Justifying Terrorism
So the home office have today published a list of ‘unacceptable behaviours’ relating to terrorism. The non-exhaustive list so far:
Terrorist violence
Cannot foment, justify, glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs
Terrorist acts
Cannot seek to provoke others to terrorist acts
Criminal acts
Cannot foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts
Inter-community violence
Cannot foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.
Method
Individuals who do the above by any means or medium are caught by the legislation, including:
- writing, producing, publishing or distributing material;
- public speaking including preaching
- running a website
- using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader
So writing material and running a website I wonder if many blog sites will be looked into, as the government - in particular Herr Blair- seem to think that attempting to understand terrorism is akin to justifying it, and logic dictates then that you must be a supporter of terrorism. The subjects of the United Kingdom have never had true free speech - legally - which makes it easier for the New Labour media machine to enforce repression of what is in many cases dissent, labelled as terrorism.
Is it an offence to write that I understand why 4 men decided to detonate themselves in London, taking the lives of innocent people? They wanted to express their anger and disgust at a world that condones the state terror perpertrated by many ‘civilised’ nations, a world in which a few powerful nuclear states can terrorise nations at will, and any peaceful protest will never make any difference to this state of affairs. This is not condoning the act of killing innocent people in London, this is simply saying that violence breeds violence, they wanted to do to London what we did to Baghdad.
However, this is the real crux of the matter, Tony Blair and George Bush cannot understand that the acts of the London bombers are no different to the act of illegally invading Iraq. Both acts were carried out by a small group of people pursuing an agenda through violence, Blair and Bush mobilised a massive military force, whilst the suicide bombers turned themselves into human bombs.
Both acts resulted in the deaths of innocent people, except Blair and Bush managed a far higher body count (although of course America ‘Don’t do body counts’), however, whilst the London bombers have been rightly condemned worldwide, the invasion of Iraq has not been(and when Blair repeats his claims that terrorism can ‘never be justified’, he seems to forget how frequently he justifies this terrorism).
I was sickened by the London bombings, and cannot have any idea what it is like to lose a loved-one to a random act of terror, but likewise, I am equally sickened by the actions of Tony Blair and George Bush, for although they may not have strapped the explosives to themselves, they are no less guilty. Nor can I hope to understand what it must be like to be an Iraqi who has lost a loved one due to the terrorism of the UK and US.
It is about time we started condemning all terror, and the next time Tony Blair makes a speech defending the war in Iraq, and America’s role in the world, perhaps he will be arrested for breaching these new rules - because he has done more to further the cause of terrorism than any other person in the UK.