There is something frightening about two sides fighting a war each claims the other started., writes Waleed Aly.
ON THE first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Britain's most vile terror-loving organisation, al-Muhajiroun, held a celebratory conference. Members gathered to recall how "magnificently" the twin towers were reduced to rubble.
Conference excerpts were replayed on radio after the London bombings last year. A spokesman said it was perfectly acceptable in Islam to kill civilians. Naturally, this sickened me as a person and insulted me as a Muslim. But it did not disturb me as much as I expected: his ranting was so maniacal it didn't quite seem real.
But then he said something that jolted me rudely back to reality. Islam does not permit one to start wars, he said, but September 11 was not the start. It was a response to decades of aggression. He insisted that he didn't start this war, but he was intent on supporting those who would finish it.
This statement was so disturbing because it was so familiar. It is precisely what we hear from our political leaders every time a terrorist atrocity occurs, precisely the sort of justification put forth before, and relentlessly repeated since, the disaster of Iraq. There is something frightening about two sides fighting a war each claims the other started, and each claims it now must finish.
Initial Western political responses to September 11 were staggeringly reductionist, triumphalist, even self-congratulatory. George Bush spoke like a comic book superhero by framing the world in terms of good and evil. Western societies were terror targets because they were so thoroughly good. We are despised because we are so virtuous.
In fairness, these responses are understandable in the emotional whirlwinds of tragedy. They give reassurance at a time of raw pain. But eventually, they must give way to more introspective nuance. And indeed, here, the Australian Government should be given credit: it has belatedly incorporated job, recreation and education initiatives into its security strategy, which at least shows a recognition that terrorism has important social dimensions.
But still, five years on, Western governments have, at least publicly, exhibited a stubborn blind spot when it comes to the impact of their own foreign policy. They have held fast to the implausible proposition that however many innocent people we kill as "collateral damage", whether by invasion, or as was the case earlier in Iraq, via sanctions that saw 500,000 children die, this in no way aids the terrorists' cause.
This ignores that Western foreign policy has always been a central plank in terrorists' discourse. Typical were the words of al-Qaeda spokesman Sulayman Abu Ghaith following the September 11 attacks: "The number killed in the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon … is only a tiny number of those killed in Palestine, Somalia, the Sudan, the Philippines, Bosnia, Kashmir, Chechnya and Afghanistan. We have not yet arrived at equivalency with them; thus we have the right to kill 4 million Americans, among them 1 million children." Morally repugnant indeed. Historically nonsensical. But driven by vengeance for suffering perceived to be inflicted by, or through, the West. The 9/11 Commission Report in the US explained as much. Western polities choose to ignore it.
Thus, the circle of blame completes itself. If terrorist ideologues are so concerned about oppression of Muslims, they might begin with the fact that most of their victims have been Muslims. They might turn attention to Sudan, where Muslims are killing and raping each other in numbers that make all else fade into insignificance. Yet until Western forces intervene, this slaughter is of little consequence to terrorists. Apparently, what matters is not who is killed, but who does the killing. So much for being vanguards of justice.
This deep terrorist hypocrisy does reveal a strong ideological element. But our politicians' tendency to pretend that past colonisation of Muslim lands and the present invasion and occupation of Iraq is irrelevant, is wilfully oblivious to the obvious. The Australian public intuit this. Well over two years ago, an opinion poll found two-thirds thought our role in Iraq would make a terrorist attack here more likely. And that was before Iraq's descent into radicalising catastrophe. It seems public wisdom trumps political rhetoric.
Five years after it all began, can we please end the poisonous political cycle? Can we admit the damage we have done and still do in the Muslim world? Can we realise that while this can never justify terrorism, it aids terrorist recruitment? Can Muslims admit that terrorism does not restore balance or return honour, but inflicts continuing oppression on innocent Muslims? I suspect, deep down, we all recognise these contradictions, but cannot find the political courage to admit them. How catastrophic that humanity uses the suffering of innocents not to reflect inwardly but to rage outwardly, to justify its next moral transgression. What an insult to those slaughtered. What a disaster for all of us if history repeats.
Waleed Aly is an Islamic Council of Victoria director.
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