Terror - home and abroad

Like the other more notorious days in recent history, Friday, November 13, 2015 will be remembered as a day of horrific violence inflicted on innocent people. Such violence can never be justified. The eight gunmen – almost all believed to be wearing suicide vests – who burst into venues across Paris in coordinated attacks and mowed down at least 127 people, represent the very worst aspect of our times. Such atrocities remind us of the peril we all live under. The organised attack, claimed by Isis, is unlike anything seen before in Europe or America. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on Europe since the 2004 train bombings in Madrid and the second such attack in Paris after the January attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. As international condemnations began to pour in, French president Francois Hollande declared a state of emergency and closed the country’s borders. Hollande has promised ‘a war which will be pitiless.’ US President Obama, German Chancellor Merkel and British Prime Minister Cameron joined the voices condemning the attack and promised all support for France. The narrative of good versus evil, freedom versus unfreedom, that the world became used to in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack, was and will be repeated. The Paris attack promises to be the start of another phase of the global war on terror. There is an expectation that we could see a backlash against Syrian and other refugees who have poured into Europe. Ironically they are running from the same terrorism in the Middle East that may have targeted Paris. This is not what these blighted refugees deserve. They have faced terrible ordeals already. Racist attacks will only worsen their situation and can do no good to the west around the world.
But what happened in Paris is a reminder too of the manner in which violence moves in circles. Acts of war lead to further atrocities. The war in the Middle East, notably in Syria and Iraq but also elsewhere, the bombing raids conducted there, the invasion of lands and the wider injustice we have seen for decades in the Arab world and elsewhere, and indeed western backing and arming of militias, led to the rise of Isis. There have been people elsewhere who have seen their generations destroyed and their children butchered. The complexities of what we are seeing before us, in the pictures coming out of Paris that fill television screens, cannot be resolved instantly. But an effort must be made to do so. Rhetoric of the same kind that the world has seen since 9/11 will not do. Yes, our hearts bleed for Paris, but we cannot forget that not only has Europe watched silently as Isis has ravaged through Syria and Iraq, claiming thousands of victims, it was its wars in the name of regime change and democracy that created the situation in the first place. There are credible reports that confirm that Nato funding ends up in the hands of Isis affiliates in the Syrian battlefield. The dead and wounded in Paris are also the victims of imperialist policies and wars. They are blowing back and anyone can be a target of the ugly head of terrorism.