On further thought

Now that the dust has settled slightly after last week’s terrorist related incident, I feel it appropriate to comment further. Just like the sudden change in security conditions at British airports was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, so was my commentary on the situation.

Sometimes it may sound as though I am condoning the actions of the people we label terrorists; this is most certainly not the case. I do not agree with their beliefs, their words, their methods, and their actions. They are cowards. They are people who wish to commit mass murder first, and then use religion and politics to justify it second. They are enemies of my country. However I believe that they are enemies that have been made, in part, by the actions of the government of my country. I do not agree with their actions either. For the most part I think a lot of the problems extend from the invasion of Iraq, and the continuing civil unrest caused by such invasion and occupation. Iraq has now become a terrorist breeding ground; every day, every day there is an article in the paper about the latest bombing atrocity in Iraq. Dozens of innocent people are being murdered every single day. The reports of these such happenings though are taking up less column inches, and are moving further and further back into the paper. Eventually we won’t read about it at all, but that won’t mean that it isn’t happening. I wouldn’t be surprised if more people have been killed since the invasion, than were killed by Saddam Hussein. Oh and where again are those Weapons of Mass Destruction?

Iraq gives people a reason to hate us, it creates enemies; the people who wish to bomb us will feel justified in doing so because of Iraq. This should be expected though, when you make an unprovoked attack on another country, you should expect some people to be unhappy about it. This is fine, but the problem is that the Government continues to act as though we are completely innocent victims of terrorism. Their mantra is that these people hate us and they want to kill us, and there isn’t really any reason for that, apart from the fact that they are evil. This is bullshit! The government needs to take responsibility for its actions; there were many people who didn’t like us to start off with, but Iraq has just made it a whole lot worse. It bothered me that the US and UK tried to claim the moral high ground when invading Iraq, that what they were doing was right. So many people knew it was wrong and what has happened since has only convinced everyone else that it was a bad idea. Yet the government still try to claim they were right, does anyone still believe them? Every time some new terrorist plot is foiled (though we cannot foil them all) the government will bleat on about how these people are bad and want to kill us and we have done nothing at all to provoke this.

I think that it’s this garbage that makes me mad the most. If the US and UK had just have said in the first place, that they quite fancied invading Iraq because they didn’t like Saddam, they needed another allied position in the middle east, fancied his oil, and ‘what the hell, we’ve got all these guns and military might, we may as well since nobody is going to be able to stop us;’ then I’m not sure I would be so pissed off. At least then they would be telling the truth. Then when they do uncover ‘terrorist’ plots to blow us up, they can admit that it was probably some people who were angry about Iraq, but hey, they’re pathetic little weasels, what’s this they’re making bombs out of? drink bottles? Hah! We can do better than that, we’ll crush you. I don’t think that would really bother me because then no one would be bullshitting me!

The really unfortunate issue in this most recent case is that all the suspects arrested were born in Britain. They are not foreigners, not Iraqis or Afghanis who are angry about the invasion of their country, but British citizens, represented by the British government. Therefore they have a right to be upset with their government, who they feel have poorly represented them internationally. Of course their right to be angry does not extend to a right to be violent.

Let us though think about the difference between a British Citizen, and a Briton. Is someone who conspires to commit such crimes against ones own country, really a true citizen of that country? These people have committed treason. Until 1998, treason was still technically punishable by death in Britain. Though thankfully it is no longer as surely government sponsored murder is still murder. Of course death is not the answer for these people. As they were planning on killing themselves anyway, death would make them martyrs in their own eyes and those of their supporters. So what is a country supposed to do when its own citizens want to commit these kinds of crimes against it? How many more of its citizens think this way, and why?

Britain seems to be suffering from colonial guilt. Guilty of the fact that Britain claimed so many other nations for her own, that she must now not upset anyone who should come to live here. There are many people of Indian and Pakistani origin living in Britain, because the Empire first went and lived in their country. This is certainly fair enough. There are people from many other nationalities who come to make their home here, most of whom add a great wealth of culture and knowledge to the general community. They are however allowed to do this far too freely; Britain is far too tolerant of immigrants and people who are not culturally similar.

There appears to be this general fear of upsetting people, especially minority groups; increasingly this seems to be at the expense of the majority. During the world cup, there was much consternation as to whether people should fly the St George’s flag, lest some people might be offended by it. This is the national flag of England and if you are living in England and are offended by it then that’s your problem.
Next month there was to be a Muslims only day at the theme park Alton Towers, though apparently due to lack on interest it has been cancelled. Could you imagine what kind of trouble would have been started if someone had have organised a ‘whites only’ day? Needless to say there was much disagreement from both non Muslims and Muslims alike. Clearly this does not promote integration.
If one goes to the website of one’s London Borough council, one can find that services are available in quite a large number of different languages, some of which I have never even heard of. This is just making easier for immigrants not to integrate with the culture of the nation.

Immigration is great, but immigrants should be encouraged to adopt the culture of the nation. They can do this without having to lose their own culture; but the easier we make it for them to not have to integrate, then the more they will not bother to do so. Language is the first barrier, if we make local government services available in English only, then people will need to speak English in order to live here successfully. Making it easy for people not to integrate, will only segregate society. We will end up with pockets of different communities who have absolutely nothing to do with each other. This can happen across generations and this is how we end up with a country’s own citizens plotting against it.