Jeremy Clarke says we need to look beyond immediate events to understand why Britain has been destabilised by 13 years of war.
Jeremy Clarke
More than a million people marched in Paris to call for unity and oppose terror after the attack on Charlie Hebdo. People have gathered in towns and cities across the world to show support. We seem to be locked into an endless cycle of foreign wars, terror attacks and clamp downs on freedoms at home.
The only alternatives that seem to be offered are to say ‘Je Suis Charlie’ or else be thought to support the actions of the gunmen. But it’s not simply that the killings result from Charlie Hebdo publishing cartoons satirising Islam to which Muslims took offence, leading to some ‘radicalised’ young men deciding to kill the journalists involved. Nor is it simply a matter of supporting ‘western values’ including freedom of speech.
While condemning the killings in Paris we need to look beyond the immediate events if we are to understand what happened and respond in a way that gives the best chance of such events not being repeated. The cartoons weren’t published in a vacuum.
For more than two decades, the USA, supported by Britain, France and others, has waged war on Muslim countries – what George Bush called a ‘clash of civilisations’. Hundreds of thousands died in Iraq. Tens of thousands died in Afghanistan. The bombing of Libya in 2011 and interference in Syria has led to chaos and the deaths of tens of thousands more. Millions of people have been forced to leave their homes and live as refugees.
The USA imprisoned people without trial in Guantanamo Bay and tortured prisoners in secret prisons across the world. The victims were overwhelmingly Muslims.
People are killed every day in drone attacks by the USA and Britain in Pakistan, Yemen and other Muslim countries. France has troops fighting in Mali, Chad and elsewhere in Africa.
The USA, Britain, France and other western countries do nothing to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine and their periodic attacks on Gaza where nearly two thousand people died last summer. The French government even banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
The names of those killed in these wars rarely appear in our newspapers. Their pictures rarely appear on our TV screens.
Across the world millions of people from all communities have opposed these wars. If our governments had listened then the demonstration in Paris would not have been necessary. Hypocritically, the world leaders who led that demonstration are the very people responsible for these wars and the resulting deaths.
For most people in the world these wars are as much a part of ‘western values’ as any right to freedom of speech. And freedom of speech itself is denied to anyone who seriously threatens the power of the USA and its allies. Edward Snowden had to seek asylum in Russia arfter revealing how we are spied on by our governments. Chelsea Manning is in prison for revealing some of the truth behind the wars waged by the USA .
As Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5, warned – the ‘war on terror’ has not made us safer. It has spread terror.
The rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria flows directly from these catastrophic wars waged by the west. ISIS fighters were trained, financed and armed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar & Turkey – countries which are supposedly our allies.
Most French Muslims are descendants of Algerians. Algeria was a French colony in North Africa where French governments fought a bitter war in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent the country becoming independent. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians were killed.
Moving to France these people have become economically and socially isolated. The austerity policies of successive French governments have made their circumstances worse while the right-wing Front Nationale accuses them of being ‘un-French’.
This is the context in which the Charlie Hebdo cartoons were published.
It isn’t surprising that many young French Muslims, like their British counterparts, should look for an alternative to the racism they experience. Some become easy prey for those who want to divert their anger and alienation into violence. Attacks like those in Paris last week are the inevitable outcome.
We should show solidarity with the victims of the Paris shootings and their families but we should also oppose attempts to demonise Muslims. Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, has referred to British Muslims as a ‘fifth column’. The current rise in Islamophobia blames the people who have suffered most from these recent wars, not the people responsible for those wars.
To reduce the chances of more killings, not just in Paris but across the world, we need to continue campaigning to bring an end to our government’s involvement in these foreign wars.
Source: Bristol Post
Public Meeting: After Charlie Hebdo
Islamophobia and the War on Terror
Thursday 12 February • 6.30pm
Mander Hall, Hamilton House
Mabledon Place, London, WC1H 9BD
Full details and registration »
