Author: Sandhya Jain
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: July 12, 2005
As in the United States after 9/11,
so also in Britain after 7/7, the Sikh community bore the brunt of the
first backlash against the London blasts with a gurdwara in Kent being
set on fire. Prime Minister Tony Blair called a high level meeting to discuss
"community tensions" as 70 incidents against minorities were reported across
the country in as many hours. Only a very arrogant people could fail to
distinguish turbans from skullcaps. Yet in both countries, the perpetrators
of violence were indifferent to the distinction in their determination
to teach the "Other" a lesson.
This brings me to the grammar of
political discourse, in which Indian media is shamefully complicit. Ordinarily,
tensions between communities leading to action against one group are communal
tensions resulting in communal violence. Yet, while the "communal" tag
is readily applied to incidents in India, especially those that can be
attributed to the Hindu community (Godhra will never be called an instance
of blatant communal assault), carefully sanitized terms such as "backlash"
and "community tensions" are invoked to cover communal offensives by White
people. Apparently it is the karma of Brown Folks to bear the burden of
the White Man.
Another media duplicity is the comparison
between political responses in Britain and India to the attacks in London
and Ayodhya. In Britain, the Labour and Conservative parties and mainstream
print and electronic media share an unstated consensus on issues affecting
the nation. Hence there will always be a unity of political response in
times of crisis because both sides know this is imperative to tackle the
enemy. In India, in contrast, several political parties as well as the
mainstream print and electronic media subscribe to a non-national agenda
and work proactively to undermine the emergence of a coherent and self-confident
nationalism.
This can be readily seen in the
near-hysterical insistence that the attack on the Ram Janmabhoomi should
not be communalized (whatever that means); its jihadi (denominational)
face should not be mentioned; and there should be no debate on the possible
consequences to the nation if the assailants had succeeded in their ignoble
intentions (destroyed the temple). It goes without saying that if one political
party had not displayed a measure of partisanship on the issue, and if
the London blasts had not followed soon thereafter, the issue would have
been dismissed as a non-event.
To return to the London blasts,
at the risk of sounding unpleasant, it needs to be said that few nations
have so assiduously cultivated the terrorist menace that finally visited
Britain last Thursday. I am not referring to British support for American
action in Afghanistan or Iraq, but to the more cussed English propensity
to nurture the "wanted" men of even friendly countries. Even after 9/11,
members of the current Labour dispensation remained unperturbed at the
presence of highly dangerous men with subversive agendas on their soil.
Their smug certainty that these unshackled human bombs would never implode
on home ground has resulted in the present denouement.
Foremost among the Islamic militants
London has been pleased to host over the past decade is Syria-born Sheikh
Omar Bakri Mohammed, 47, who openly coaxed Muslim youths to join the Iraqi
resistance. Media reports suggest Omar addressed a gathering in central
London last December and warned that if Western governments did not mend
their ways, Muslims would give them "a 9/11, day after day after day."
Yet London remained congenial towards those wishing to raise funds and
recruits for 'holy' causes. A particularly notorious venue was the Finsbury
Park mosque in north London where Abu Hamza al-Masri, wanted in Egypt for
plotting terror strikes, propagated jihad with élan. Devotees at
this mosque gave generous support to "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and Al
Qaeda member Feroz Abassi, who plotted to blow up the US Embassy in France.
With such strong domestic roots,
it is hardly surprising that officials feel that Thursday's culprits are
probably British-born jihadis, inspired to action by these venom-spewing
mosques. The theory is spreading jitters across Europe because it suggests
that a home-grown generation of Islamic militants, all citizens of the
respective nations being targetted, has been created by 'soft' policies
across the continent. In Britain alone, counter-terrorism officials feel
there may be up to 15,000 supporters of Al Qaeda. Nearly 600 British Muslim
youths have reportedly been trained Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and other
places.
Yet even as MI-5 diligently documented
these facts, British courtesy towards the rouge elements of other nations
remained undiminished. Morocco sought extradition of its citizen, Mohammed
el-Guerbozi, a veteran of Afghanistan who reportedly planned the May 2003
Casablanca blasts that killed 45 people. Guerbozi is said to be a founder
of the Moroccan Combatant Islamic Group, named by the United Nations as
a terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda. A member of the group confessed it
had prepared sleeper cells to mount synchronized bombings in Britain, France,
Italy, Belgium and Canada. Last December, Morocco convicted Guerbozi in
absentia for involvement in the Casablanca attacks and sentenced him to
20 years imprisonment. But Britain refused the extradition request and
he lives unmolested in north London.
Spain wanted Abu Qatada, a radical
Palestinian cleric with Jordanian nationality, who secured political refugee
status in Britain in the early 1990's. He is regarded as the spiritual
leader of Al Qaeda in Europe and is also wanted in Jordan, where he was
given a 15-year prison sentence in absentia for involvement in bomb attacks
in 1998. Both France and Algeria are seeking Algerian national Rachid Ramda,
35, for alleged involvement in the 1995 Paris metro bombing executed by
Algeria's militant Armed Islamic Group.
The alleged brain behind the Madrid
bombings, Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, operated out of London with impunity
from 1995 to 1998, and has now gone underground. He edited a militant Islamist
magazine, Al Ansar. In November 1997, when 62 tourists were massacred at
Egypt's famous Luxor tourist site, President Hosni Mubarak told the British
Government that seven of the 14 Gama'at al-Islamiya men believed to have
planned the crime were ensconced in London. Predictably, Britain refused
to hand them over.
Given this tremendous affinity for
the dregs of every society, Britain has no one to blame as the pigeons
come home to roost. Prime Minister Tony Blair called the serial blasts
an attack upon the civilized world. If so, the brain behind them should
be identified and neutralized. During two World Wars, the civilized world
confronted hegemonist and megalomaniacal powers. Today, with Al-Qaeda's
network of terror embracing America, Britain, France, India, Egypt, Indonesia,
Kenya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Spain, it is time to recognize
that the opponent has a powerful motivating ideology and an international
reach.
What is more, despite the propaganda,
the opponent can be linked to certain geographical locations. Saudi Arabia
is the fountainhead and financial patron of the rigid Wahabi Islam that
is intimately linked with Al-Qaeda, and Pakistan provides it training and
other support. In fact, ISI's close links with Al-Qaeda caused India to
demand that Pakistan be dubbed a terrorist state. Sadly, even though Pakistan
failed to dismantle its terrorist network, successive Indian governments
succumbed to US State Department pressure to talk peace with that country.
It is time New Delhi put a price tag on the peace process.
