Violence as a two-way solution

by Jeff Siddiqui

I got in my car today, just in time to hear BBC news ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8242238.stm ), and I was stunned by a report of three British Muslim men who had just been convicted of plotting to blow up several (seven) airliners en route to North America. Apparently they had concocted a liquid solution that they were going to smuggle on board in soft drink bottles and detonate them (see video of simulated blast of the explosive they had prepared). At least one of them had even prepared death video in which he referred to “Sheikh Osama” who had told the West to get out and now that they had not done so, they will pay a heavy price.

“Sheikh” bloody Osama.

I was and am, infuriated.

Regardless of the provocation, regardless of the cause, how can ANY person, let alone one who professes to be a devout Muslim (like these three), plan to kill hundreds, if not thousands of non-combatants…innocent people who have no clue as to what is going on?

The people these men were planning to kill were not soldiers in combat, nor were they involved in occupation, oppression or really anything to do with violence against anyone…what kind of a devilish “message” were these three trying to send and whose cause would be enhanced by such a horrific deed?

Quite aside from being ignorant about issues and even about Islam (based on the action they were about to undertake), these men were obviously too lazy and too cowardly to actually THINK and try to make effective changes from within the Empires by the power they already had in their miserable hands…the power to gather a vote!

The reason these hate-crazed people had, was that “foreigners” were killing innocent Muslims on a wholesale basis…so they decide to kill innocent people on a wholesale basis, just to “show them”!

Three incredibly stupid, vicious and unthinking men, for whom the only way to vent their frustration, was to prepare to die and take hundreds of innocent people with them; there can be no reason or consideration that would even come close to accepting what they had planned.

This conviction should ring bells of warning among the “Coalition of the Willing” though…and (please God!) galvanize them into constructive action.

While there is absolutely no way to justify such murderous plans, we would be fools if we derive no lesson from what is going on and the conditions that create such people.

Most South Asians in Britain were post-WWII labor imports and poorly educated. When they arrived in Britain, they settled in ghettos and basically kept to their own, helping each other maintain their narrow-minded perspectives (I did say “most”, not “all”).

Britain used these people as much as possible, but largely ignored their social needs. The new immigrants were steered into ghettos and ghetto towns where they were subjected to benign neglect. Being a highly class-conscious society, Britain would humiliate these people and their children, sometimes by ignoring their needs and other times actively by classing them along lines recognizing their position of servitude in the “mother” country. Today, Muslims from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh live in some of the worst social areas of Britain, with the highest unemployment rates and the poorest schools and social services.

Small wonder that people feel alienated in the country of their choice or birth. The children grow up not knowing where they will go for education or jobs (discrimination, while subtle, is pervasive), they grow up with no sense of belonging’ “Paki-bashing” is not uncommon and names like “wog”, “darkie” etc., are easily heard.

In such climes, it does not take a big sale job to entice kids to their “REAL” identity and to mold them into violence in the name of Islam, ironically, their parents provide the children with the opportunity to become violent when the parents send them “back home” in order to help them learn the traditional ways and maybe get straightened-out under the guidance of older relatives…which is where the children come across “Muslim” recruiters with hate and violence in their hearts.

Alienated, frustrated and hostile, the kids grow up to be men with violence in their hearts as well.

It is not a leap to focus hate towards an adopted or birth country where there is a prevailing atmosphere of hate, rejection and exclusion towards a certain group…Muslims in this case; while Rome is busy fighting wars “out there”, the underclass may well be plotting rebellion at home.

Of course, this is not the ONLY reason and it may not even be a reason for these three people, I am simply considering possibilities how such a culture could find a growth-medium.
Some other countries that have similar environments and attitudes towards their Muslim minorities (also from labor classes), who also are France, Spain and Italy.

The US is similar in some ways and not in others.

Muslims in the US tend for the most part, to come from educated classes of people, which makes them more amenable to blend in with the rest of the populace; these Muslims also tend to be spread throughout cities, rather than live in ghettos. This would be working very well except for a latent hostility towards Muslims since long before 9-11. After 9-11 this hostility took wing and became an open hunting season for Muslims, creating an atmosphere of hate and fear towards Muslims with active participants from the Government (politicians) Administration as well as the public sector, fuelled and fanned by radio, tv and other media leaders.

In the US today, law-enforcement agencies appear to make it a mark of achievement to target Muslims, politicians appear to gain points (as do talk-show hosts) by focusing hate towards Arabs and Muslims…there is a pervasive atmosphere that seems to demand reasons why Muslims should NOT be suspected of terrorism, instead of embracing Muslims and going after criminals/terrorists who may or may not be Muslims.

Unknowingly, unwittingly and unthinkingly, the US has created a sense of alienation among many young (and many not-so-young) Arabs and Muslims that can have deadly consequences if there is not an immediate and effective course-correction in attitudes towards Muslims, both within the US and outside.

This is not about any forced sense of “Patriotism”, so the answer is not the trite, “If they don’t like it here, they can just go back where they came from”.

We are here, this is our country and we have as much of a right to be here as anyone else (barring the Native American).

Whether America embraces us now or after they have finished with their “War!” on Islam and Muslims, is up to our political leadership. In the meantime, we have a whole generation of youth growing up with a feeling that they are objects of hate, fear and suspicion.

It is time to get off the “War!” footing and look for peace and accommodation within…in Europe AND in the Americas.