Terrorism and Otherness
Reflections
after the terror attacks in London
©
Lars Ivar Owesen-Lein Borge/Enkidu
Reflexiones
luego de los ataques de terror en Londres... más
Last
week the world was shaken by another gruesome terror attack against
civilians. A chain of explosions in Central London killed more than 50
innocent individuals and wounded perhaps 1000 or more. We do not yet know
who was responsible for this violent attack. However, as always when such
tragic incidents occur, informed and uninformed speculations are abundant
in the media. BBC
reported already on Wednesday afternoon that a group calling itself “The
Secret Organisation of al-Qaeda in Europe” has claimed responsibility
for the explosions. In an unconfirmed message the group reportedly warned
the “Danish and Italian government and all other crusaders” to
withdraw all their troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.
All over the world, we were once again united into a
global community of consumers of information. Through television and
internet, millions and billions of individuals from Cairo to Beijing, from
Helsinki to Buenos Aires, were confronted with the same images of wounded
people, blood, suffering, tears, children, adults, people of all races and
religions. Soon the images were interspersed with comments by analysts and
commentators on politics and international terror. The mayor of London.
Ken Livingstone, condemned the attack on innocents with strong words:
"This
was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful; it is not
aimed at presidents or prime ministers; it was aimed at ordinary working
class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christians, Hindu and Jew,
young and old, indiscriminate attempt at slaughter irrespective of any
considerations, of age, of class, of religion, whatever, that isn't an
ideology, it isn't even a perverted faith, it's just indiscriminate
attempt at mass murder, and we know what the objective is, they seek to
divide London. They seek to turn Londoners against each other and
Londoners will not be divided by this cowardly attack,"
He
then had a message for the terrorists who had organised the explosions.
"I
wish to speak through you directly, to those who came to London to claim
lives, nothing you do, how many of us you kill will stop that flight to
our cities where freedom is strong and where people can live in harmony
with one another, whatever you do, how many you kill, you will fail."
(The
entire statement can be read at the page of the London City Government: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/mayor_statement_070705.jsp)
Regardless of who was behind the attack, it is unlikely
that this kind of brutal actions will contribute to anything but the
opposite of their stated goals. When innocent civilians are killed in the
West, few will be able to take more advantage of the situation in the
aftermath of the attacks than exactly the allies in the ”global war on
terrorism”. George W. Bush and Tony Blair may expect increased popular
support for their cause in the time to come, and there is no doubt that
they will find ways to use the London incident for all that it’s worth.
The television images had a tremendous impact on people.
Once again the “civilized world” united in a common cause. In many of
the commentaries published after the attack, we could sense something of
the same spirit that moved even Le Monde to put “we are all Americans”
in war types on their front page the day after the 9/11 attacks. Once
again “Old” and “New Europe” find together.
We never saw similar heartbreaking pictures from Falluja,
the city of mosques, which was laid in ruins and where, it is rumoured,
the Americans used napalm. No pictures where distributed through the
international news agencies showing the terror that has taken place there
and in other cities in Iraq and continues to take place every single day.
None of the embedded media produced any tear-jerking
images that could provoke compassion or even solidarity with the victims.
No television interviews with people in the street telling us how they
felt. Why are the experiences of people suffering terror in Iraq less
interesting than the experiences of people suffering terror in London?
After all, these people, equally innocent and chanceless as their fellow
victims in London, have not just experienced 4 traumatizing and horrifying
explosions in the rush traffic one morning, but weeks and months of
continuous bombing.
In June, during ‘Operation Spear’, a Coalition offensive designed
to root out insurgents and prevent foreign rebels using the region of
Anbar as a staging post en route from Syria, 40% of Karabila with 60.000
inhabitants was destroyed according to the Red Cross/Red Crescent. No
pictures were released to the press, only the military communiqués
telling us that “Operation Spear” was a huge success. However,
isolated pieces of news do get out to the world from time to time. Dr
Hamed al-Alousi, director at the nearby al-Qaim general hospital, said for
instance to IRIN on the 22 of June that:
“The
situation is critical in the village of Karabila. Hundreds of injured
people are inside the town requiring urgent medical treatment but have
been prohibited to leave the village by US forces and we are not
authorised to enter there,”
Further al-Alousi emphasized that his hospital had received 15 bodies and
treated 27 injured people in al-Qaim before US forces closed entry points
to Karabila. According to him, more than 100 people may have been trapped
under houses destroyed during the offensive. “We have some medicine and
emergency supplies in our hospital but as we cannot enter the village it
has become useless,” al-Alousi added.
