Thought we should have a thread to discuss the War on Terror, or as Bush recently called it, At War with Islamic Fascists.
This was the front page lead in today's Telegraph, contained some positive and some contradictory views.
Example of positive:
Seventy three per cent agreed that "the West is in a global war against Islamic terrorists who threaten our way of life". When asked whether Britain should change its foreign policy in response to terrorism only 12 per cent said it should be more conciliatory, compared with 53 per cent who thought it should become more "aggressive" and 24 per who wanted no change.
Example of contradictory:
A majority of British people wants the Government to adopt an even more "aggressive" foreign policy to combat international terrorism, according to an opinion poll conducted after the arrests of 24 terrorism suspects last week. However - by a margin of more than five to one - the public wants Tony Blair to split from President George W Bush and either go it alone in the "war on terror", or work more closely with Europe.
Ditch US in terror war, say 80pc of Britons
Telegraph
17/08/2006
3 comments:
What do people think about this?
Benn questions 'War on Terror' slogan
Telegraph
17/04/2007
Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, has risked angering George W Bush by claiming that the US President's phrase "War on Terror" strengthens extremist groups. Mr Benn told an audience in New York that the term, coined by the White House after the 9/11 attacks, makes small, disaffected groups feel that they are part of something bigger. He also said that British ministers and civil servants no longer refer to the "War on Terror".
(JP NOTE: contrast Benn's phrase "small, disaffected groups" with Pipe's assessement of Who Is The Enemy?)
We can all agree that "War on Terror" is a ridiculous term, but there are still many who refuse to name what we actually are fighting. I've lost a lot of respect for John Gray (who was blogged about here) if he's one of those dickheads who thinks "Islamist" is an inappropriate term. And frankly anyone who sides with Hobsbawm on anything is a bit suspect.
If 'Islamist' is out, what do we call them?
By Andrew Marr
Telegraph
04/07/2007
If it were proved that highly qualified, ambitious doctors were Islamist mass-murder plotters, it would put a hole through another comforting theory - that this is "all about" under-employed young men of low self-esteem and educational attainments.
It is comforting, because it suggests that al-Qa'eda can be defeated by more money spent on sixth-form colleges. But it now joins the theory that this is "all about" the misdemeanours of the House of Saud, or "all about" the persecution of the Palestinians. All of these things matter, and they are all part of the picture, but it is never a bad idea to take your enemy at his word.
So when the terror websites gloat about killing "slags" who have the temerity to attend nightclubs, or look forward to the imposition of sharia in the West, and attack our corrupt democratic values, shouldn't we take that seriously? It isn't about oil or an underclass or the crimes of Western nations. It's about values. It's about exactly what they say it's about.
On Start the Week on Monday, all the distinguished guests, including the philosopher John Gray and the historian Eric Hobsbawm, vehemently agreed that the word "Islamist", which I have used at the top of this column, was wrong and dangerous. It implied a strong link to Islam, which was unfair. I thought the distinction between "Islamic" and "Islamist" was enough: but if we need a new and more accurate word for extremist Muslims, what is it?
Any particular strain of Islam, such as Wahhabism, is only the more lethally libelled if you try to narrow things that way. The trouble with looking for bland words is that you lose touch with reality. You'll end up by calling them Powd-ists (People of Whom we Disapprove) or Bacromists (Bad Cross Men). All sensible suggestions welcome. Meanwhile, it's our patriotic duty to single out the nearest nightclub, and get along there as soon as possible.
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'Islamist' is the word for these terrorists
By Denis MacShane
Telegraph
03/07/2007
Why consult the crystal ball when you can read the book? Bevin's epithet is more than ever appropriate as Britain wakes up to the beginning of a long combat with the Islamist ideologies that send young men to kill and maim our citizens.
The calm, rational, determined and unfussed response of the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, as well as sombre language from the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is a welcome change after the theatricalities of declaring war on terrorism, or instant consultation committees whose members are keener to denounce Britain's foreign policy than ask hard questions about the thought processes that guide the suicide and car bombers.
Six weeks ago, David Cameron wrote an article in the Observer criticising those who used the word "Islamist" to describe the ideological roots of the terrorist threat. Yet "Islamist" is an accurate description of a global ideology that has been slowly incubating for decades. It took 69 years between the writing of the Communist Manifesto and the imposition of Bolshevik terror on Russia after 1917. Hitler's hatred of Jews was derived from writings and ideologues active before he was born. The Islamist equivalent of Marx's revolutionary appeal can be found in the writing of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, with a growing presence in Egypt, as well as off-shoots such as Hamas and a European network, including prominent members of the Muslim Council of Britain.
