{"id":88146,"date":"2019-05-03T14:12:51","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T21:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=88146"},"modified":"2019-05-03T14:12:51","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T21:12:51","slug":"us-uk-must-stop-interfering-in-other-nations-if-they-want-to-stop-terrorism-ken-livingstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/05\/03\/us-uk-must-stop-interfering-in-other-nations-if-they-want-to-stop-terrorism-ken-livingstone\/","title":{"rendered":"US & UK must stop interfering in other nations if they want to stop terrorism \u2013 Ken Livingstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Livingstone is an English politician, he served as the Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008. He is also a former MP and a former member of the Labour Party.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Get short URL<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Security personnel stand guard in front of St Anthony’s Shrine Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 29, 2019 \u00a9 Reuters \/ Danish Siddiqui <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n The vast majority of people who believe in God are appalled by \nterrorism and we should no more be denouncing the Muslim community today\n than we did the Irish Catholic one forty years ago.\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world\n watched with horror as our TV screens showed the killing of at least \n253 people in Sri Lanka, as locals went to their Sunday churches and \nholidaymakers relaxed in their hotels. This came shortly after<\/a> the equally horrific mass murder of Muslims at prayers in New Zealand mosques.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\n around the world people fear the rise of terrorism and increasingly \npeople believe the real threat comes from the rise of Islamic \nfundamentalism. But the truth is Islamist terror incidents have been \nreducing across the world and particularly in the West since 2014. The \ndecline of Islamist terror incidents has been matched by a surge of \nterror attacks by far-right racists which make up a third of terror \nattacks around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people will find \nthis surprising because our media focuses on Islamist terror rather than\n that of the far-right. In a recent report<\/a>\n published by the Guardian, Scott Atran, who is a founder of the Centre \nof the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at the University of Oxford, \nrevealed that attacks by Muslims received over four times more coverage \nin the media in the US than other terrorist incidents.\n \n \n Also on rt.com\n \u2018I\u2019ll never forget the scene\u2019: Sri Lankan cricketer recalls bomb attack horror\n \n \n \n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, is Islam the natural home of terrorism as \nimplied by so much of our media coverage? To discover the truth, we need\n to look at the teachings of the founder of Islam, the prophet Mohammed.\n Born in 570 AD, he was the son of a poor merchant who was orphaned at \nthe age of six and reared by his grandfather to be a merchant. Although \nhe continued as a trader he was drawn to religion claiming he received \nrevelations by the angel Gabriel and just like Jesus Christ he was a \nstrong advocate that the rich should provide more support for the \npoorest. He started with a small band of devoted followers but within a \ndecade had gained control over all of what is today\u2019s Arabia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly before he died on 8th June 632 he delivered his last sermon which stands out as remarkably liberal:\n An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab any \nsuperiority over an Arab. Also, a white has no superiority over a black \nnor a black any superiority over a white.\u201d<\/em> He then went on to say that God had created humanity and formed you into tribes and nations so that you may get to know one another.\u201d<\/em> Not so you may fight or oppress or occupy or convert or terrorise but so that you can get to know one another.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So,\n if these are the rules laid down by the founder of Islam how can \nsomeone like Osama bin Laden plan the murder of over 3,000 Americans in \nthe attack on the Twin Towers back in 2001 and do the Sri Lankan \nterrorists even know that this was the message of Mohammed. And if they \ndo how could they justify the monstrous crime they unleashed on their \nChristian neighbours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grim fact is that every faith has its \nextremist elements. The Ku Klux Klan, which hanged thousands of black \nAmericans identified as a Christian organisation. Back in 2015, Rabbi \nBenzi Gopstein was asked in an interview: Do you support the burning of churches in Israel?\u201d<\/em> He replied<\/a> that of course he was in support. This unleashed a wave of criticism, but Israel\u2019s attorney general refused to prosecute<\/a> him for this extreme statement. Since 2009, at least fifty-three mosques and churches have been vandalised<\/a>\n in Israel. Perhaps one thing that could have fuelled Islamist extremism\n is the fact that the great mosque al-Masjid al-Kabir was destroyed by \nIsraeli missiles on 8th July 2014 and the PLO claim<\/a> that sixty-three mosques have been destroyed by Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n growth of far-right terrorism is seen as being fuelled by Islamist \nthreats. Dylann Roof killed nine African American churchgoers in South \nCarolina in 2015 and said<\/a> he was Like a Palestinian in an Israel jail after killing nine people\u2026 the Palestinian would not be upset or have any regret.