Against the apologists

There is a sane, short but well-argued, piece by Sami Zubaida, Professor of politics and sociology at Birkbeck, on OpenDemocracy.net, pointing out the problems with the Bilgers et al. Zubaida says

It is notable that the London bombers killed on 7 July and those arrested after 21 July are not Iraqi or Palestinian. The fact that some of them are of Pakistani descent is relevant, if at all, only for logistical reasons to do with the central role of that country in the international jihadi networks. The bombers are not otherwise driven by some element of Pakistani culture or heritage. Indeed, typically, radical jihadis disown the Islam of their parents as errant and corrupted, in contrast to their own pure faith.

Also notable is the participation of converts, the known cases being of Afro-Caribbean descent, and as such sharing alienation as inferiorised British citizens. These jihadis are avenging Palestinians and Iraqis on behalf of a universal Muslim community engaged in a global battle against non-believers who are oppressing Muslims; and not only Iraq and Palestine, but Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kashmir and Bosnia are fields of oppression of Muslims. So is the infidel military presence in the Arabian peninsula and other Islamic lands (the original cause advanced by Osama bin Laden for jihad against America and its Saudi hosts). So, Iraq is only one episode in this global battle.

The attacks of 9/11 in the United States predated the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and coincided with ongoing events in Palestine. All these episodes are, of course, pertinent to universal jihad, but only insofar as they confirm and corroborate the ideological “imaginary” of the war of Islam against the infidels.

Zubaida also makes useful points about the alliance of some elements of the so-called left with some elements of radical Muslims:

This dominance of militant Islam as the chief antagonist to the west in a “war of the worlds” would also explain its attraction to remnants of the old sectarian left. Maoists and Trotskyites show evidence of increasing sympathy for and even joint action with disaffected Muslims, as in the Respect party (widely regarded as a front organisation of the Socialist Workers Party) whose candidate George Galloway won the east London constituency of Bethnal Green & Bow in Britain’s May 2005 general election. There is no suggestion of the left’s complicity or sympathy with terrorist action; but the class struggle has acquired a religious tinge.

Zubaida points out that if it wasn't Iraq, it would be something else:

So, what of the initial question regarding the role of the Iraq episode in the bomb outrages in London? The main contribution of Iraq is in reinforcing the ideological picture of the universal Islamic community doing battle with Christians and Jews. Withdrawal of British or American troops from Iraq would not alter that picture, nor diminish the momentum of martyrdom now established.

Such withdrawal may lead to a declaration of victory and brief respite, but there is always another cause in this universal struggle in a globalised world. We don’t know when this momentum will fizzle out: perhaps with the realisation that this jihad is doing nothing to alter the poverty, corruption and oppression in Muslim lands, or helping in the liberation of Palestinians (in fact the contrary: it provides international legitimacy for their oppression).

Finally, Zubaida points out that in Iraq, the cadres of jihad are killing Iraqis who from their perspective are 'the wrong kind of Muslim':

The victims are overwhelmingly Iraqi, and many are the wrong kind of Muslim. Like most of their co-religionists around the world, they fall outside the umma, the imagined global community of Muslims.