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davywavyIn the wake of the recent bombings in London, various 'radical' (read: 'bonkers') clerics have been claiming that the bombings were the fault of the British people, and it is we who must accept responsibility for them. Somewhat more worryingly, this opinion has been echoed, and tacitly agreed with in some quarters. Not least some of the more left-wing press, but also it's been popping up on LJ here and there too.
Now, I don't know about you, but this attitude really irritates me. The first thing I don't like about it is the implicit racism of the assumption that it's our fault. It is our actions, the attitude says, that brought the attacks onto us. This abrogates the bombers of moral responsibility and effectively makes them less than human. They didn't have free will. They didn't make an active decision to step outside of civilised society. We made that decision for them, through our actions.
When Tim McVeigh bombed Oklahoma city and claimed he was doing God's work, nobody sat back and asked if it meant we weren't taking enough notice of the desires of the 'Christian community'. We sat back and looked at him for what he was - an extremist nutter and criminal who deserved to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Why is it, then, when other groups of nutters and criminals decide to take the law into their own hands, it is suddenly our fault? Is it because the bombers killed themselves in the attacks? There is an honourable history of suicide as a means of protest which does not involve the death or injury of others. Certainly, if the London suicide bombers has gone to an out-of the way placed and publically detonated themselves in protest against - well, whatever it was they thought they were protesting against - and alerted the press beforehand, then public sympathy would have been firmly on their side as nobody else would have been hurt.
The fact of the matter is they wanted to kill and harm other people and, irrespective of the woolly bleatings of the Guardian, Ken Livingstone and some of the more hard-of-thinking members of the Livejournal world, premeditated murder is not a legitimate form of protest; and more to the point the victims and the society of those victims have no moral responsibilty for those murders.
After all, if we start accepting external moral repsonsibility for the deaths of the commuters on the tube, how long will it be before 'She was asking for it' is an acceptable moral excuse for rape? In many ways, they are the same argument.
The bombers weren't religious, they weren't martyrs, and their actions were entirely their fault.
And anyone who says different is just asking for a punch in the gob. It'll be their fault, too.
In the light of this thought, I'd like to ask you a few questions:
[Poll #536667]
Now, I don't know about you, but this attitude really irritates me. The first thing I don't like about it is the implicit racism of the assumption that it's our fault. It is our actions, the attitude says, that brought the attacks onto us. This abrogates the bombers of moral responsibility and effectively makes them less than human. They didn't have free will. They didn't make an active decision to step outside of civilised society. We made that decision for them, through our actions.
When Tim McVeigh bombed Oklahoma city and claimed he was doing God's work, nobody sat back and asked if it meant we weren't taking enough notice of the desires of the 'Christian community'. We sat back and looked at him for what he was - an extremist nutter and criminal who deserved to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Why is it, then, when other groups of nutters and criminals decide to take the law into their own hands, it is suddenly our fault? Is it because the bombers killed themselves in the attacks? There is an honourable history of suicide as a means of protest which does not involve the death or injury of others. Certainly, if the London suicide bombers has gone to an out-of the way placed and publically detonated themselves in protest against - well, whatever it was they thought they were protesting against - and alerted the press beforehand, then public sympathy would have been firmly on their side as nobody else would have been hurt.
The fact of the matter is they wanted to kill and harm other people and, irrespective of the woolly bleatings of the Guardian, Ken Livingstone and some of the more hard-of-thinking members of the Livejournal world, premeditated murder is not a legitimate form of protest; and more to the point the victims and the society of those victims have no moral responsibilty for those murders.
After all, if we start accepting external moral repsonsibility for the deaths of the commuters on the tube, how long will it be before 'She was asking for it' is an acceptable moral excuse for rape? In many ways, they are the same argument.
The bombers weren't religious, they weren't martyrs, and their actions were entirely their fault.
And anyone who says different is just asking for a punch in the gob. It'll be their fault, too.
In the light of this thought, I'd like to ask you a few questions:
[Poll #536667]
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Re: Hmm ...
Date: 2005-07-22 04:12 pm (UTC)Re: Hmm ...
Date: 2005-07-22 04:24 pm (UTC)There *could* have been any number of alternatives, but we'll never know now.
Re: Hmm ...
Date: 2005-07-22 04:32 pm (UTC)You must admit that the potential number of positive outcomes was vanishingly small.
Much like "That old lady is stepping in front of the bus - I won't help her to safety because there are a lot of possible outcomes" is a valid argument, the number of likely outcomes is in single figures, and none of them are good.
Re: Hmm ...
Date: 2005-07-22 04:59 pm (UTC)Allow me to clarify something I think has been misinterpreted. Personally, I don't feel that violence is ever justified. However, I do realize that the police and the military, for example, have a job to do. Unfortuneately sometimes a part of that job is violence. Protecting the greater good by thumping some heads or shooting a guy five times to protect the innocent.
It's become a necessity, but that still doesn't make it right.
Re: Hmm ...
Date: 2005-07-22 10:35 pm (UTC)