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Milan Rai: Speaking Tour

doopa | 10.04.2006 16:19 | Anti-militarism | South Coast

Title: "7/7 Islam and Terror"
Name of Lecturer: Milan Rai
Venue: October Books
Time: 19:30
Date: 19 April 2006

Southampton

'This book inspired me and other survivors of July 7th. Understanding what happened and why is essential for healing and allows us to move forward. I urge all those committed to hope, healing and peaceful resolution of conflict to read what Milan has written.' Rachel North, writer and 7/7 Survivor Milan Rai's book about the July bombings in London is clear, scholarly, analytical, powerful, persuasive-and very readable. Seeking the real explanation for those events he completely destroys the illusion spread by the prime minister that they had nothing to do with Britain's illegal aggression against Iraq, which no-one really believes.
The author, a man committed to peace, holds no brief for the violence in those attacks and the suffering they caused, but patiently takes us through the circumstances that played a part in motivating those who carried them out. This is a book that everyone with a serious interest in the crisis we face must read if they are to hope to understand it, its causes, its effects, and how we might resolve it.' - Tony Benn 'A penetrating and timely analysis that deserves the attention of all sides.' Ziauddin Sardar, author of What Muslims Believe and Why Do People Hate America?
'Clear, interesting and very well-informed.' - Revd Canon Prof. Martyn Percy, Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon, Oxford. Milan Rai, JNV worker, has a new book coming out in weeks - 7/7: The London Bombings, Islam and the Iraq War - and will be touring the UK in April to talk about the issues raised in the book.
There are plans to also hold a similar meeting in the evening at October Books in Portswood.

The flyer is available from here:
 http://www.soton.ac.uk/~susaw/milan_rai.pdf

Please download and distribute.

doopa

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Don't fall for this

11.04.2006 10:17

Milan Ria is no doubt sincere in his beliefs and he articulates what many people feel: Iraq and racism led the four to commit murder. Yet, his position seems to be supported by the Government's Narrative, according to The Observer, which is due to be published. If Narrative is saying there was no Al Qaida link, this is ominous for black people, primarily, but also white people. It means that the UK security forces will target black people who are hostile to UK foreign policy, and it won’t stop with black people.

What it means is that if there are UK Muslims who are angry about racism and UK-US foreign policy, alongside many black people, then there are a lot of potential terrorists in the UK. And, these people don’t need the expert and exceptional help of Al Qaida. In fact, the more amateur they can say the 7/7 operation was, the more people there are who could do something similar. Therefore, it can be argued that greater surveillance and suppression of and black people is needed and that the means and capacity to do this is also needed.

What the criminal sections of the state, their secret service conspirators and their supporters want is for ordinary, non-political white people to accept that black people need to be subject to the intimidation that can be done by the state security services. They already accept a reduction in civil liberties. But for the criminal elite, UK black people are not the target, it is ordinary white people. Because state intimidation will be extended in varying degrees to white radicals, dissidents and the whole oppositional movement that exists in the Labour movement, political activists, voluntary sector etc. By the time non-political white people become concerned about civil liberties, it will be too late. The security services can then go after non-political people who start protesting against the Government because of road building or airport development. And the criminal elite will hope that the majority have already been coerced into accepting conformity.

One of the objectives is party political. Part of the options of the criminal elite is the bringing about of a neo-liberal political party that pretends it’s a centre party. They have come to this because they don’t think the public will accept the Tory Party as it is as a vehicle for neo-liberalism and they fear that New Labour will be challenged by its members who want a centre-left party. So, their only vehicle is a new centre party. People will have to be coerced into voting for it because the party will enact neo-liberal policies that harm the majority. So, it will have to attack any centre-left party and that’s where the clamp down on civil liberties, the attack on black people and radicals come in.

It seems that MI5 is looking to the Left to validate their cover story and also to come up with a story that would satisfy the Left. Milan Rai is a member of Justice not Vengeance and wrote ‘7/7, the London Bombings, Islam and the Iraq War’. I haven’t read the whole book but it seems to be coming up with this explanation of 7/7 that would satisfy the Left and MI5. He believes the four did the bombing. He believes the religious fundamentalism that the bombers had was hostile to Bin Laden’s Wahhabism. He believes that their political motivation was Iraq. He believes that racism and poverty experienced by UK Muslims is another motivation. This appears to be radical because it refutes Blair’s denial of the Iraq War link. But what it also does is to finger UK Muslims as potential terrorists. The Government’s narrative will no doubt echo Milan Rai’s position.

There is little evidence that UK Muslims or black people are so angry that they would engage in terrorism. We have seen no smaller acts of violent protest by large numbers of black people against UK foreign policy: no smashing of windows, no burning down offices, no attacks on the police. We are meant to believe the 7/7 and 21/7 violence came out of the blue. And yet, this view is going to excuse all kinds of acts of state oppression against Muslims and black people. Those on the Left should remain sceptical of Milan and the Government's Narrative.


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