March 25th, 2016

 

After the tragic events in Bruxelles, Istanbul, Paris and other places I do not intent to let fear run my life since I do not see any reason for this.

During my life I have witnessed how the Algerian National Liberation Front gained Algeria’s independence from France, which brought many Algerian’s to France. In my life I have witnessed different terrorist movements in Europe, like IRA, ETA, RAF and Red Brigades.

In 1980 at the Oktoberfest in München I was less than 100 meters away from the main entrance when the right wing extremist bomb exploded. This killed 12 people and wounded more than 200 people. But for me this has not resulted in any fear.

Like all of these groups ISIS will be defeated and destroyed and other terrorist groups will spring up in the future, unless we take away the root causes of terrorism.

Of course well-known Islamophobia’s, racists and demagogue’s like Wilders, Le Pen, Petri and Trump are using the events to further their ignorant ideas and create more fear which ultimately brings us back to the 1930’s. Like Donald Trump, they are living in the gutter and show us a daily absence of moral and ethical standards or standing.

Others are already seeking to take away even more of our liberties and use terrorism as a pretext like 9/11 was used for to pass the Patriot act. Nationalists in their ignorance want border control back which control never have stopped crime or a terror attack.

Some accuse Islam, but as George W Bush said after 9/11 during his visit to a Mosque “The true face of terror is not the true faith of Islam”, “Islam is peace”. To me Bush 43, although I disagreed with him on Iraq acted as a Statesman at the time, in this he acted as a President for all Americans.

Let’s be frank and honest, actions have consequences and the present situation has been created by ourselves, by our irresponsible policies since the late 1950’s of which the US has been the main initiator.

The main events can only be characterized as follows:

Ø  support of the house of Saud and Wahhabism indirectly ;

Ø  overthrowing in 1953 the Government of Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran;

Ø  full support to the Wahhabis during 1979–1989 in Afghanistan, when the Mujahedeen and Osama Bin Laden were employed, financed and armed;

Ø  Israel / Palestinian conflict;

Ø  Afghanistan- Iraq war; regime change in Libya and Syria.

 

Over this period we have witnessed American adventurism in the Middle East, a policy of “Regime change” supported by the UK and the EU as the lapdog of the US. This has opened the Pandora box in the Middle East and must be qualified as short term and short-sighted, just like the sanctions against Russia are.

During the period behind us we have ignored the crimes against humanity by Israel and required is a solution of the Palestinian question, while the last 60 years have been full of lost opportunities in creating a two-state solution. In the process we have created Bin Laden who was financially supported by the US during the proxy war in Afghanistan against Russia.

But after the Russians left Afghanistan Bin Laden was ignored just like the developments in Afghanistan were ignored. In the same manner we created ISIS by invading Iraq. In addition, we in Europe have treated the foreigners from Algeria, Morocco, Turkey and other countries as third-rate citizen.

By concentrating them in areas like Bruxelles Molenbeek, without much integration into our society the result has been poverty and lack of education. So why are we surprised! We in Europe have made the same mistakes which let in the US to the riots in Detroit and Newark in 1967, so we better deal with this problem in an intelligent manner.

To me the terror attacks in Bruxelles and Paris and other places does not change my support for the our multi-cultural society which has more advantages then disadvantages or does it change my admiration and support for the policies of Angela Merkel.

Frankly the refugees from Syria are welcome since this is the right and moral thing to do. We must come to the conclusion that unless we take away the root causes of terrorism we will never be free of this.

 

WJJH