Massive plane bombing plot uncovered in UK

Posted August 11th, 2006 by zeeshanhasan

The Guardian has a huge story today about the planned bombing of 12 passenger aircraft. So far 24 suspects have been apprehended;

the majority British Muslims of Pakistani descent, were going to disguise liquid explosive as bottles of soft drink and carry them in their hand luggage on to US-bound planes leaving British airports.

This is the second time British Pakistanis have been implicated in terrorism; the first was the 7/7 London subway bombings. Of course, people are now going to be asking why British Pakistanis are resorting to terrorism; while this is often expressed in the context of a xenophobic and anti-immigrant argument, it is a legitimate question which deserves an answer. Unfortunately the answer is not a short or quick one. It has to do with the alienation felt by the UK's Muslim community as the most economically deprived ethnic group, as well as with the frustration at Tony Blair's transformation into George W. Bush's poodle in the realm of foreign policy. However, it would be denying reality to say it had nothing to do with the UK's Muslim population, in particular with British Pakistanis.

The roots of this problem are in Pakistan itself; the state was separated from predominantly Hindu India as a homeland for Muslims. Since Islamic nationalism was the entire justification for the state, a heavy dose of Islamic propaganda was fed to the public from day one. This came to good use in 1971, when the ideology of Islamic unity was used by the West Pakistan-dominated government and military to justify the massacre of millions of Bengali civilians in East Pakistan (a reminder, should we still need it, that Muslims are always the biggest victims of Islamic extremism). Even after the independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh, military leaders of Pakistan such as General Zia ul Huq found in convenient to legitimize their regimes by progressively Islamizing the country and its laws. These supposedly Islamic laws made it impossible for a raped woman to seek justice (although that might be changing).

But aside from the obvious consequences of Islamization in Pakistan itself, we seem to be seeing the larger consequences among the Pakistani diaspora in the UK. The problem with ideology is that it's a matter of numbers. Any ideology that attracts a lot of adherents is almost certain to pick up some number of extremist followers. As the ideology becomes more established, and especially when pushed by the state, the number of those extremists goes up. Perhaps not surprisingly, Saudi Arabia, another state with an avowedly Islamic ideology, produced most of the 9/11 bombers. Bangladesh moved away from its secular nationalist roots in the mid-1970's; thirty years later, a number of extremist groups attracted sufficient followers to carry out hundreds of synchronized bombings all over the country.

The lesson, of course, is that we should be cautious of leaders and states which are pushing Islamic political ideology. Even if they seem like harmless religious conservatives, they may be opening Pandora's box.

Comments

Well said, thank you.

On August 11th, 2006 Laury Silvers says:

Well said, thank you.

Two of the suspects are

On August 13th, 2006 GustavoMustafa says:

Two of the suspects are white Britons, but I’m not going to feel pity for a Muslim community where:

-60% of all English mosques do not have facilities for female worshippers

-the British Muslim population has social welfare networks not available for Muslims here, here in America we starve or work, which means we assimilate to the mainstream, dominant Euro-American culture.

-Muslims need to realize the adage “When in Rome, do what the Romans do!”

-Pakistanis have no excuse for demonizing the country that has welcomed them with welfare checks in hand.

-Becoming acculturated into the British mainstream does not negate one’s Muslim identity, but Pakistan has been both a base of terrorism for Afghans and Indians alike, it is a nation who seems duplicitous in its stated and shared goals to eradicate terrorism when it seems to have no control over large segments of its territory.

The problem with political

On August 13th, 2006 GustavoMustafa says:

The problem with political Islamism is that dissent and disagreement is not permitted.

Muslims monopolize Islam and fashion it to their own liking.

This homogenization of Islam in the guise of revivalist movements that are often reactionary to Western hegemony and blame the West for the problems afflicting the worldwide Ummah, are dangerous when people make what is not wajid wajid and dictate rules without allowing people to explore the rationale and reasoning behind this line of thought.

But progressives are also

On August 13th, 2006 GustavoMustafa says:

But progressives are also Muslim extremists, extremism is found both on the Muslim Left and the Muslim Right.

It is one thing to make proclamations about “reforming Islam” but when your self-appointed leaders are not well-versed in Islam in the traditional Islamic sciences, you lose major credibility and are seen by most as superficial stooges of the West, the example par excellence is Tarek Fattah.

Progressives could be more

On August 13th, 2006 Fashion Mujahid says:

Progressives could be more accurately described as about halfway between center and extreme left. Self-appointed leaders are just that; they don’t represent anyone but themselves. The only way to prevent that sort of behavior would be to somehow copyright the terms “Progressive Islam” and “Progressive Muslim”, and only allow certain people to use them.

assalamu alaykum First of

On August 16th, 2006 thabet_ (not verified) says:

assalamu alaykum

First of all you’ve forgotten a basic fundamental norm of English law: they’re innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. I am dissappointed you have not considered this and joined in the general media frenzy and anti-Muslim sentiment which is, frankly, frightening and downright racist in some instances. Some, or all, of these men might be innocent; it’s happened before and could happen again.

Secondly, blaming Pakistan is a get-out clause for us in Britain. Pakistan’s supposed ‘Islamic nationalism’ is not to blame, as these kinds of groups and inviduals reject any sort of nationalism. They claim to transcend these boundaries which they see as parochial. Pakistan has its own issues with religion and national identity. Let Pakistanis sort them out. We have our own issues here.

wasalam