Writing in the 1930s, Hasan al-Banna declared: "The Koran is our Constitution. Jihad is Our Way. Martyrdom is Our Desire." At a stroke, the history of modernity that is based on separation of faith and democracy, church and state, politicians and priests was overturned. Today, it is al-Qa'eda and the myriad Islamist outfits from Indonesia to Britain who are inspired by Islamist ideology to carry out evil acts.
These are repudiated by decent Muslims everywhere. I spend more time in mosques than in churches in my constituency of Rotherham, where 10,000 Muslim citizens live. Their imams and members of mosque councils are men of peace. They teach their children to recite the Koran, just as I learnt to recite the Latin mass as an altar boy. British Muslims know the difference between their faith and the ideologies of Islamism. For Mr Cameron to deny the concept of Islamism would have al-Banna and all the other founding fathers of Islamism laughing in their graves.
But measured and impressive as the Government's response (and, to be fair, Mr Cameron's) have been to the attempted atrocities in London and Glasgow, the fact is that the Labour Government, Whitehall and the entire political-media class in Britain have been slow to wake up to the need for an intellectual-ideological confrontation with Islamism.
I experienced this first-hand when, in November 2003, as Europe minister, I made a speech after Islamist terrorists drove a lorry bomb into the British consulate in Istanbul, killing scores - mainly Turks. At the same time, a young man from South Yorkshire had been groomed by Islamists into becoming a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv.
I made what I thought were banal points, saying a choice had to be made between "the democratic rule of law, if you like the British or Turkish or American or European way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists, against which the whole democratic world is now uniting. We need to move away from talk of martyrs and I hope we will see clearer, stronger language that there is no future for any Muslim cause anywhere in the world that validates, or implicitly supports, the use of political violence in any way."
Read today, those words are so commonplace every MP would endorse them. Four years ago, they were seen as provocative and unacceptable. "Experts" wrote articles denouncing me. Inside the Foreign Office, I was ordered to negotiate with a representative of the Muslim Council of Britain a partial retraction of my statement. I regret now my temporising, based on the genuine upset I could sense among Muslim friends in Yorkshire and, of course, any politician's wish to hold on to office.
Now, there is no excuse. If ministers and MPs want to know where terrorism comes from, they can read Ed Husain's book The Islamist, with its self-explanatory sub-title "Why I joined radical Islam in Britain, what I saw inside and why I left". Husain is one of a growing number of British Muslims who are telling the truth. Shiv Malik's remarkable reportage on the Islamist factionalism that won control of the July 7 bombers in Leeds can be read in a recent issue of Prospect. Unlike non-Muslims who tried to raise issues before a complacent political-media world was ready to listen, today's witness from British Muslims cannot be gainsaid.
They are not like Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of al-Banna, who writes reverently about the founding father of Islamism. Recently, Prospect published a sympathetic profile interview of Ramadan. Last month, the magazine's editor, David Goodhart, wrote an open letter to him after Ramadan condemned a meeting at Downing Street that included Muslim leaders opposed to Islamism. Goodhart pointed out that neither foreign policy nor racist attitudes in a Britain where Muslim citizens have freer lives than in any Muslim state can justify the constant attacks on British democracy from the Islamist ideologues. Ramadan did not deign to reply. He remains however a Whitehall consultant - despite his refusal to call for the abolition of stoning women to death under sharia.
But the days of refusing to confront Islamist ideology are drawing to an end. There is a new determination in government to spell out hard truths. And soon someone will explain to David Cameron that there is such a thing as Islamist ideology and Islamist terror crimes, and that they represent a fundamental challenge to everything Britain and British citizens - of all faiths and none - stand for.
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I've blogged about Jason Burke before....
BBC Radio 4
Today Program
04/07/2007
Listen @ 20'30" | Permalink
08:50 It seems in recent days that the government is preferring to use the word "criminal" to describe those who are supporting violence in the name of Islam, instead of talking of "islamists" or "terorists". We speak to our political correspondent Nick Robinson, Denis MacShane former Foreign Office Minister, and Jason Burke, Senior Foreign Correspondent for The Observer
I'm not sure if 'Islamist' is the right word or not, I really haven't given it much thought. Jason Burke is some one who I respect and I think he makes a reasonable arguement for why it may not be helpful here:
'Islam may be part of the problem, but it is wrong to suggest that a hugely diverse and dynamic faith is the sole source of the current threat. 'Islamism' emphasises the religious above all other factors, the social, the political, the economic and the cultural. Its supporters should bear in mind that MI5 now describes terrorism in the UK as, at least in part, a 'cultural phenomenon'.
These arguments will continue for a long time. For the moment, 'modern Islamic militancy' might serve as a catch-all term that admits the religious component of the current violence while preserving a sense of its general context. No doubt, it will be bettered very shortly. And so it should be. Only a lively and informed debate will speed the evolution of the right vocabulary and thus the right policies to pursue what once was known as 'the war on terror'.
Here is the full article.
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