“Maybe it’s because I’m a Londoner that I love London town” goes a popular WWII song composed by Hubert Gregg after seeing the devastation wrought by doodlebugs on his city. Gregg died last year, but, had he lived, he would have been equally proud of the way his city bounced back after last week’s attacks. On Thursday, Londoners of every ethnicity showed their mettle, proved their reputation for stoicism, refused to be cowed and wasted no time in giving out business as usual signals. If anyone had their doubts, Sunday’s WWII celebrations when the Queen thought nothing of riding through the streets in an open-topped vehicle were proof positive.
Last week, all eyes were on London not only the site of the main Live 8 concert aimed at making poverty history but also the city which grabbed the 2012 summer Olympics from under the noses of the French. Hardly had the celebrations got seriously under way, when the four blasts went off leaving bodies scattered on pavements and trapped in underground rat-infested hell holes.
Was this the attack, which the former London police chief Sir John Stevens had warned was “inevitable” a year before? Was this the “blood price” which Tony Blair told the BBC he was prepared to offer up on behalf of the British people to cement the trans-Atlantic relationship during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in September 2002?
Not according to the prime minister. Even without a scrap of evidence, these attacks, he said, were carried out by the enemies of freedom who threaten our way of life and “all that we hold dear”. And immediately fingers began pointing at Al-Qaeda, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi as well as an assortment of Syrians and Moroccans.
According to Blair, the atrocities had nothing whatsoever to do with Britain’s presence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Is the prime minister making sense? Groups, such as the Al-Qaeda-Jihad in Europe and the European wing of the Abu Hafs Al-Masri brigades have posted messages on websites taking responsibility for the bombings and lauding them as retaliation for Afghanistan, Iraq and desecrations of the Qur’an.
Given that, in one case, a Qur’anic verse was misquoted and the website server traced to Texas, we should certainly take these claims with a fistful of salt. But Blair’s announcement that the blasts were unconnected with his own government’s foreign adventurism is even harder to swallow, provided, that is, that they were, indeed, perpetrated by members of the Al-Qaeda franchise.
Anti-terrorism pundits and Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw have described the onslaught on London as having the Al-Qaeda fingerprint. Is this the case? Apart from the synchronicity of the attacks, there is little similarity with other Al-Qaeda atrocities.
Firstly, sophisticated explosives with timers were used rather than suicide bombers. Scotland Yard has dubbed the bomb-maker “a professional”, while John Stevens believes the perpetrators were British. Then, on Sunday, The Independent ran a story titled “Police hunt mercenary terror gang recruited by Al-Qaeda”, which went on to suggest that Al-Qaeda may have hired white mercenaries to do their dirty work, indicating a shortage of jihadists, and running contrary to reports indicating Al-Qaeda has more than it knows what to do with.
Since London’s double-deckers are fitted with CC-TV cameras, the claim that white mercenaries might be involved may be verifiable. But wait ... the camera on the afflicted bus had been out of order for some time.
There are also questions concerning the targeting of Al-Qaeda in this instance. For example, Edgware Road (“Little Arabia”), Aldgate and King’s Cross are all areas boasting large Muslim populations. The same goes for the borough of Hackney where the bus originated. Certainly, Al-Qaeda has set its sights on Muslims before, but would it purposefully choose to target Muslims from relatively poor areas when there were other alternatives more compatible with their stated ideological aims?
Furthermore, there are questions surrounding the timing of these bloody assaults. It has been more than two years since Britain and the US invaded Iraq, yet Islamists have apparently waited to punish London at a time when news has been leaked that British troops are set to withdraw within six months. It seems that the terrorists are not only “barbaric” but bereft of brain cells.
Coincidentally, too, the blasts occurred at a time when support for the “war on terror” on both sides of the Atlantic is flagging and when the tide of public opinion over the justifiability of invading and staying in Iraq is turning. They also took place when politicians, judges, lawyers, human rights organizations and ordinary folk have been complaining about governmental erosion of civil liberties and condemning extrajudicial detentions and torture.
The British government may cite the G-8 summit under way at Gleneagles, Scotland, at the time of the blasts as encouraging terrorists to pick July 7, but this date also provided the world’s most powerful leaders with a perfect “shoulder-to-shoulder” photo-op. George Bush is already using the attacks to shore up support for his “war on terror” virtually saying “I told you so”. Lastly, the fact that The Associated Press, Sky News and the Israeli paper Arutz Sheva reported the Israeli Embassy was warned of the attacks in advance, causing former Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel his visit to a London hotel near one of the blast sites, has yet to be explained. Scotland Yard has said it received no such warnings, and the Israeli Embassy has denied the reports, which originated from an Israeli military radio station.
In the meantime, Britain’s Home Secretary Charles Clarke has been strengthened in his resolve to introduce compulsory biometric identity cards and carry through new terrorist legislation. He is also pushing telephone and Internet companies to retain traffic records for up to a year, a request, which was earlier rejected by the European Parliament. Moreover, the attacks have cast public suspicion on to foreigners in their midst, a mood set to furnish Clarke with clout when it comes to deporting failed asylum seekers and incarcerating illegal immigrants.
The Muslim Council of Britain, representing the country’s 1.6 million Muslims, has already received over 30,000 hate mails, despite its vehement condemnation of the blasts, while mosques around the country have fallen victim to arson attacks.
But while I have little confidence in No. 10 and its chronic resistance to truth and objectivity, I have faith in the intrinsic skepticism of Londoners to disavow knee-jerk reactions and belief in their sense of fair play.
This is a multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious city peopled with tolerant and street savvy individuals. These are not people who easily fall for the spin and the spiel. If anyone can get past the myriad of distortions and faux allegations, they can, and speaking as a Londoner myself, I am convinced that they will.
