The Comment Factory

“It certainly looks to have been inspired by Islamic extremist ideology,” a British security official said to the Associated Press when discussing the Mumbai attacks last night. It’s happening again… careless and ignorant words about “Muslim terrorists”, “extremist Islamists” running around in news reports everywhere. According to the AP, British security officials are already monitoring 2,000 “terror suspects” across England. It’s happening again…

No one was expecting an attack of this scale. Although there are still wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and still hundreds of people dying every month, a terror attack that’s aimed specifically at “Westerners” committed by people who are “inspired by Islamic extremist ideology” is of a much bigger concern to the American and British security officials. And in the mean time I’m asking myself when was the last time I read something about “Christian terrorists” when the Basques attack somewhere. Anyone?

But I’m wondering if these security officials are really watching the media reports. Yesterday, on the AP video feed, there was an Indian-British eye-witness from the Taj Hotel in Mumbai talking to reporters about his experience. “They wanted anyone with British or American passports, so anyone who had a British or American passport they wanted to know,” said the eyewitness. I’d like to ask these British security officials why these guys would specifically want to know the British and the American people in the hotel? Is that part of the “Islamic extremist ideology”? Or does it have a larger, more important context that no one will discuss in the mainstream media.

I guess unless they ask themselves that question, and look further and deeper into the root causes of these despicable acts of murder, terror will not end. Blaming these attacks wrongly, ignorantly and disrespectfully on a religion that is practiced by millions in the world is the easy way out surely. And not only will it not stop these attacks, it will certainly evoke more to come.