A year on from the London bombings and still the westbound Metropolitan line from Baker Street Tube station carries the city’s memory. It is impossible not to fill with the emotions of the anniversary. As soon as I got ready for work to take the same route last Thursday morning, I heard on air about the terrorist plots at the various airports. But for the grace of God and a truly remarkable performance by the police and the security services, the destruction would have been unimaginable: an act of indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of Britons in the skies above America with more victims than in the terrorist atrocities of 9/11. No words are adequate to condemn the callous planning for mass murder. Had they succeeded, the conspirators would have blown up themselves and ten passenger jets bound for American cities, timing their attack, perhaps to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11.
The impact of ten Lockerbies in a single day would, of course, have been a disaster for both countries, with consequences far beyond the deaths, maiming and physical devastation. The laws of this country regarding civil liberties, community relations and political culture would all have been profoundly altered for decades to come.
Chaos at our airports, devastated businesses, and the wrecked tourism industry are only beginning to recover from the original attacks 5 years ago.
Indeed even though the plot has been foiled, the damage is already immense.
Meanwhile the government refuses to acknowledge that its own ill-judged policies are actually undermining the war on terror and are making Britain more vulnerable to attack. Mr. Blair, for example, still won’t accept that his disastrous intervention in Iraq has inflamed hatred of the West and brought many of the current horrors to our door. And his subservience to President Bush over Lebanon has done nothing to redeem his reputation in the Muslim world.
What is particularly chilling is that the suspects arrested on Thursday were all British born Muslims, educated here, housed here, raised in the British tradition of a tolerant democracy under the protection of laws. Some young people are attracted to radicalism not by religion but merely by cultural and political alienation. Joining a violent assault on the West, upon the very community in which they live, gives a sense of purpose to bored and rootless lives of the same kind that a generation ago made some Catholic Northern Irishmen choose the status of becoming IRA gunmen in preference to being an unemployed bricklayer or barman.
Ironically human right activists have made it significantly more difficult to deal with suspects who are believed to threaten our security; they can’t be charged, because much of the evidence against them is inadmissible in court.
Passenger profiling and stop-and-search may irritate young Muslims. But that is not the fault of the authorities. It is not Sikh or Methodists or Zoroastrians flying planes into buildings or blowing themselves up on public transport!
We are all inconvenienced by this stop-and-search when we go even to a theatre at the West End. It is unfortunate that some Muslims fall under suspicion simply because they share certain characteristics with those responsible. Imagine how normal people react, for example, when traveling by air, middle aged Baptists are being subjected to body scans and have to walk across filthy airports without shoes.
A colleague of mine recently told me that he did not like being searched at the gate at the Stuttgart football ground during the World Cup to watch England play Ecuador.
But, the German authorities had worked on the knowledge that English football hooligans tend to be white male and English, and so they were not taking any chances with anyone who remotely fit that description, no matter how old or well–dressed. The BBC insisted on Thursday morning describing those detained simply as ÒBritish bornÓ. Everybody was busy in reassuring “community leadersÓ.
When 4 young Muslims blew themselves and 52 others to Kingdom Come on London’s Transport Network last July, Muslims were among the victims too. When terrorists attack, they don’t care whom they kill. We are all targets. So, why the need to consult “community leadersÓ? The old man next door to us said to me ÒI don’t remember Knacker of the Yard phoning the Bishop of Stepney before he arrested the Kray twins (who terrorized the streets of London’s East end in the sixties)”. It also reminds me of so many of our young boys in the remote villages of Assam when Army rounded them up and killed them in search of terrorists. They do not look for their parents or community leaders to explain their action!
In my early days in this country, I knew the word “home grownÓ only when Mr. Hughes, a hospital porter, used to deliver tomatoes and sweet peas to our house. Gradually as life went on, the expression took on another meaning for me. Being in this country, the first thing that impressed me is the homegrown qualities, natural indigenous qualities such as common sense, tolerance, fair play and stoicism. For the vast silent majority, these are the characteristics that still define what it means to be British.
All such qualities were on display this week during the chaos at our airports triggered by the terrorist plot. No racist incidents, no riots; just a quiet acceptance and resilience.
So, for those of us who love this country because we have chosen to come and live here, it is the bitterest of ironies that the expression “home grownÓ today is applied to certain young terrorists who are born here and are bent on destroying the British values. They represent a minuscule minority of Muslims here. They have cast aside their own parents’ proud traditions here, of decency, hard work and respect for others.
At the same time, great accommodations are required on all sides: politicians, community leaders and the wider public. After all, terrorism doesn’t discriminate between Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews. It grows deadlier and more destructive by the day.
The police are just doing their job. They should be supported, not harangued. They don’t always get it right. But as one officer said of the Forest Gate raid, he would rather have egg on his face than the blood of the innocent victims of terrorism on his hands. How very British!
We owe a debt of thanks to the police and security services that prevented an appalling tragedy this time.
by Rini Kakati, London
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