Are
innocent civilian people in any way suffering differently in London than
in Karabila? Of course not. Grandmothers in exotic dress morning the loss
of their grandchildren would under other circumstances make a great story
for any headline news service. The logics of war propaganda is of course
one side of this. On the other hand, the issue has another aspect as well
that goes further than just press tactics in times of war. Western media
continuously proclaim, however implicitly and indirectly, through their
representations of terrorism in different parts of the world that
“our” suffering has a different value than “their” suffering.
“We” are victims. “They” are not.
Condemnations
and declarations of sympathy with the victims and their families after the
terror attacks in London came from all over, also Islamic authorities.
However, Western commentaries almost uniformly depict “us” as the
victims for world terrorism, an idea which may seem remote to many
individuals in places like Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq regardless of
how much sincere sympathy with the Londoners they felt when seeing the
headlines of the day last Wednesday.
Addressing
the world from the G8 summit in Gleneagles, prime minister Tony Blair said
his thoughts were with the victims and families of those involved in the 'barbaric
events', underlining that:
"(I)t
is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our
determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than
their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a
desire to impose extremism on the world."
Full
Text on: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page7853.asp
Behind
him the other G8 leaders lined up together with UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan, European Commission President Jose-Manuel Barroso, and other
prominent guests.
US
President George W Bush had once again a welcome opportunity to state to
the world press: "The war on terror goes on." German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder condemned the "perfidious attacks", and
stressed the importance of fighting terrorism "with all the means at
our disposal". French President Jacques Chirac said "the great
nations of the world" must unite to fight terrorism.
We
must defend our values and our way of life said Blair, and the rest of the
G8 leaders obviously agreed. After such a mouthful, it may be useful to
ask which values he actually refers to. Could it possibly be the values of
the British Empire? The values that permits the war against Iraq based on
state authorized lies and secrecy to go on? President of the European
Commission, José
Manuel Barroso clarifies: The terror acts in London were attacks on
European common values, ”our civilization” and “humanism”.
Gandhi
was once asked by a British journalist what he thought of Western
civilisation. “I think it would be a good idea,” he replied.
Gandhi, who himself had experienced the Amritsar massacre in 1919, where
the British general Dryer slaughtered 400 Punjabi, would no doubt have
condemned the terror in London in strong terms, but his famous comment to
the British journalist indicates that there often is a certain distance
between Western values and how the world outside “our” cultural sphere
interprets them.
“It
is particularly barbaric that this happened on the day when people are
meeting to try to resolve the problems of the poverty in Africa."
It is difficult not to feel a sense of paternalistic
indignation here. Indeed, Kipling’s Hymn to U.S. Imperialism in the Philippines “The White
Man’s Burden” comes to mind. The first stanza of the Kipling poem
reads:
Take up the White
Man's burden —
Send
forth the best ye breed —
Go,
bind your sons to exile
To
serve your captives' need;
To
wait, in heavy harness,
On
fluttered folk and wild —
Your
new-caught sullen peoples,
Half
devil and half child.
The
entire text can be found here: Modern History Sourcebook:
Rudyard Kipling, The White Man's Burden, 1899:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html
Kiplling,
the Poet of the British Empire saw the non-European “other” as
child-like, incomplete human beings, incapable of taking responsibility
for their own future. The “White Man” had a moral obligation to rule
them, liberate them from the darkness of their past, bring them
civilisation, and govern and guide them until they one day can take their
place in the world by adopting European ways.
Again,
the non-European “others” are depicted as passive victims in need of
salvation. A hundred years ago, they were regarded as uncivilized children
living in heathen darkness. Now, they are underdeveloped and must be
helped to develop democracy, freedom a la américaine and free
enterprise. To reach these higher goals, even “bombs for democracy”
may be an appropriate measure when some unenlightened tribe living in
darkness does not realize their own good …
The
message in the declarations after both the London attacks and the G8
summit are clear. Again and again we are told that the non-European
“others” can only develop and prosper by rejecting itself, and adopt
western values and policies. Again, “we” save them, on “our” terms,
on “our” conditions. “We” are the ones that can bring the world
salvation and prosperity.
Does
it surprise anyone that the declaration which claimed responsibility for
the explosions used the term “crusaders” when referring to the
coalition? This vocabulary is not simply anachronistic, but in effect
nothing but a direct response to the rhetoric employed by Bush, Blair and
Barosso. Terror
attacks that target civilians cannot be justified, not even as an element
in the resistance movement against imperialist intrusions. However,
Western leaders should also be able to see the connection between their
own world vision, their own policies and a rhetoric in which any
resistance is defined as terrorism, and terrorist attacks like the one
that occurred last week in London.
|
Los
Martes de Enkidu
