who attacked London is plain: "We can strike western societies from within; no one is safe from terror; we have the means to choose the right time, the right places, the right symbols." We must acknowledge that their message, coming the day after the announcement of London's victory to host the Olympic games in 2012, was strong and terrifying.
The objective of these attacks is to make us realise how fragile our societies are. From this feeling of fragility arises fear - for oneself and of the Other.

On Wednesday Londoners were united in joy. Now we face the risk that fear will build walls of doubt and misunderstanding between them. All could come to feel that they are potential victims: of Muslim extremists on the one hand; of rejection and racism on the other. The proponents of the "clash of civilisations" theory will have won if we allow ourselves to become suspicious towards people of other faiths and cultures.
Where does and where shall our strength lie? First, we must condemn these attacks with the strongest energy; Muslims in unison with wider British society. But to condemn is not enough. Our values, our societies, our common future require that we become aware of our shared responsibilities. Yes, London is a multicultural society but - in common with the rest of Europe - it will preserve its pluralistic equilibrium only through the personal engagement of every individual in their daily life, within their own neighbourhood.

Muslims must speak out and explain who they are, what they believe in, what they stand for, what is the meaning of their life. They must have the courage to denounce what is said and done by certain Muslims in the name of their religion. They will not reassure their fellow citizens by pretending to be "like them", saying only what they want to hear and becoming invisible. They have to assert their identities, refuse simplistic discourses, promote critical and self-critical understanding and get out from their intellectual, religious and social ghettos. European societies need to see European Muslims involved in the society's questions of the day: citizenship, school, unemployment. Their strength must lie in refusing to be victims and in becoming active citizens, politically engaged both domestically and internationally.

I n the name of the rule of law, democracy and human rights, we cannot accept that the rights of individuals (Arab or Muslim) be trampled upon, or that populations are targeted and discriminated against in the name of the war against terrorism. The strength of democratic societies relies on their capacity to know how to stand firm against extremism while respecting justice in the means used to fight terrorism.

We shall achieve this balance only if every citizen, after the shock of this attack, makes the effort to get to know his neighbour better - his difference, his complexity, his values and hopes. It is not enough for progressive, open-minded people to say, "This is not Islam!" It is urgent that such people meet and act alongside Muslims - practically, concretely, daily. More and more Europeans are becoming passive, comforting themselves with pious vows and idealistic discourses: they want concrete measures against terror but think that "living together" will happen with no effort, as if by magic.

Terror will crash down on us if we fail to understand that a pluralistic society requires the personal and daily commitment of every citizen. Criminals, no doubt, will continue to kill, but we shall be able to respond to them by demonstrating that our experience of human brotherhood and mutual respect is stronger than their message of hate. Our lives are fragile, but our commitment to our ideals is strong.

· Tariq Ramadan is a Muslim academic. His books include Western Muslims and the Future of Islam

www.tariqramadan.com

[Ron Haleber]

In mijn media-topic ivm de BBC doelde ik op deze David Clark in gesprek met `alim Zaki Badawi.

Clark geeft een scherpe analyse dat het roer om moet!


This terror will continue until we take Arab grievances seriously

Our focus must now be on the conditions that allow Bin Ladenists to recruit and operate

David Clark
Saturday July 9, 2005
The Guardian

It must now be obvious, even to those who would like us to think otherwise, that the war on terror is failing. This is not to say that the terrorists are winning. Their prospects of constructing the medieval pan-Islamic caliphate of their fantasies are as negligible today as they were four years ago when they attacked America. It is simply to point out that their ability to bring violence and destruction to our streets is as strong as ever and shows no sign of diminishing. We may capture the perpetrators of Thursday's bombings, but others will follow to take their place. Moreover, the actions of our leaders have made this more likely, not less. It's time for a rethink.

The very idea of a war on terror was profoundly misconceived from the start. Rooted in traditional strategic thought, with its need for fixed targets and an identifiable enemy, the post-9/11 response focused myopically on the problem of how and where to apply military power. Once the obvious and necessary task of tackling Bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan had been completed, those charged with prosecuting the war needed a new target to aim at.

In his book Against All Enemies, the former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke chronicles the inability of senior administration officials to grasp the nature of the threat directed against them. Even before 9/11 they were fixated with the notion that behind a successful terrorist network like al-Qaida must be state sponsorship; destroy the state, destroy the threat, ran the theory. In this environment it was easy for the neoconservatives to win approval for their prefabricated plan to attack Iraq.

But al-Qaida has never depended on state sponsorship, except in the wholly unintended sense that the US-funded campaign against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan brought its members together and gave them their first taste of jihad. Indeed it is a mistake even to regard al-Qaida as an organisation in the traditional sense of the term. At most it is now little more than an idea, fusing ideology with operational method, both of which can be accessed freely via the internet. It is quite meaningless to talk about destroying the "terrorist infrastructure", unless we propose to carpet bomb Microsoft. We have entered the era of do-it-yourself terrorism.

Bin Laden must be brought to justice, but he has become a strategic irrelevance in the struggle against terrorism. Wherever he is - on the run in the badlands of Waziristan or holed up in someone's cellar - he is not directing operations. He doesn't need to. He has provided the inspiration and example for a new generation of terrorists who have never been to his training camps in Afghanistan and whose only connection to al-Qaida is a shared desire to lash out at the west.

It should be clear by now that we cannot defeat this threat with conventional force alone, however necessary that may be in specific circumstances. Even good policing, as we have found to our cost, will have only limited effect in reducing its capacity to harm. The opposite response - negotiation - is equally futile. How can you negotiate with a phenomenon that is so elusive and diffuse? And even if you could, what prospect would there be of reaching a reasonable settlement? The term "Islamofascism" may be a crude political device, but those who coined it are right to see in Bin Ladenism a classic totalitarian doctrine that accepts no limits in method or aim. What they want, we cannot give.

