A British soldier was attacked and killed on the street in the Woolwich section of London. His assailants hit him with a car and then attacked him with a knife and a machete. Afterwards, they dragged the victim into the street and began asking bystanders to take pictures. One person actually taped a statement from one of the murderers, who said:
“We swear by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reasons we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth. We apologise that women 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.”
When the armed police showed up, the men moved toward them in a menacing manner and were shot and wounded. They are in the hospital.
Now, Ian Dunt says that Muslim leaders and organizations should not be issuing condemnations or apologies because they bear no responsibility for the attacks. I understand his point, but the truth is that it is a very good idea to make it as clear as possible that they condemn murdering British soldiers in the streets of London. The purpose is not so much to condemn (although that is appreciated) as to calm tensions and protect their people from reprisals.
Moreover, somebody is responsible for what these two men did. Maybe it’s someone on the internet. Maybe it’s someone at one of the local mosques. No doubt, British foreign policy invites blowback, but these men spoke with London accents. They were Brits who turned against their own country, much like (at least one of) the Boston Bombers. That kind of betrayal gets to the heart of the issue of whether Muslims can be trusted to live in British society, and it can’t be addressed if Muslim leaders refuse to disassociate themselves from the crimes.
British society cannot be expected to tolerate members of a religious minority that won’t condemn crimes against their own military and their own citizens. Maybe in some abstract sense condemnations would not be required, but in the real world they are both required and quite prudent.
I should think if they don’t condemn it that’s prima facie evidence they condone it.
Good liberal logic about Republicans and racism, say, or sexism, no?
Let the forces of order keep out a sharp eye.
You do realize you sound almost like Geert Wilders, here?
Or any number of others who have said that Muslims cannot be trusted sufficiently to allow more immigration of them into any number of European countries?
Whose point of view are you adopting?
If I am a religious leader and a member of immediate flock commits a crime against the state in the name of my religion, I have to look out for the safely of the rest of my congregation.
To a lesser degree this is still true if the culprit is not a member of my immediate flock. Basically, I’m saying, “We’re don’t agree, don’t hurt us.”
Then, if you turn it around and look at it from the perspective of the non-Muslim British population who has just been informed that one of their soldiers and citizens has been mutilated in broad daylight on the street in the name of Allah, they want reassurances that there isn’t broad agreement with the crime. Their tolerance basically demands that kind of reassurance. Otherwise, political pressure will mount to take action to reduce the threat.
If you take the politicians’ point of view, they want to be able to make good policy without undo and irrational pressure from incensed public.
So, however you want to look at it, it’s better that religious leaders and organizations make it very clear that they don’t agree with these kinds of attacks.
Unless they do.
Well, not to advise that kind of organization, but if they want to continue to operate then even they should at least pretend to disagree.
Might be prudent for the British government to make an announcement, too. Swings both ways, Booman.
Yes, Boston should apologize to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if it swings both ways.
I think Mino meant that the UK government should make a statement saying that they know these murderers do not represent the Muslim community and that Muslims are as much a part of British society as anyone else.
If that’s what Mino was saying, Mino is absolutely right.
President Obama takes a ration of grief after every terrorist attack conducted by a Muslim (anywhere in the world, it seems) because he avoids referring to the terrorists’ religion unless there is some specific reasons why it’s relevant to what he’s saying.
Good for him. It’s the right thing to do for the 99.9% of American Muslims who are living peacefully in our society, and it’s a good way to avoid buying into the terrorists’ framing.
OK, I misinterpreted his remark.
This is exactly what I meant; sorry I was not clear. The only credit I will ever give George Bush is that he managed to do that.
So every time the IRA blew up British soldiers a catholic priest issued a condemnation?
Honestly, I don’t know what the dynamics were during the IRA’s terror campaign. I assume certain religious leaders were called upon to condemn the attacks, and I assume they did. I don’t know how threatened Catholics in England and Northern Ireland felt in the aftermath of those attacks or how often they were in fact attacked in reprisals. Probably, it would be best to have a Brit who lived through those times comment on how that worked.
The IRA did it in the name of Irish independence, not the Catholic Church. And as regards to terrorist acts committed in the name of freeing Ulster for union to the Irish Republic, then yes, the government of Eire should have condemned the acts, unless they condoned or approved of them.
The Catholic Church always came down very hard on republicans, Fenians and other anti-British rebels. They used to excommunicated Fenians just for joining Fenian organizations.
cool. can i demand the same of every catholic re child rape?
Oh they’re mostly white. nevermind.
There are five times as many Catholics in Latin America and the Caribbean as there are in North America. There are about the same number of Catholics in Asia and Africa as there are in Europe. I think you have your demographics screwed up. The Pope is Argentinian, by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Lots of Argentinians, including the Pope, are white, even by weird American standards.
I agree with the points you make in your diary, though.
I might as well mention that I strongly recommend Four Lions to anyone who hasn’t seen it. It’s a British black comedy about homegrown Islamic terrorists. (This is not to belittle what was done to that poor soldier.)
The Catholic hierarchy, yes.
This cuts to the difference between “Should … be” and “are”.
How the world has changed since the Saudi terrorists attacked New York and Washington DC on 9.11.2001: there were no retaliatory protests in Amsterdam after the Theo van Gogh murder in 2001, it was seen as a criminal act unless one had political ambition … the rise of Geert Wilders and US funded support.
Cross-posted from my diary – Terror! London In Panic Mode – One British Soldier Killed.
OMG! Why is this kind of event will happen? Not really good. I hope people will not judge them as that. I hate racist! http://linkapp.me/ILMxG
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/23/1211221/-President-Obama-s-statement-on-the-attack-in-Londo
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And some people say Muslims don’t denounce terrorism.