Manchester Arena bombing: terrorism and politics

[mtbc]

I was born in Manchester and still have family there though I do not believe that I have been inside the Arndale Centre since it was redeveloped after the various IRA bombings of it. While that terrorism sticks in my mind, I have previously warned that this journal may not be the most sensitively written and that much horror does not as deeply affect my thinking as perhaps it should: I am not as shocked or upset as many others though I certainly do still care greatly. It therefore seemed wise to wait a polite few days before sharing any thoughts on the terrorist bombing at the Ariana Grande concert.

9/11 may be the attack that made the most emotional impact on me in that it is one of the very few events for which I vividly recall my circumstances when I heard the news, also events later that day. I was a little confused by political pronouncements afterward: especially President Bush's they hate our freedoms speech which, though not wrong, seemed to miss much of the point: bin Ladin himself had explained in quite different terms the concrete grievances. I subsequently became engaged in some interesting work on intelligence analysis for the US Army so had occasion to read and learn much more about terrorists and militant groups from Algeria onward. From the perspective of my UK background and the IRA's evolution in recent decades, for me one of the more interesting aspects of my background research was learning about the inevitable intertwining of insurgent activity and organized crime.

This recent bombing, and emperor's recent mention of having watched Calvary (2014), reminded me of the line near the end of the movie, … all those years, did you cry then?. Though it requires some spoiler context for its full impact, it remains an excellent question that reminds me that I should at least pay proper attention even if I do not cry, and I believe that includes understanding why the bombing happened.

We now have some helpful information: it is reported that the bomber's sister speculates that he he saw the explosives America drops on children in Syria, and he wanted revenge though a family friend says how he grew increasingly angry about what he considered ill-treatment of Muslims in Britain. Daesh have themselves given the usual mix of motivation: Western acts against Muslims and their lands abroad together with domestic liberalism. Clearly the sister's words point to the former category but Daesh's talk of the Crusaders and the shameless concert arena suggests some of each. A suicide bomber has considerable choice of target: it would have been no harder to bomb a group of adult professionals but Daesh's shameless may point to one cause being our failure to impose their Medieval conservatism upon our young women.

Just as I was after 9/11, I have been somewhat bewildered by mainstream politics' response to the tragedy. Bill Maher's comment on Politically Incorrect (1993) that the 9/11 attackers were not cowardly appears to be what got his show canceled. After the Manchester bombing politicians have again lined up to call the attacker a coward, e.g., Theresa May's this attack stands out for its appalling, sickening cowardice, deliberately targeting innocent, defenceless children and young people and I am again unconvinced that cowardice is the defining hallmark. I would guess that fighting in Iraq or Syria beats blowing oneself up and it is not as if the bomber faced even that dilemma. Certainly many perjorative adjectives may reasonably be used to mark the act but the assertion that all acts of terrorism are cowardly attacks … does not at all ring true for me, especially as not all terrorist acts entail suicide. Do not get me wrong: a suicide bombing may still be despicable evil even if it required misguided courage but I do wonder if this portrait of the bomber as a coward is some kind of psychological offense to dissuade imitators. I do not think that it explains targeting the concert.

The political surprises continue. For example, we have Jeremy Corbyn suggesting that foreign policy may be a cause of domestic terrorism, only to face a backlash of criticism and I agree with none of it. First, it is woolly thinking indeed to confuse explain with justify: in what now appears to be called the blowback theory, which many experts deem to have some credibility, our foreign policy may indeed be a relevant factor, but this is not to be confused with the separate assertions that the bomber's act was in any way appropriate nor that our foreign policy was not appropriate. For instance, the terrorism may be a price we must pay for our doing the right thing in the face of those who would be cruelly intolerant. We know that Jeremy Corbyn is generally against foreign military actions but he was quite clear that his thinking in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children and by my reading his critics are going too far in suggesting that he said otherwise.

Additionally, Jeremy Corbyn is being criticized for voicing a version of the blowback theory when the bombing occurred so recently. But, the bombing is of high national significance and government policy both foreign and domestic may have a material impact on such events. Surely, before a general election to determine the shape of our new government is exactly when we should be examining why the attack occurred? I am all for exploiting it by bringing it into the political debate if it helps us as voters to choose best among those who must respond to such threats: at this time it would be irresponsible for us to keep the tragedy outside electoral discourse.

Comments

[damerell]

I never got the "coward" thing - it's not very _nice_ to fly aeroplanes into buildings but it clearly demands quite a lot of courage.

The Tories seem to have come a bit of a cropper with Corbyn's remarks since the BBC dug up Boris saying essentially the same thing - and also because it is surely bleeding obvious to anyone with half a brain that if you bomb people's countries they are likely to be upset afterwards.