Eat Anjem Choudary Hot Worm Stew: Why The Irish Public Has To Swallow The Hard Truth About War

Neutrality Schmeutrality: Islamic Radical Tells It Like It Is. Deal With It.

The subject of this opinion piece submitted to Indymedia Ireland is Anjem Choudary (also known as Omar Bakri Muhammad), a Muslim cleric who was born in Syria, participated in the 1982 revolution against the Syrian Ba'athist regime and was later given political asylum in the UK. He spoke at a debate in Trinity College on Thursday night. Choudary is well known for his extremist Islamic views and was leader of Al-Muhajiroun, an organisation whose eventual goal was to prepare the way for a global Islamic theocracy.

Extract:

Choudary's remarks pointed out something in blunt terms which anti war campaigners have been saying since 2001, when it became common knowledge that shannon was being used as a refuelling base for US warplanes. He said that "if you allow Ireland to be used to refuel US warplanes which are going on bombing raids, what do you expect the reaction of the Muslim world to be? This is not neutrality. It is better for the Muslim world to tell you this reality, so we can change this situation, and to make sure what is taking place in other countries will not happen here in Ireland." His remarks were in the context of his argument that Ireland is open to attack by terrorist groups, because of its support for the Bush administration's war on terror.

Complete Text of Article as Submitted to Indymedia Ireland:

Islamic radical tells it like it is. Deal with it.

So predictably the remarks made by Anjem Choudary during a debate last night in Trinity College Dublin, hosted by the Philosophical Society ("The Phil", dont you know) have sparked off something of a minor outrage among politicians and sections of our reactionary media. He was speaking along with several other prominent Muslim figures (see the event posted in the calendar here: http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=72909) on the motion that "this house believes 9/11 was a legitimate form of resistance of American pressure to the Islamic world."

The Phil, along with its opposite number in UCD, the L&H, enjoys courting controversial figures and putting on debates to provoke and stir shit up, outwardly for lofty ideals, but mostly because they're a pack of college 'wags' and this is just another notch in their belt to make it seem like they're "loike, so crazy, man". If you've ever had the misfortune to attend one of these debates, the level of intellectual rigour practised by the 'regulars' hovers somewhere in the vague childish student spectrum of society in-jokes, cheap witticisms of sparse wit, and smutty double entendres to compensate for the fact that following the free drink reception afterwards, they'll all be far too shitfaced to have sex.

Choudary's remarks pointed out something in blunt terms which anti war campaigners have been saying since 2001, when it became common knowledge that shannon was being used as a refuelling base for US warplanes. He said that "if you allow Ireland to be used to refuel US warplanes which are going on bombing raids, what do you expect the reaction of the Muslim world to be? This is not neutrality. It is better for the Muslim world to tell you this reality, so we can change this situation, and to make sure what is taking place in other countries will not happen here in Ireland." His remarks were in the context of his argument that Ireland is open to attack by terrorist groups, because of its support for the Bush administration's war on terror.

What is so unpalatable about those remarks? Is it because the truth hurts? 100,000 people showed up on the streets of Dublin nearly 3 years ago to protest against the looming war on Iraq - and to call for the end of shannon as a refuelling base. Other towns and cities in Ireland (and beyond, all around the world) also staged large antiwar marches, the like of which have not been seen since. Yet the war began anyway. And shannon is still being used as a refuelling base. And for all the guff spouted by certain groups about a new movement emerging at the time of the F15 marches, those people never, ever came back out onto the streets again or got involved in antiwar activities.

So presumably there are a large body of people out there who read the papers every day, listen to the radio, or watch TV - who were on those marches or supported them at the time. RTE and O'Reilly's empire are not Indymedia; but occasionally there are stories about shannon, the number of troops passing through there, the Catholic Worker trial, the CIA torture plane landing, statements from TDs about neutrality, etc. Those people know that this country is being used as an instrument of war. Is there a feeling of guilt out there? That people know, deep down in their hearts and minds, that neutrality has been breached but they cant be bothered doing anything about it? Perhaps not, but this might explain the knee-jerk reaction to Choudary's remarks.

The bottom line is: we have become involved in a war. Not just any war: George Bush's global war on terror. A vague, endless, structureless war that encompasses a fight against a strategy rather than your standard enemy of a state or faction. By allowing his planes and troops to stop here, we are on his side. There are other people out there, also religious fundamentalists who see their struggle as an eternal battle between good and evil. They are equally determined to fight. Its obvious to anyone who thinks for more than half a second that neither side particularly values human life. We are placing a knife into the hand of one side of a row that has essentially nothing to do with us. We are an accessory to the US war machine, and the sooner we openly admit that to ourselves then we can begin to face the fact that we are open to retaliation from the other side for our actions.

For too long we've skated on the thin ice of our reputation as being neutral or even somewhat vaguely revolutionary in far off places because of the "northern struggle". Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan tried to negotiate their lives on the standing of the state in the Muslim world, and unfortunately this failed them. Remarks at the time about shannon/Ireland being part of the UK/US alliance were played down by politicians, and dismissed as dangerous for putting the lives of hostages at further risk. Rory Carroll's abduction ended happily, but how long can we trade on the flimsy notion of not being involved in the "coalition of the willing"? Choudary's statements havent opened a can of worms, he's merely scooped the worms out and made them into a very bitter stew that we have to collectively swallow.

Do we want war on our doorstep? Imagine your rural village or town flattened by a MOAB or Daisy Cutter. Every single person you know is dead or injured. Or perhaps you wake up in the middle of the night and your skin is burning, you cant breathe, and your last memory is the cries of your family - just like the use of chemical weapons on Fallujah. But it seems that Westerners cannot relate to deaths in the Middle East or identify fully with people who live in different conditions to their own. So lets put it in terms we understand - the people of London and Madrid have seen this with their own eyes. You're on a crowded DART with your friends, enjoying the trip into town to get some food and go to the cinema - when suddenly there's a hot, sickly flash of light and a noise that splits your ears open. Each of your nerves scream with the intense heat and pain. You eventually open your eyes and there are pieces of bodies everywhere. Arms, legs, heads, fingers, genitals - all fused together in a filthy mesh of blood, flesh, metal and tears. Old and young are turned inside out, destroyed in seconds. All around you are the dead and dying, praying, crying, calling for help that may not arrive in time.

This is what war means. We either end our participation in war and make a strong, loud, defiant affirmation of peaceful resolution and call for the destruction of all arms - or we continue to support war and become victims of it ourselves. We either stop the CIA torture plane landing at shannon - or we may have to endure the torture of losing people we love and care for. We either make our neutrality a reality instead of a half-baked concept - or we accept that we are just as much a target as any of the other participants in this conflict. War is not some abstract geopolitical game, its a brutal reality that kills people just like you and me. It has taken a Muslim fundamentalist to stir up debate, but we have been in this situation before. Maybe it will take an attack on innocent people on our own soil before we digest the truth.