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[Taranne]

We can't let God-blinded killers set our foreign policy

Muslims are right that Blair has fomented extremism, but wrong not to challenge the myth of a crusade against them

Polly Toynbee

Tuesday August 15, 2006

Guardian

The grand assemblage of Muslim MPs, peers and leaders of 38 key groups who signed an open letter to the prime minister last weekend are almost certainly right. British foreign policy has helped foment murderous extremism among British Muslims.

The London bombings a year ago might not have happened had Labour taken the French stand. If Tony Blair and his cabinet had never hitched Britain to George Bush's war chariot, it is unlikely that al-Qaida-inspired terror cells would plan mass murder from British airports. Before, Islamist terror was focused on faraway countries - Indonesia, the Philippines, Algeria, Somalia, Russia - and the twin towers. If we had only kept our heads down, terror's hot breath might have passed over us.

Every minister hotly denying this obvious truth sounds absurd - but makes the wrong point altogether. The point is that a democratically elected government's foreign policy can't be moulded by threats from murdering religious maniacs. There are 1,001 good reasons why we should never have supported, let alone joined, the war in Iraq. But the one truly bad reason would have been fear of terrorism.

Those signing the letter steer perilously close to suggesting the government had it coming. The Muslim leaders wrote: "The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all." They urge the prime minister to "change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion. Such a move would make us safer." Maybe it would, but there can't be many, pro- or anti-war, who think sparing us from threats by God-blinded killers should be the number-one priority in foreign policy.

As it is, Blair will leave office earlier than he would have done, for ever branded by his great Bush/Iraq error; Labour may lose power, blighted and paralysed by it. That is what happens in democracies - vengeance the democratic way.

Intellectually, these Muslim leaders are subtly accepting a notion that Muslim anger is different to other citizens' anger. Why? Because globally Muslims feel there is a western crusade against them. True, Bush's "war on terror" language encourages that paranoid delusion, but these moderate leaders should be doing their best to challenge the myth.

It goes with the selective amnesia that forgets about the Kosovo Muslims Blair and Clinton saved from genocide. It goes with a distorted memory of the Taliban as anything other than ruthless despots to their people (especially their women) and unprovoked originators of terror against the rest of the world. As for Iraq, invasion was dangerously misguided, but selective Islamic memory forgets that Saddam murdered Muslims.

In the great disaster of Blair's foreign policy, the irony is that most Britons would agree with the Muslim leaders' critique, both on Iraq and Lebanon. But that does not lead to any "understanding", let alone appeasement, of terrorists. What is their cause? It's not a viable Palestinian state (though that would help). It's not better rights in Britain to jobs and respect (that would help). It's not to bring democracy to corrupt Middle Eastern governments propped up by the west (democracy is a western abomination). Their cause is to impose a fantasy caliphate across some mystically united Muslim world - even as conflict between rival Islamic sects in Iraq kills thousands more Muslims than infidel invaders.

However, standing by and watching the killing of so many civilians in Lebanon and the destruction of the one nascent pro-western democracy in the region has been more than many in the Labour party can stand. The sentiment behind the call for a return of parliament is backed by more MPs and ministers than the 100 or so who signed up to this empty gesture. As sidekick without influence on US policy, Britain has no useful role to play, but self-respect demanded the cabinet at least follow Kim Howells' protest at Israel's disproportionate response to Hizbullah. It shamed us to say nothing.

Mistrust of government now reaches the point where the first response to the news of the terror arrests from many quarters was disbelief. The internet hummed with theories that this was all a plot to deflect attention from Lebanon. Remember the ricin plot that wasn't and the WMD that weren't? Security services are inept, as Forest Gate and the death of Jean Charles de Menezes prove.

It's impossible to know yet how close to success a plan to destroy nine airliners may have been, or to assess Reid's claim of other plots foiled and more to come. But the notion of the state ever eager to stifle our rights for its own sinister ends is running deep across the political spectrum. That's an anarchic paranoia to be refuted by the centre-left, for whom the state is a force for collective good. Faced with sudden threats, of course the state makes mistakes: who hasn't imagined the life-or-death moment when the police had to decide whether to pull the trigger on a potential tube bomber?

Yesterday Ruth Kelly set out to talk to the Muslim community - again. It's hard to know what that means. There are no "talks" available with religious fanatics seeking paradise in an impossible cause.

But some preventive measures were obvious many years ago, as report after report said communities forced in on themselves needed help to open up. Trevor Phillips of the Commission for Racial Equality was first to say, bravely, that multiculturalism is a bad idea if it means separate development; now is the time to open up cultural-isolation zones.

A new Commission on Integration and Cohesion, launching this month, will be worthless unless its first recommendation is to end religious and ethnic segregation in schools. That means no Church of England or Catholic schools, no Muslim or Jewish schools. There must be no toleration either for lazy local school allocations that allow 90% of children to be Muslims in one state school while other schools nearby are mainly white. The bussing of children has to go with huge investment so that genuinely mixed schools in these areas get the most teachers and best resources and become extended schools offering enticing community facilities. Housing must follow suit, offering better to both white and ethnic-minority families, luring them into new, mixed communities that are too good to refuse. All that takes a long time - but it should begin today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329552994-103677,00.html

[melodius]

Every minister hotly denying this obvious truth sounds absurd - but makes the wrong point altogether. The point is that a democratically elected government's foreign policy can't be moulded by threats from murdering religious maniacs. There are 1,001 good reasons why we should never have supported, let alone joined, the war in Iraq. But the one truly bad reason would have been fear of terrorism.

Erreur flagrante de logique. Sans l'action, pas de réaction. De plus, ce machisme à la petite semaine est vraiment ridicule.

[Taranne]

Polyanna développe (?) son point de vue dans les commentaires:

The reason I suggest stopping all religious state schools is not just to be even-handed. Some 60 new muslim schools are in the pipe line - but the thousands of church schools are often used as a haven for white families to flee local state schools with a high ethnic ratio - making the division everywhere far more stark. Only 3% go to church regularly - yet a third of state schools are religious, mainly christian. It's a hang-over from charity schools days, an anomaly the state should clear up.

Et moi qui croyais que la France avait le monopole des laïcards constructivistes…