“We
have forgotten we are at war. We find it perplexing that a British soldier
could be killed in our streets, near to a school, on a busy afternoon.
We
have forgotten we are at war.
We are
prone to suffering violence because our nation has been at war, explicitly in
Iraq and Afghanistan, and covertly in numerous other nations. We are still an
Imperialistic nation that believes it has a right to be at the ‘top table’, and
that we are entitled to deploy our military wherever we like so that we can
protect ‘British interests’.
Lives
detached from war
In
this modern era, our everyday lives are absolutely detached from war. We think
more about television soaps and football than about the perpetual violence that
is on-going in our names, on a daily basis, in faraway lands. As long as
politicians deploy violence elsewhere in the world, we will always be
vulnerable to counter-violence. As long as politicians enact state terrorism,
we will always be vulnerable to terrorism at home.
Despite
what we might like to think, foreign policy is key to understanding why
terrorists attack us. We may hope they only attack us because they’re barbaric
or because they ‘hate our freedoms’. But time after time the terrorists clearly
state that they attack us because we attack them.
“We
may hope terrorists only attack us because they're barbaric or because they
‘hate our freedoms’. But time after time the terrorists clearly state that they
attack us because we attack them”
And it’s uncomfortable to admit,
but these terrorists know they are not lying in saying that our military has
been involved in killing and harassing tens of thousands of civilians, whether
directly through invasions, bombings and drone strikes, or whether indirectly
through propping up oppressive regimes. Our aggressive and utterly selfish
foreign policy will always leave us open to attack.
Here
is an opportunity to re-evaluate our deployment of soldiers around the world
and our alliances with oppressive governments.
But it
is not only our foreign policy that is to blame. Surely the mental health of
the criminals who perpetrated the act must be examined closely as this may
provide answers as to why they could undertake such a brutal act. This attack
also raises questions about knife crime in London more broadly, which has
become normalised in relation to gang culture and a hyper-masculine conception
of living a ‘thug life’.
And it
is of course true that Islam is not to blame for the behaviour of these
terrorists. Islam is a rich religion that has inspired a huge body of scholarly
insights into spirituality, philosophy, social and political discussions over
several centuries.
“Just
as we would be burying our heads in the sand to say that foreign policy plays
no role in causing such violence, we would be equally burying our heads in the
sand to say that a twisted interpretation of Islam plays no role”
Some ignorant and misinformed
people have already blamed all Muslims for the attack. This is of course a huge
mistake as any sensible person knows that the vast majority – and by vast
majority I mean more than 99% – of Muslims would never consider engaging in
such despicable violence.
However,
here is another uncomfortable admission that we must make. There is a
literalist and extreme interpretation of Islam that does condone indiscriminate
violence. This is a fringe interpretation that has very few adherents and is
challenged enthusiastically and regularly by Muslims themselves. Just as we
would be burying our heads in the sand to say that foreign policy plays no role
in causing such violence, we would be equally burying our heads in the sand to
say that a twisted interpretation of Islam plays no role.
Now is
the time for communities to stand together, not to start blaming each other.
“Legitimate”
to dissent against foreign policy
Muslim
organisations have been quick to vehemently condemn the attack. Non-Muslim
politicians and journalists have been quite clear that Muslims and Islam must
not be blamed. Some have been reactionary in calling for an increase in
surveillance and reduction of civil liberties to prevent such attacks from
happening in the future. Others have said Muslims must start wearing ‘Help for
Heroes’ t-shirts and pledging their allegiance to the British Army.
Neither
of these responses are what we should be aiming for.
Instead,
we should continue to value our multicultural society, recognise that it is
entirely legitimate to dissent against our foreign policy or military activity,
and ask more pertinent questions about what our foreign policy looks like, and
why some Muslims are finding the literalist and violence fringe interpretation
of Islam attractive.
We are
after all a nation at war even if we have forgotten.”
by Dr Leon Moosavi, a lecturer in Sociology at the university of Liverpool