DAY ONE: 8 July 2005

The atrocities in London have shocked the world, and the world demands answers. Unfortunately, the answers being given in the British media are often highly misleading. (A brief analysis is here.)

Milan Rai of Justice Not Vengeance (JNV) and Gabriel Carlyle of Voices in the Wilderness UK have written the following response to the London atrocities. Voices in the Wilderness (US) echoes this call to anti-war and other groups found in the US. If you or your US group hold a vigil please send a report to us at info@vitw.org.

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Today’s horrific events in London demand an active response from the movements for peace and justice.

Justice Not Vengeance and Voices in the Wilderness UK are proposing that anti-war and other groups around the UK hold silent vigils in their town centres at some point over this weekend (in Hastings, a vigil is being held in front of the town hall at 6pm on Friday), on the following themes (please amend as you see fit):

JNV Briefing 77
By Milan Rai
(pdf available from JNV)

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE WRONG ANSWERS

Five days after the 11 September attacks, President Bush said that Osama bin Laden was ‘the prime suspect’. He added, ‘Now, I want to remind the American people that the prime suspect’s organization is in a lot of countries-it’s a widespread organization based upon one thing: terrorizing. They can’t stand freedom; they hate what America stands for.’

Addressing Congress on 20 Sept. 2001, President Bush said, ‘Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world-and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.’ He added, ‘Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we see right here in this chamber-a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.’

Prime Minister Blair told the House of Commons on 14 Sept. 2001 that Parliament had been specially recalled because ‘these attacks were not just attacks upon people and buildings; nor even merely upon the USA; these were attacks on the basic democratic values in which we all believe so passionately and on the civilised world’.

EXPLAINING AL QAEDA-THE REAL ANSWERS

The US Government’s official ‘9/11 Commission’ reported that bin Laden’s grievance with the United States ’started in reaction to specific US policies’. Bin Laden and his group ’say that America had attacked Islam… Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.’ The US is also ‘held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided by al Qaeda as “your agents”.

Such charges, says the Commission, ‘found a ready audience among millions of Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive rulers.’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: Norton & Co, 2004, p. 51)