Posted by Jason on: 07.07.2008 /
I wondered whether to write about the 7th July London bombings or not. Today marks the third anniversary of those events and for many still far too recent. I’m guessing that for Americans the London bombings echo too closely the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon or for the Spanish the train bombings in Madrid. 7/7 killed 52 commuters, 4 suicide killers and injured over 700 people. They were horrific attacks against unarmed and uninformed civilians.
Why did these events occur? is a question that I’ve asked myself many times. I thought to blame religion, after all al-Qaeda officially took responsibility for the attacks. Al-Qaeda is a fundamentalist Sunni Islamic terrorist organisation. Except that it isn’t really an organisation at all, it’s more an approach, a way of living. Al-Qaeda cells generally seek an end to foreign influence in Muslim countries and the creation of a new Islamic caliphate. As such they hold a philosophy that is fundamentally religious.
I’ve come to understand that the Islamic faith believes in the same deity as that of the Jews and the Christians albeit in different forms. Muslims attacking Christians or Jews and Christians attacking Muslims to me, the atheist, it seems no different from Protestant attacking Catholic and vise versa. A pointless and futile attempt to prove who is right about their holy book. I’m generalising, of course, not every Muslim is a crazed jihadist just as not every Christian is a bigoted fundamentalist. In fact these represent a tiny, unpleasant minority in the faiths.
I’ve never believed in God but I became an atheist following the attacks in New York in 2001. I starting to speak out against religion after the attacks in London in 2005. It’s been a little over a year since I came to realise that attacking religion is just another “pointless and futile attempt to prove who is right”. I think I’m right, you think you’re right. As long as we fight about it none of us are ever going to win.
I hope that we can put aside our differences and try to remember that before religion or race, before creed or colour we are human beings and citizens of the same world. I’m learning things all the time about Christians and atheists by contributing to this site and to several others. Whenever I learn something I win a little or at least I don’t lose. Whenever someone learns something from me there are two winners. Nobody loses.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
1Thanks Jason - I didn’t remember the exact date of the London bombings but I do remember when it happened because we’d been staying in the City of London (very close to the Tower of London) a couple of weeks earlier, taking the tube to get from place to place. If our trip had been a bit later we would have been there when the bombings happened.
Thanks for your thoughts about getting beyond our religious differences, listening to each other and learning from each other.
Comment by: Pseudonym
2And also thanks from me, Jason.
There’s one point I’d like to expand on.
Except that it isn’t really that, either. It’s a brand.
Al Qaeda’s position is complex, but it’s based on the idea that liberal Western democracy is decadent and immoral (where have we heard that before?), and that it is infecting nominally Muslim lands. In addition, superpowers (whether democratic or communist) interfere in the 60 or so regional conflicts involving nominally Islamic populations, so they are really the same conflict.
So, for example, Bin Laden would argue that Chechnya, East Timor, Somalia and Palestine were all the same issue: modern-day crusaders oppressing Muslims.
The interesting thing for me is this last point, and how similar it is to the “Global War on Terror” rhetoric that argued that Iraq and Afghanistan were part of the same conflict.
It seems to me that one of the big evils here is refusing to see people as they are. The 60 or so regional conflicts are not all the same. They are all different. We do our fellow humans a disservice by stereotyping them and not understanding where they are coming from.
So here’s to learning and understanding.
Comment by: joe
3I’ve heard similar things to Pseudonym from Muslim friends I know. They claim there is no central Al Qaeda organisation, and it is just convenient both for the superpowers and the extremists to make out that there is.
Comment by: Jason
4Helen, you’ve been in America for some time now so it’s hardly surprising that you’d lost track of the date. I know a number of people in London including friends that go back to my school days. It’s also that much closer geographically as I’m an hour away from London by train.
Your visit parallels a friend of mine’s own story. He visited New York in July or August of 2001. It makes the world seem so much smaller when someone you know was close to it. I’m lucky that I know no-one who was directly harmed by the actions of terrorists, just friends of friends.
