British airports were in a state of chaos yesterday after it was revealed that
a terrorist plot had been foiled. Twenty-four people have been arrested on
allegations of planning to blow up ten aircraft over the Atlantic
Ocean using liquid explosives carried in soft-drink bottles, and
detonators disguised as electronic equipment. The gutter press was keen to pick
up on the British police's declaration that the explosions could have caused "mass
murder on an unimaginable scale".
The events of September 11 have shown the capabilities of modern day's
terrorists and the subsequent bombings in Madrid,
Bali, London
and Mumbai indicate that more attacks of this type would be no surprise at all.
Nevertheless, at this point it is simply not possible to determine with absolute
certainty whether a terrorist attack on the scale claimed was actually in the
making or not. It is up to the British government to back up their allegations
and to justify the severe security measures they have imposed. Taking for
granted what the present Labour government says will not bring us closer to the
truth. Remember the faulty "case for war" in Iraq
– not a single weapon of mass destruction was found – that proved to be a mere
lie, as well as the more recent anti-terrorist raid and shooting in Forest
Gate, East London that was based on no
evidence whatsoever
It would be a great mistake to abandon our ability for critical thinking in
such a period of hysteria and media frenzy. Certainly a state of panic plays
into the hands of certain people in the state precisely because it becomes much
easier to rubberstamp changes in the law that can do away with basic, hard-won
civil liberties fought for over centuries.
Surely it should one give food for thought that Home Secretary John Reid,
just hours before the red alert was sounded, changed his planned speech on
immigration to a think-tank in London, to speak on terrorism, thereby accusing critics
of the government's anti-terrorism measures of putting national security at
risk through their failure to recognise the serious nature of the threat facing
Britain. "They just don't get it," he said. "Sometimes we may have to modify some
of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse and
abuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our
freedoms in the modern world."
Reid thus gave a very strong hint that more "anti-terrorism" legislation was
on the way this autumn as he argued that civil liberties arguments belonged to
another age. What is true is that certain civil liberties already belong to another age. The right to demonstrate has already
been seriously restricted; anti-strike laws that were implemented under
Thatcher have only been strengthened under the Blair government; and these days
the right to live without the danger of being shot dead by the police is also a
freedom of the past thanks to the implementation of a shoot-to-kill policy that
has already killed an innocent man and almost killed another one in the raid in
Forest Gate.
Of course there is a terrorist threat that is very real and it would be
foolish to deny it. Where is the debate in the media, however, on where this vicious
kind of terrorism comes from? No sane human being can approve of the disastrous
method of individual terrorism that has killed thousands of people all over the
world. The tragedy of the terrorist atrocities over the last years is that they
only play into the hands of those ladies and gentlemen in government who have
no less blood on their hands. State terrorism is in essence no different than
individual terrorism after all.
Iraq.
Afghanistan.
Lebanon.
Palestine.
There you have the answer to why young people with a whole life in front of
them are prepared to incinerate themselves in suicide attacks. Not thousands
but hundreds of thousands of innocent people have been killed in wars they do
not want. For a whole century the Middle East
has been the chessboard of the big imperialist powers fighting for control over
the vast natural resources of the region. Communities have been torn apart by
divide and rule tactics, artificial borders and sectarian divisions promoted by
American, British and French imperialism.
The imperialist powers cannot solve the problems facing the masses of
the Middle East precisely because they are the cause of these
never ending crises. For the same reason they cannot combat this modern
day
plague of individual terrorism. Meanwhile, behind the cover of
‘combating
terrorism' the ruling class is busily dismantling our democratic
rights. This
is not a secondary matter. Just as they fight foreign wars for markets,
raw
materials and spheres of influence, so the capitalists are preparing
for
serious battles at home against the working class, to drive down our
wages, and
destroy the reforms we have conquered in the past, all in the name of
profit
and the defence of their decrepit system.
The labour movement must be on its guard. Democratic rights, even as limited
as they are under capitalism, must be defended. To throw them away will do
nothing to combat terrorism, nor will it help the masses of the Middle East. The only people to benefit would be the
ruling class. It is our internationalist duty to assist the masses of the
Middle East, in the first place by demanding the withdrawal of British troops
from Afghanistan and Iraq, and also
by defending our ability to conduct such a struggle by preventing a further
assault on our civil liberties.
No to Attacks on Civil Liberties! Defend Democratic Rights!
For the immediate withdrawal of all imperialist troops from Iraq and Afghanistan!
