Tired of Weeping

Former UK Ambassador writes; WAJID SHAMSUL HASAN It used to be my firm belief that even those who consider violence as the sole means to their ends, would never be unkind to the great city of London and its people who have developed painstakingly since centuries, that spirit of tolerance and co-existence, that unreserved and unqualified commitment to Voltaire's hitherto unsurpassed concept that one might disagree with whatever your beliefs are but one would defend with one's life your right to free expression. In most difficult times in history London's unprecedented level of tolerance has never surrendered to imposed or self-imposed restrictions. It has served as a haven for dissenters who are either hunted or wanted by their own governments. Hunted and wanted in their own countries, they blossomed in London's free air and gave shape to their ideas that changed the course of history, opened floodgates for revolutions and made liberty and freedom a household phenomenon. Karl Marx, undisputedly one of the greatest philosophers of all times whose vision changed the world, found London's rich soil to provide healthy food to his thoughts that changed the complexion of human society. Pakistanis are proud to see a blue plaque on a building in London's Kensington/Olympia area. It says Pakistan's Founder Quaid-i-Azam lived there when he was doing his Bar from Lincoln's Inn. In Swiss Cottage area, on Kings Road you come across a flat that has a plaque stating that the place had been an abode for Dr Ambedkar--the man who gave India its secular constitution. Simon Bolivar, the Liberator of Latin America and last of the French Bourbon King Charles lived here in exile. Each London street has a story of its own to tell. Being an oasis of freedom in a vast world that is being torn by conflict ignited by leaders fighting a lifelong battle with ignorance and obscurantist forces opposed to them following 9/11, I had believed that London would remain beyond the pale of the terrorist violence. No other country or the people have as much courage as the British to confront challenges that offer no solutions. Their understanding of elements and circumstances that come in conflict with retrogressive authoritarian forces opposed to dissent and democracy elsewhere, have made British preserve London as a sanctuary for voices silenced in their own countries.  The July 7 series of bomb blasts have floundered all hopes. It made me hopeless. I wept. Although Prime Minister Tony Blair in his first reaction blamed the Islamists followed by his Home Secretary's reiteration of the accusation that the blasts had the stamp of Al-Qaeda, the Metropolitan Police refused to blame anyone, including European Jihad faction of al-Qaeda that had claimed the responsibility of the attacks.  While we are beholden to London's Emergency Services for pulling off a rescue miracle, Metropolitan police and the British intelligence apparatus have been acting very responsibly. They want to be sure of the facts before they point finger at suspects. Perhaps they have learnt a bitter lesson from the sexed-up dossiers on Iraq based on lies - that had led Tony Blair to be a keyplayer along with President Bush in justifying baseless War on Iraq to destroy its so-called stockpile of WMDs. The very fact that Blair and Bush plunged the world into the mother of all wars in the new millennium has given a fatal blow to all the higher pristine human values of freedom and tolerance that the British society had nourished and nurtured over the centuries. Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook is one of the rarest British forthright politicians who had shown courage by resigning when Blair joined Bush in the illegal war. In the new world order where evil is justified on the ground of expediency, Robin Cook had taken pains to run an ethical foreign policy. Had Tony Blair listened to such saner voices the course of history would not have become so bloody as it seems to be getting with each passing day. I tend to believe veteran statesman Tony Benn rather than the other Tony who continues to maintain most brazenly that he and Bush went into Iraq to defend the great human values that their two countries have so dearly cherished. The undeniable truth is that they went to war for things other than higher human values. According to Tony Benn, who put it straight in BBC's Hardtalk that be it London bombings, killing of 3000 innocent people in New York's Twin Towers or killing of 100,000 innocent civilian Iraqis it is an ongoing political battle for the control of Middle East and he declared it categorically it is a political conflict and not religious. Robin Cook in his column in the Guardian (July 8) has carried Tony Benn's point further home. "The immediate response to such human tragedy must be empathy with the pain of those injured and the grief of those bereaved. Across London today there are relatives whose pain may be more acute because they never had the chance to offer or hear last words of affection." But perhaps the loss is hardest to bear because it is so difficult to answer the question why it should have happened.  Only the day before (July 6), London was celebrating its win in holding the Olympic Games. Indeed, nothing would have pleased more than those who planted the bombs to breed suspicion and hostility in the harmonious multi-ethnic British society. Robin's point needs to be adopted as a global belief that "defeating the terrorists also means defeating their poisonous belief that peoples of different faiths and ethnic origins cannot coexist." A forthright earlier Robin has warned the British nation not to be misled by propaganda by the vested interests: "We will be subjected to a spate of articles analysing the threat of militant Islam. Ironically they will fall in the same week that we recall the 10th anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica, when the powerful nations of Europe failed to protect 8,000 Muslims from being annihilated in the worst terrorist act in Europe. "Osama bin Laden is no more a true representative of Islam than General Mladic, who commanded the Serbian forces, could be held up as an example of Christianity. After all, it is written in the Quran that we were made into different peoples not that we might despise each other, but that we might understand each other." Robin has minced no words in dilating on the real identity of Osama Bin Laden. He says: "He was a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the West. Robin is also critical of Western response to terrorism. "So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the West emphasises on confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists and denying them support, funds and recruits, which means focusing more on our common ground with the Muslim world than on what divides us." One would agree with Mr Cook that the G-8 Forum be used to initiate "a dialogue with Muslim countries, as none of them is included in the core membership. We are not going to address the sense of marginalisation among Muslim countries if we do not make more of an effort to be inclusive of them in the architecture of global governance." Robert Fisk's column in London's Independent (July 8) has a lot of food for thought for the world leaders who claim to hold their values of freedom and democracy dear. So writes Fisk, "It was clear Britain would be a target ever since British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided to join President Bush's War on Terror and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned. The G-8 summit was obviously chosen, well in advance, as Attack Day." Fisk reminds the world of Osama warning, "If you bomb our cities, we will bomb yours."' Fisk adds further, "They are not trying to destroy what we hold dear. They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, out of his alliance with the US, out of his adherence to Bush's policies in the Middle East. The Spanish paid the price for their support for Bush and Spain's subsequent retreat from Iraq proved that the Madrid bombings achieved their objectives - while the Australians were made to suffer in Bali." No doubt, Fisk says, London bombings were "barbaric"' but, asks he, what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints. When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die it is "barbaric terrorism." This difference has to end to revive those values that cherish life as the ultimate gift of God that demand equal respect, dignity both in life and death for all. Those who sit on piles of nuclear weapons and are drunk with power better get down to seeking words of wisdom from the likes of Robin Cook. It is a battle between haves and have-nots. Have-nots need to be provided a reasonable and attractive stake in life on earth so that they are not lured into becoming human bombs on the promise of a life of 'milk-n-honey' and bliss hereafter.