\u201d<\/em> Nor can we forget the vast number of Norwegian young socialists who were killed by Anders Breivik.\n \n \n Also on rt.com\n Weapons ending up with terrorists is OK, as long as Obama did it: The world according to CNN\n \n \n \n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go on endlessly listing terrorist \nattacks but it\u2019s more important that we can look at what we can do to \nrestrain them. How can we create a less violent, more tolerant world by \ndealing with what fuels the anger that leads to these acts of terrorism?\n Undoubtedly for many the terrible poverty has been a factor but as we \nsaw with the terror attacks in Sri Lanka many of the individuals<\/a> involved were relatively well-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\n is no doubt in my mind that one of the major causes of the rise of \nterrorism has been the foreign policy of US presidents who have \nconsistently interfered in Arab states for decades. In July 1979, \nPresident Jimmy Carter was briefed by the CIA about what was happening \nin Afghanistan. At that time the Afghan government was pro-Soviet and \nfirmly clamped down on Islamist extremism whilst promoting equal rights \nfor women. The CIA told President Carter that if the US started \nproviding arms for the Muslim groups that were fighting to overthrow the\n pro-Soviet government, this could provoke the Soviet Union to invade \nAfghanistan and \u2018it would be their Vietnam.\u2019 Carter agreed, the Soviet \nUnion invaded and forty years on the violence in Afghanistan continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United Nations has just reported<\/a>\n that the Afghan government, with US support, has killed more civilians \nin the first quarter of 2019 than the Taliban and other Islamist groups.\n American air strikes caused 140 deaths, a quarter of the total. The \nAfghan government was responsible for a fifth of deaths. Altogether 581<\/a> civilians have been killed and 1,192 injured between January and March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\n still live with a similar consequence in Iraq, following the invasion \nunleashed by US President George W Bush and UK PM Tony Blair. The West\u2019s\n involvement in trying to overthrow the governments of Syria and Libya \nhave been equally devastating in their consequences. Since 1945, the US \nhas been responsible for many foreign invasions and coups to overthrow \ngovernments that they did not want to see continue in power. None of \nthis was ever about defending human rights or democracy, it was always \nabout defending US commercial interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \npeople of Britain and America were told we had to invade Iraq because it\n had weapons of mass destruction and had been linked to the 9\/11 terror \nattacks in the US. The US Congress conducted a detailed investigation of\n this but when their report was published, twenty-eight pages were \nwithheld. Had those pages been revealed Congress and the British House \nof Commons would not have voted to support the invasion of Iraq because \nthese pages alleged that the funding for Osama bin Laden\u2019s terrorist \norganisation came from Saudi Arabia.\n \n \n Also on rt.com\n Appalling that the UK govt supports Saudi regime, one of the most brutal on Earth \u2013 Ken Livingstone\n \n \n \n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course there are extreme religious elements that fuel terrorism. We know now that the slaughter in Sri Lanka was inspired<\/a>\n by Zahran Hashim, a preacher whose video was released by Islamic State \n(IS, formerly ISIS) claiming responsibility for the attacks. We know \nlittle about Hashim. He is believed to be about forty-years-old and was \ndriven out of his town in Sri Lanka because of his extremist views. \nMany, if not most, of these terrorist attacks, whether by religious \ngroups or the far-right are inspired by charismatic individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\n we are to stop terrorism, the US, and its main ally Britain, have to \nstop interfering in other nations and we also have to mobilise \ninternational pressure to stop Saudi Arabia funding<\/a> terrorist organisations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\n also have to recognise the importance of religion in our world. \nAlthough I have been an atheist since the age of twelve, through all my \ntime in politics I have engaged with different faiths. Back in the 1970s\n and 1980s I was defending the Irish Catholic community here in Britain.\n In those days the IRA was letting off two or three bombs a year but the\n British media demonised the whole Irish Catholic community with one \nappalling cartoon depicting every Irish Catholic as a terrorist. The \nmedia coverage fuelled intolerance towards Catholics and there were many\n physical attacks just as is the case today with Muslims. The vast \nmajority of people who believe in God are appalled by terrorism and we \nshould no more be denouncing the Muslim community today than we did the \nIrish Catholic one forty years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ken Livingstone is an English politician, he served as the Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008. He is also a former MP and a former member of the Labour Party. Get short URL Security personnel stand guard in front of St Anthony’s Shrine Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 29, 2019 \u00a9 Reuters \/ Danish Siddiqui […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}