An effective strategy can be developed, but it means turning our attention away from the terrorists and on to the conditions that allow them to recruit and operate. No sustained insurgency can exist in a vacuum. At a minimum, it requires communities where the environment is permissive enough for insurgents to blend in and organise without fear of betrayal. This does not mean that most members of those communities approve of what they are doing. It is enough that there should be a degree of alienation sufficient to create a presumption against cooperating with the authorities. We saw this in Northern Ireland.

From this point of view, it must be said that everything that has followed the fall of Kabul has been ruinous to the task of winning over moderate Muslim opinion and isolating the terrorists within their own communities. In Iraq we allowed America to rip up the rule book of counter-insurgency with a military adventure that was dishonestly conceived and incompetently executed.

Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed by US troops uninterested in distinguishing between combatant and noncombatant, or even counting the dead. The hostility engendered has been so extreme that the CIA has been forced to conclude that Iraq may become a worse breeding ground for international terrorism that Afghanistan was. Bin Laden can hardly believe his luck.

The political dimensions of this problem mean that there can be no hope of defeating terrorism until we are ready to take legitimate Arab grievances seriously.

We must start by acknowledging that their long history of engagement with the west is one that has left many Arabs feeling humiliated and used. There is more to this than finding a way of bringing the occupation of Iraq to an end.

We cannot seriously claim to care for the rights of Arabs living in Iraq when it is obvious that we care so little for Arabs living in Palestine. The Palestinians need a viable state, but all the indications suggest that the Bush administration is preparing to bounce the Palestinians into accepting a truncated entity that will lack the basic characteristics of either viability or statehood. That must not be allowed to succeed.

At its inception post-9/11, the war on terror was shaped by the fact that it was American blood that had been shed. This gave President Bush the moral authority to tell the world "you're either with us or against us". Having stood with America, and paid a terrible price for doing so, it is now time to turn that demand back on Bush.

We have a vital national interest in defeating terrorism and we must have a greater say in how that is done. The current approach is failing and it's time for a change. If Tony Blair cannot bring himself to say this, he owes it to his country to make way for someone who can.

· David Clark is a former Labour government adviser

[email protected]

[Ron Haleber]

Het in NOVA genoemde artikel van Tariq Ali die daar in beeld zn commentaar gaf.


The price of occupation

Tariq Ali
Friday July 8, 2005
The Guardian

During the last phase of the Troubles, the IRA targeted mainland Britain: it came close to blowing up Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet in Brighton. Some years later a missile was fired at No 10. London's financial quarter was also targeted. There was no secret as to the identity of the organisation that carried out the hits or its demands. And all this happened despite the various Prevention of Terrorism Acts passed by the Commons.

The bombers who targeted London yesterday are anonymous. It is assumed that those who carried out these attacks are linked to al-Qaida. We simply do not know. Al-Qaida is not the only terrorist group in existence. It has rivals within the Muslim diaspora. But it is safe to assume that the cause of these bombs is the unstinting support given by New Labour and its prime minister to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

One of the arguments deployed by Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, when he appealed to Tony Blair not to support the war in Iraq was prescient: "An assault on Iraq will inflame world opinion and jeopardise security and peace everywhere. London, as one of the major world cities, has a great deal to lose from war and a lot to gain from peace, international cooperation and global stability."

Most Londoners (as the rest of the country) were opposed to the Iraq war. Tragically, they have suffered the blow and paid the price for the re-election of Blair and a continuation of the war.

Ever since 9/11, I have been arguing that the "war against terror" is immoral and counterproductive. It sanctions the use of state terror - bombing raids, torture, countless civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq - against Islamo-anarchists whose numbers are small, but whose reach is deadly. The solution then, as now, is political, not military. The British ruling elite understood this perfectly well in the case of Ireland. Security measures, anti-terror laws rushed through parliament, identity cards, a curtailment of civil liberties, will not solve the problem. If anything, they will push young Muslims in the direction of mindless violence.

The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Just because these three wars are reported sporadically and mean little to the everyday lives of most Europeans does not mean the anger and bitterness they arouse in the Muslim world and its diaspora is insignificant. As long as western politicians wage their wars and their colleagues in the Muslim world watch in silence, young people will be attracted to the groups who carry out random acts of revenge.

At the beginning of the G8, Blair suggested that "poverty was the cause of terrorism". It is not so. The principal cause of this violence is the violence being inflicted on the people of the Muslim world. And unless this is recognised, the horrors will continue.
· Tariq Ali's latest book is Speaking of Empire and Resistance.

[email protected]

[Siah]

"The message of the criminals who attacked London is plain: "We can strike western societies from within; no one is safe from terror; we have the means to choose the right time, the right places, the right symbols." We must acknowledge that their message, coming the day after the announcement of London's victory to host the Olympic games in 2012, was strong and terrifying. "

de intellectuals zouden dan in ieder geval een beetje aan dat soort 'news' moeten gaan twijfelen!

en ik weet niet of ze(??) 'puur' criminelen waren.

[Ron Haleber]

Geplaatst door Siah
"[
en ik weet niet of ze(??) 'puur' criminelen waren.

Het lijkt me moeilijk om te ontkennen dat het criminelen zijn.

Een andere zaak is het om zoals met name bij Tariq Ali naar voren komt: om te begrijpen waaruit de terreur ontstaan is en waarom ze voortduurt...

Aan dat laatste schort het in de Nederlandse media!