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| Post 7/7 : Is Legislation Enough? |
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The Islamic beliefs and traditions that deal with the subject of martyrdom are relevant to war situations, and as such are similar to other patriotic and nationalistic traditions which call for the defense of the homeland, civilisation, or empire even if a person has to sacrifice his or her life. These traditions are common to almost every culture and civilisation. For example, men and boys readily enrolled to become Kamikaze pilots, and make their planes into flying bombs, during the Second World War in order to defend the Emperor and the Japanese homeland. Moreover, for the purpose of defending their nations, British and German infantrymen were asked to make suicidal charges against positions held by machine guns and artillery in the trenches during the First World War. The very high death tolls of the First World War demonstrate that people will respond to such requests if they feel their nation or way of life is under threat.Thus Muslim suicide bombers in this sense are no different to those who sacrifice their lives for a higher purpose.
A recent academic study on suicide bombing - published in the book titled "Dying to Win: The Logic of Suicide Terrorism" - suggests that there is compelling evidence to relate Muslim suicide bombers and the occupation of Muslim lands by western forces.The author of this book, Chicago University Associate Professor University Robert Pape, compiled the first complete database of every suicide-terrorist attack around the world from 1980 to early 2004.Their research was conducted not only in English but also in native-language sources-Arabic, Hebrew, Russian, and Tamil, and others, so that they could gather information not only from newspapers, but also from products from the terrorist community. In their analysis they determined that the world leader in suicide attacks was a Marxist and completely secular group:Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
Professor Pape suggested that if Islamic fundamentalism was pivotal in motivating Muslims to carry out suicide attacks, then there should be evidence that many of the attackers came from some of the largest Islamic fundamentalist countries such as Iran or Sudan. However for both countries, there is no evidence that there has ever been an AlQaeda suicide bomber. Rather the evidence indicates that two thirds of Muslim suicide bombers have been from countries where US forces have or are still maintaining military forces; and that the presence of US forces is creating suicide attackers in Iraq which was a country that had never previously had a suicide attack in its history prior to the 2003 invasion. He also suggested that suicide attacks are much more likely to occur where the occupier and occupied differ in their religion, as in Sri Lanka or in Israel. He attributes this to the fact that it is easier for one side to demonise the other if they differ in their religion.
The introduction of more anti-terrorism legislation in the UK will not dispel the belief amongst many British Muslims that the UK and US armed forces are occupying Muslim land. Nor is there any compelling evidence that these new laws will prevent further attacks. If this legislation is enacted, a more likely consequence is that more people in the British Muslim community will feel that the government is victimising them, and for some it will confirm the view that the British government is at war with Muslims and Islam. A Muslim working group, setup by the British Home Office to advise on ways to improve integration and to tackle extremism after the London attacks criticized the government in its report for its "misguided over-emphasis" on a strategy of "counter-productive counter terrorism". They went on to state that the new measures risked alienating law-abiding Muslims and driving fanatics underground.
In this current situation, the government will not be able to address the grievances and concerns that mainstream Muslims feel about its foreign policies by the use of "spin" and clever communications. No amount of spinning of the positive benefits gained by the presence of UK forces in Iraq and Afghanistan will persuade the majority of Muslims that these occupations are justified. Rather, the British government has to face up to the foreign policy concerns and grievances that are prevalent in the Muslim community, and substantially change its approach with respect to policies that are related to the Muslim world. It must work to dispel the view that the government is against Muslims and Islam. The approach that it should adopt is similar to that used by the government with respect to Irish Republicans. Without addressing the concerns and grievances of the majority of Irish republicans, it would have been impossible to create a situation whereby the IRA announced that it was publicly decommissioning its weapons. As an illustration of what could be done today to address Muslim anger and sentiment, the government could do the following:
a) The British government needs to change policies with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan; it should commit to withdrawing its forces within a very limited time period.
b)The British government should not follow the US government in its experiment to transform Muslim societies. Britain should not support any US attacks on Iran and Syria.
c) The British government should be openly critical against every nation which pursues a policy of destroying cities - Muslim or non-Muslim.The Muslims of Britain should see that the government values Muslim lives.
d)The British government should not support dictators in the Muslim world.Rather it should be prepared to accept the reality of the existence of representative Islamic political groups and that Muslims are entitled to choose their own systems of government and ruling
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