Last week, just hours after the brutal killing of Lee Rigby in Woolwich, there was the now infamous reference on BBC1 to the “Muslim appearance” of the alleged attackers. The man with the poor choice of words, Nick Robinson, apologized the following day after the BBC was barraged with a slew of complaints. What disturbed me wasn’t so much what Robinson said, but the fact that his comments were treated as a discrete if indecorous piece of political commentary. His words, and his apology, are symptomatic of the wider cognitive dissonance within British society about what drives terrorism.
Firstly there was the apparent desire to disregard the killing as a product of unbridled religious zealotry. Consider the calls from Theresa May to remove “extremist” videos from the internet and ban “extremist” speakers from universities, as if doing so will keep Muslim youth from falling into the abyss of fanaticism. Yet what is rendered so clear from that disturbing video clip of MichaelAdebolajois that the killing was not motivated simply (or even primarily) by theology, but by the material realities in the Muslim-majority world. September 11, 7/7, the Boston bombings, the killing in Woolwich — the individuals who planned these gruesome attacks left little doubt that they had done the deed to give us one small taste of the violence their sisters and brothers face everyday in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Then there is the tendency to write off the actions of the terrorists as completely divorced from Islam. In its press release the Muslim Council of Britain stressed: “Eye-witnesses suggest that the murderers made Islamic slogans during their heinous action and were thus motivated by their Islamic faith. This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly.” Moazzam Begg put it best in his excellent commentary on the attack: “Conveniently declaring these men non-Muslims, ostensibly to placate those who don’t know better is disingenuous myopic and dishonest. What are they, if not Muslims?” It is our various identities (faith, gender, race, nationality, etc) that shape how we make sense of the material world we face. Many, both in the UK and abroad, would agree withthisbasic message: end the occupation, out of Muslim lands. It is an oversimplification to dismiss the religious motivations of the attackers.
There’s an unresolved tension between these two ideas - somehow the problem is Islam and isn’t Islam all at once. The media insists that the onus of blame for the violence rests squarely on the backs of particular Muslims while cleverly avoiding blaming Islam directly, because that would be hateful. What’s missing in this equation is our own complicity.
We have to confront the fact that the political grievances held by Adebolajo, Adebowale and many, many other Muslims and non-Muslims are legitimate. That is not to say terrorism is the means to express opposition to imperialism in the Muslim-majority world. Terrorism is a tactic of desperation and motivation is a different question entirely.
Adebolajo explained himself in no uncertain terms: “the only reason we did this is because there are Muslims who die each day”. How telling that we were so quick to criticise Robinson for his choice of words, but are so unable to entertain, even momentarily, the full meaning behind Adebolajo’s.
That is the cognitive dissonance of racism – a terrorist expressly tells us why he’s done something, and we still think we know better.It is Islamophobia that allows us to demean and discredit the genuine political grievances of occupied peoples, as we clutch onto the notion that we alone have both rationality and morality within our grasp.
Aviva Stahl is the US Researcher for the human rights organisation CagePrisoners. @stahlidarity
Invoking “Muslims” in Dangerous Times
By Aviva Stahl
Last week, just hours after the brutal killing of Lee Rigby in Woolwich, there was the now infamous reference on BBC1 to the “Muslim appearance” of the alleged attackers. The man with the poor choice of words, Nick Robinson, apologized the following day after the BBC was barraged with a slew of complaints. What disturbed me wasn’t so much what Robinson said, but the fact that his comments were treated as a discrete if indecorous piece of political commentary. His words, and his apology, are symptomatic of the wider cognitive dissonance within British society about what drives terrorism.
Firstly there was the apparent desire to disregard the killing as a product of unbridled religious zealotry. Consider the calls from Theresa May to remove “extremist” videos from the internet and ban “extremist” speakers from universities, as if doing so will keep Muslim youth from falling into the abyss of fanaticism. Yet what is rendered so clear from that disturbing video clip of Michael Adebolajo is that the killing was not motivated simply (or even primarily) by theology, but by the material realities in the Muslim-majority world. September 11, 7/7, the Boston bombings, the killing in Woolwich — the individuals who planned these gruesome attacks left little doubt that they had done the deed to give us one small taste of the violence their sisters and brothers face everyday in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Then there is the tendency to write off the actions of the terrorists as completely divorced from Islam. In its press release the Muslim Council of Britain stressed: “Eye-witnesses suggest that the murderers made Islamic slogans during their heinous action and were thus motivated by their Islamic faith. This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly.” Moazzam Begg put it best in his excellent commentary on the attack: “Conveniently declaring these men non-Muslims, ostensibly to placate those who don’t know better is disingenuous myopic and dishonest. What are they, if not Muslims?” It is our various identities (faith, gender, race, nationality, etc) that shape how we make sense of the material world we face. Many, both in the UK and abroad, would agree with this basic message: end the occupation, out of Muslim lands. It is an oversimplification to dismiss the religious motivations of the attackers.
There’s an unresolved tension between these two ideas - somehow the problem is Islam and isn’t Islam all at once. The media insists that the onus of blame for the violence rests squarely on the backs of particular Muslims while cleverly avoiding blaming Islam directly, because that would be hateful. What’s missing in this equation is our own complicity.
We have to confront the fact that the political grievances held by Adebolajo, Adebowale and many, many other Muslims and non-Muslims are legitimate. That is not to say terrorism is the means to express opposition to imperialism in the Muslim-majority world. Terrorism is a tactic of desperation and motivation is a different question entirely.
Adebolajo explained himself in no uncertain terms: “the only reason we did this is because there are Muslims who die each day”. How telling that we were so quick to criticise Robinson for his choice of words, but are so unable to entertain, even momentarily, the full meaning behind Adebolajo’s.
That is the cognitive dissonance of racism – a terrorist expressly tells us why he’s done something, and we still think we know better. It is Islamophobia that allows us to demean and discredit the genuine political grievances of occupied peoples, as we clutch onto the notion that we alone have both rationality and morality within our grasp.
Aviva Stahl is the US Researcher for the human rights organisation CagePrisoners. @stahlidarity
Illustration by Sofia Niazi