A Little Comparison

Being in the ethno-religious minority in the UK, I've been watching the news closely for signs of a fallout from the London blasts. While Muslims are understandably jittery, and there have been sporadic incidents targetting Muslim symbols, the police have been taking steps to prevent any large-scale attempts to breach the peace. In addition, religious organisations have been stepping in to emphasise the need to maintain comity, and it doesn't seem likely that any large-scale violent incidents will erupt as a result of the blasts.

Yet, there have no calls for bandhs, no calls for revenge, and very little chances of being able to create large-scale death and destruction. No one wants to attack Muslims because they had it coming, and there are no mainstream apologists for Islamophobia who want Muslims chucked out of the UK. 427 people had died 4 days after the Godhra carnage, no serious attacks have been reported against British Muslims almost two days after the London blasts.

I'm feeling ashamed. Are you?

Putting the Dead to Good Use

I'm breaking from my self-imposed hibernation to blog about this disturbing piece by Tom Hayden which wastes no time in using the casualties in London to make a case for withdrawal in Iraq. Let me make my point clearer -

a. I am not in favour of the Iraq war, and am all in favour of those who make sensible and clear cases against the war.

b. I am, however, against using victims of terrorist attacks as some sort of a justification for my stance in opposition to the war (which is essentially what Hayden is doing). These were innocent men and women and I'm shocked that they're being used as mere tokens in a political game. My fear is that making them purely instrumental in a debate of concern not only demeans the fact that these were human beings who died, who had valuable lives and contributed value to the community in which they lived, but also loses those of us against the war the moral highground. Hayden's argument is the Terry Schiavo case of the left - it uses individuals purely as political ends, and denies them dignity and humanity in death.

c. Interestingly, Hayden's post doesn't even once mention the terrorists who were responsible for the attacks, or the general moral illegimitacy of terrorist movements which target innocent civilians (whether in Baghdad or London). It is a diatribe against regimes which "forcibly occupy Muslim lands in the oil-driven search for dominance", but no mention of the forcible occupation of our public space and lives by a hate-driven lust for terror...

Well, that's my point of view. What do you think? Also, Andrew Sullivan gets it so much better.

Prithvi.