your village voice

Britain Aids Bin Laden?

I have been pondering over the reactions to 7/7 in Britain with sadness and the recent proposed changes in British law with increased incredulity. How easily is the British government cowed by these terrorists into giving up the sworn liberties of its citizens!

Last Friday, with the introduction of the "Kill 'Em All" strategy in dealings with bomb suspects, the straw broke the camel's back. I could barely contain my response in the form of intelligible discourse. Today, the Guardian found some of the words I lost that day:

No one will be more pleased than Osama bin Laden with the new measures announced by Tony Blair. He will be even more pleased should the prime minister succeed in turning his plans into legislation. There are two reasons for Bin Laden's satisfaction at what doubtless looks to him like a historic victory.

First, he will believe he has succeeded in forcing Britain to abandon a number of hard-earned achievements in the fields of justice and liberty - achievements that took centuries of struggle and evolution to accomplish. Bin Laden will rejoice because he has forced society into forsaking these values. This, he believes, will leave the west open to eventual defeat at the hands of Muslims.

Both moderate and jihadist Islamist activists have long recognised the values of justice and liberty within western societies as the foundation of western dominance in the past few centuries. A dictum attributed to Ibn Taymiya, a renowned Muslim scholar born seven centuries ago, states that God will lend victory to a just nation even if it is infidel and bring defeat to the unjust even if it they are Muslim. When the west loses its values of justice, it will be defeated in the long run.

The second reason for Bin Laden's satisfaction is that his strategy is based on absolute polarisation. The world is to be split into two opposing camps: a bloc of Muslims with no infidels in their midst and one of infidels with no Muslims in their midst.

The measures advocated by Blair and the accompanying atmosphere of racial hatred might cause many Muslims living in "infidel" western nations to leave for good. The harsher the measures adopted by Britain and other western societies, the nearer we will get to fulfilling Bin Laden's strategic aim.

It is perhaps not surprising that Bin Laden was able to manipulate the cowboy element in the American political structures to his advantage, turning them into his own PR outfit, which influenced huge numbers of Muslims to become supporters of his group. What is surprising is that European, in particular British, political establishments should take up the American methods, enabling Bin Laden to score similar successes on the European front.

How many more freedoms must the world cede to the terrorists before people realize giving up these freedoms only strengthen Al Queda's cause? I am becoming more convinced that this great clash between terrorist fear and Western infidel fear will lead to the destruction of us all. The more posturing and hatred, the greater our mutual demise.

posted by the prisoner @ 2:27:00 PM