Yesterday (22/05/13) a British soldier was hit by a car and then brutally and aggressively murdered by the people who had run him over with what looks like a meat cleaver in Woolwich, London. The men who killed him asked people to film the incident and did not make any attempt to run, but simply bided their time before the police and back-up could arrive. On the film, the man is heard to say “Allahu Akbar” which instantly led the case to be considered and publicised as a terrorist attack.
Now, I am not going to pretend that I am an expert on politics or religion, or foreign policy or that I even have a detailed understanding of the relationship that Islamic countries have with the West. But I was horrified that people jumped to the conclusion that this death was a terrorist attack. The man on the video said that God is Great. The video also shows him saying:
“We swear by Almighty Allah, we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. The only reasons we killed this man is because Muslims are dying daily. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We apologize that woman had to see this today, but in our lands our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don’t care about you.”
But how can you define terrorism? The brutal decapitation of a civilian in Woolwich by a couple of men or the brutal killing of civilians in an Islamic country by the West? It just seems to me that “Terrorist Attack” is thrown around a lot, and almost acts as a propaganda weapon. The means to which the West think that all Muslims are plotting to destroy the West and what it stands for.
Bollocks.
Granted there have been horrific and devastating events around the world caused by terrorism, the UK, the IRA nationalists, the US, in the name of democracy, communism, fascism. They are all the same. Terrorism seems to be an umbrella term for most kinds of violence, which has in more recent years transformed to represent just the ones caused by Muslims. An article published on the Guardian asked the same question about defining terrorism and suggested that one answer could be “any act of violence designed to achieve political change.” If people are still insistent on using the term terrorism then it should be broadened out to include the West, because what the EDL did to the Mosques in Woolwich in response to the attack is surely terrorism too? Surely the government should also think about increasing security around Mosques and not just the Barracks if disgusting reactionary events like this continue? The Islamic community have said that they have nothing to do with this incident and that they hope it won’t detriment their livelihood in Britain.
What I found even worse was the reaction that it provoked across the country. Nick Griffin would have been proud with some of the responses the death caused. Facebook statuses claiming that it was all because the country has let too many immigrants in and that they should be sent ‘back to where they came from’ if they can’t learn how to ‘belong’ in our country. Honestly, if you go around posting statuses like that then you clearly don’t belong in this country because last time I checked it was pretty cosmopolitan. The recent census data shows how the demographics of London have changed recently and is only one example of many.
Sadly I can’t think of a way to make this end well. I think the future seems to look relatively bleak in terms of race, religion and terror. Although, it was reassuring that the majority of the facebook statuses and tweets that I read yesterday were of a similar opinion to me. That people who jump to conclusions about people because of their race are simply nothing more than racists. It is clear that the two men were sick. Why does terrorism even have to be thrown into the bag?
Related articles
- Woolwich machete attack: latest (telegraph.co.uk)
- Religious groups condemn Woolwich killings (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
- Woolwich attack: meat cleaver, knife and jihadist claims filmed on mobile (guardian.co.uk)
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