The London bombers though were just a bunch of disaffected kids trying to make a statement in the most shocking way imaginable. I can see anyone with enough conviction doing the same. We see it with non-religious extremism as well. Animal rights activists can be just as militant as can those with political agendas. It’s hard to blame religion (or keep blaming religion) when someone is killed or fox hunting or gang membership. I’d just like to see people’s passions directed more to construction rather than destruction.
Pseudonym, you raise a good point about al-Qaeda. To most people they are an homogeneous group with one agenda but this is a media induced simplification. It probably comes from early comments by George Bush that implied that al-Qaeda was something akin to an army. The same goes for bin Laden in that he isn’t the leader of an army or organisation but an active member and sometimes figurehead.
I think that I’ve always hated the phrase “Global War on Terror”. Terror is an emotion. Waging war on it is like waging war on happiness or love. It is so broad and vague as to be meaningless. Using meaningless rhetoric to attack someone is nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse.
Of course it sounds good, who wouldn’t want to reduce terror? It’s close enough to “fighting fear” that most people just accept it as something to be overcome without looking into it in any detail. If you want to fight terror then just drug everyone up with something like Soma so that they can only feel happy no matter what actually happens to them or around them.
Joe, I’m guessing that it is in the interest of a Muslim to know more about al-Qaeda than a Christian or atheist. I know I’d want to try to dispel the negative image and separate myself from the idea if it were me.
Comment by: Jim Henderson
5Jason you capture the essence of why Hemant and Helen and I started this blog.
Thanks for helping us learn how to be human - real and humble
Comment by: Mike O
6I’d also like to comment on the words you used here. When I read this this morning, it struck me that this could also be said about Christianity vs Christ-following. “Christianity” is more an approach, a way of living, while being a “Christ-follower” would be akin to an organization (using your word). Organization, in the sense that it’s a group of people following a leader, not in the corporate sense.
Almost like “Christianity” is the methodology people use to follow Christ.
Comment by: Jason
7Thanks Jim, I take that as high praise indeed.
Mike, I didn’t want this to be an attack on Islam. I see several parallels in fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam. I also see it in people who give up their homes to chain themselves to trees to protest against road building. It’s an all encompassing way of thinking that, if it isn’t an obsession, is pretty close. Certainly a powerful passion.
Not that all obsessions can be destructive but those who have then are universally focused. A Christian can be utterly focused on living in a Christ like way just as a Muslim can live and breathe the teachings of Mohammad. Perhaps a New Atheist can make atheism and the fight against religion an obsession as well. ;)
I prefer a broader view these days.
However, my understanding (such as it is) of Christian vs Christ follower is the exact opposite of yours. Christianity is the religion with the structure and Christ follower is the way of life. It’s interesting that your view is so different but then you are closer to it than I am so I’ve probably just got mixed up.
Comment by: Mike O
8Something must have got mixed up in the translation, because I agree with this statement.
Comment by: Jason
9::shrugs::
Maybe we should start again?
Comment by: benjamin ady
10I can’t really comment so much on the July 7 bombings, but my understanding of the September 11 attacks includes, at least partially, the idea that The Rev. Jeremiah Wright summed up with “American, your chickens have come home to roost.”
Which is to say it seems to me very pragmatic to say that we in the United States are just silly to think that we can be arms supplier to the world, and directly and indirectly kill millions and millions of civilians (as in soccer moms, elementary school kids and their ilk) over a period of decades, and never have anybody reply to all our violence, death, destruction, and mayhem with a little of their own.
(Now I suppose I’ll get lambasted, much as Dr. Wright did)
Comment by: Jason
11Benjamin, I know that you didn’t mean it like this but you almost sound as if the attacks were justified. Being a peaceful sort of chap I can’t think of any justification for attacking someone. Anger or revenge aren’t good enough and they seems to me to be the underlying ideas for the conflict between Middle East and West.
Then again when there is no recourse in their eyes what else can they do but lash out.