What national or international strategic and political purposes these bloody attacks serve is a topic for another article. But, immediately after the attacks, their connection to Pakistan was suggested. It seems that these attacks will be used for attaining particular targets. We can already predict what the main justification for whatever is done or proposed under the pretext of these attacks will be: "Islamic terror."The term Islamic terror was coined by neocons. When the Bush administration decided to conduct military operations in strategic countries and oil-rich locations within the Islamic world, these operations were justified by manufactured reasons that would later be denied by US officials. One of these manufactured lies was Islamic terror.
Since then, the unreasonable foundations of this Islamic terror classification have repeatedly been questioned: Why should there be a necessary connection between "Islam" and "terror"? If there is a necessary tie between Islam as a "religion" and terror, shouldn't we be able to propose similar associations between terror and other religions? If we know the religious identity or religious affiliations of a terrorist, will we be sufficiently justified in establishing a connection between his/her act and his/her religion? If so, we are supposed to attribute the acts of terrorists to their religions. For instance, is the terrorist act by a fanatic Jew who raided a mosque in al-Khalil and killed 50 Muslims his own personal action or should we attribute it to Judaism. If we take the logic that produced the "Islamic terror" classification, then we should describe the attack in al-Khalil as "Jewish terror." However, neither this nor the collective killings of civilians by Israeli soldiers are treated under this category. Similarly, for many years, Catholics and Protestants fought each other, and there were terror attacks on civilians in Ireland. But no one talked about "Christian terrorism," which is perfectly justified.
In reality, when we closely examine the profiles of terrorists whose Muslim identities are always emphasized, we see that there is no necessary connection between Islam and their terrorist acts.
Indeed, the British intelligence service MI5 published a report a few months ago (August 2008) stressing that the majority of the people who are prone to terrorism tend not to know their religion well or tend not to perform the basic religious duties. The report, titled "Understanding radicalization and violent extremism in the UK," also clarifies the "Islamic terror" classification and contains interesting observations: (1) Radicalism may be seen in every group in society; it is difficult to categorize these people. (2) The people who engage in terrorism are ignorant about their religions. (3) A well-established religious organization within society may protect people against terror.
The report was prepared based on the findings of studies conducted on hundreds of thousands of people. "[T]he majority of those over 30 have steady relationships, and most have children. The majority are British nationals and the remainder, with a few exceptions, are here legally. Around half were born in the UK, with others migrating here later in life. Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practice their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts," the report says. The report also stresses that the majority of terrorists tend to be radicalized after traumatic experiences or economic troubles.
It is wrong to pursue political goals through the use of Islam as a vehicle. This is clearly unfair to Islam and Muslims. As evidently shown by the MI5 report, terror is a different category, and it has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims, who regard life as a divine gift.
