Dear Lulu,
The ultimate irony in the most multi-cultural city in the world that values tolerance seems to be a matter of the enemy within, biting the hand that feeds it. Radical clerics who have been on public assistance for years and years, preaching hatred of the very country that feeds their innumerable children…British-born university-educated willing to maim/kill their own…. Sigh. The truce, the covenant of security is over. The unwritten, unsaid mutual agreement: ‘let us live and radicalise in Britain and we won’t bomb you’ is over.
A leaked No 10 dossier has revealed Al-Qaeda’s covert recruitment of affluent Muslims at British universities with IT, engineering and mechanical degrees. Britain may now be harbouring thousands of Al-Qaeda sympathisers; 3,000 have already passed through the training camps; 10,000 have attended extremist conferences. It is believed hundreds are prepared to commit terrorist attacks. Commentators in Europe claimed Britain has paid the price for allowing Islamic extremists to flourish unopposed in “Londonistan”. How sensitive. In case xenophobic Europe needs a gentle reminder: “Today we have declared a bloody war against you…we will raze the cities of Europe to the ground…we will turn them into cities drenched with blood…” Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, July 2004. Take note.
20,000 were evacuated from Birmingham’s centre last night. At least eight attacks aimed at civilian targets have been foiled in the past five years – but none has been planned by the same group. Sir John Stevens (former Scotland Yard chief) believes Thursday’s attackers were almost certainly British-born, “brought up here and totally aware of British life and values.” It is so obviously insane. Yes, the West creates a vacuous, greedy culture, but without it, those who benefit from it wouldn’t have mobiles phones, bombing-making on the internet, pants.
The first response is to blame Blair for his sycophantic poodle-behaviour when in the company of Bush. In her commentary, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown quotes Yahia Said, a Muslim and specialist on Iraq at the London School of Economics: “What is their goal?…is there anything we can do to dissuade them from doing it again? There is no political answer to these questions. The crimes are attacks against humanity perpetuated by psychopaths for whom murder is not a means to an end but rather the end itself. There is nothing redeeming about these crimes.” She adds: “…please don’t grace them with purpose or place them with legitimate liberationists in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere…this was pure, hollow evil…Islamist apologists say we should try to comprehend why extremism appeals. After London, such brotherly loyalty is iniquitous. A bomb in Edgware Road, which is a souk for British Arabs? These self-loathing psycho-perverts hate all Londoners, and Muslims most of all who suffer the retribution which comes with the aftershock…we can but pray.”
Ironies abound: the bombing sandwiched between the thrill of the Olympic bid announcement and the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Undeterred, 500,000 people packed into The Mall in front of Buckingham Palace…one million poppies released from the sky like droplets of blood. Obviously the spirit of resolve has not been shaken.
Terror attacks are so abstract. 52 dead, hundreds injured. Injured. That means excruciating facial burns - no eyelashes, no eyebrows ever again, a right hand blown off, shrapnel embedded deeply in a chest. An investigator noticed a small pile of rags in the rubble underground; he saw it move; it was a woman minus her arms and legs. That’s terrorism.
Everything that can be said, has been said regarding the bombing. To assuage, dissuade an invisible, insidious force bent on total annihilation of ‘the other’ seems impossible. As far as any kind of viable solution; it is beyond the imagination at the moment.
TTFN, Maggie
Past Letters
Foot in Mouth Disease - 22 February
And the Award Goes To... - 16 February
And the Winner is.... - 25 January
A Matter of Timing - 12 January
Routemaster No More - 28 December
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme - 25 November
Does My Hair Look Big In This? - 6 November