Blair's
New Authoritarianism
Terror
and Democracy
By
Tariq Ali
08/12./05 "Il
Manifesto" -- -- n the face of terror attacks
Anglo-Saxon politicians mouth the same rhetoric. One sentence in
particular--shrouded in layers of untruth--is constantly repeated:
'We shall not permit these attacks to change our way of life.' It
is a multi-purpose mantra. The first aim is to convince the public
that the terrorists are crazed Muslims who are bombing
modernity/democracy/freedom/ 'our values', etc.
This is the first lie. The
terror attacks, however misguided and criminal, are a result of
the Western military presence in the Arab world. If all the
foreign troops and bases were withdrawn, the attacks would cease.
This is essentially a post-First Gulf war syndrome.
Israel/Palestine is another
issue, but that has been simmering for fifty years and was not the
main reason for the bombings in New York, Madrid and London. It
has now been added to the repertoire, but the struggle to force
Israel back to the 1967 frontiers is one waged by the Palestinians
themselves. They have received little support from elsewhere.
The sentence itself is a
falsehood, because the attacks have changed 'our way of life'. The
Patriot Act in the United States and the measures being proposed
by Tony Blair in Britain demonstrate this quite clearly. What is
being proposed in Britain is the indefinite suspension of habeas
corpus. Worried by the recent judicial activism with senior Judges
in Britain expressing a real concern at the growing attack on
civil liberties, Tony Blair warned them in public that he would
brook no dissent:
"Should legal obstacles
arise, we will legislate further, including, if necessary
amending the Human Rights Act, in respect of the interpretation
of the ECHR. In any event, we will consult on legislating
specifically for a non-suspensive appeal process in respect of
deportations. One other point on deportations. Once the new
grounds take effect, there will be a list drawn up of specific
extremist websites, bookshops, centres, networks and particular
organisations of concern. Active engagement with any of these
will be a trigger for the home secretary to consider the
deportation of any foreign national. As has been stated already,
there will be new anti-terrorism legislation in the autumn. This
will include an offence of condoning or glorifying terrorism.
The sort of remarks made in recent days should be covered by
such laws. But this will also be applied to justifying or
glorifying terrorism anywhere, not just in the UK."
Will the British Parliament
accept this view and legislate in favour of the new
authoritarianism? Probably. It is a parliament dominated by cons
and neo-cons. If Blair is a second-rate politician with a
third-rate mind, his Conservative opponent, Michael Howard is a
third-rate politician with a second-rate mind. He has both accused
Blair of inconsistencies and demanded even tougher measures. In
reality he is Blair's echo-chamber.
In a recent article in the Daily
Telegraph, Howard denounced the law lords'(Britain's
equivalent of the Supreme Court) decision last year. The judges
had stated that the indefinite detention without trial of foreign
terror suspects under the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Act contravened the
Human Rights Act, and referred to the difficulties the latter act
creates for deporting extremists to countries where they may face
persecution or torture. Wrote Howard:
"Parliament must be
supreme. Aggressive judicial activism will not only undermine
the public's confidence in the impartiality of our judiciary. It
could also put our security at risk - and with it the freedoms
the judges seek to defend. That would be a price we cannot be
expected to pay."
Here again we note a refusal to
accept what really puts 'security at risk'. These views of the
neo-con Blairites and the old Conservatives are an indication that
Britain is undergoing a crisis of representation. The corrupt
first-past-the-post electoral system has now become a serious
threat to democratic functioning in Britain. Blair was re-elected
with only 35 per cent of the popular vote, and barely a fifth of
the overall electorate-the lowest percentage secured by any
governing party in recent European history. A majority of the
population opposed the war in Iraq; a majority of the population
favors withdrawing British troops; 66 percent believe that the
attacks on London were the result of Blair's decision to send
troops to Iraq.
This is also the view of
important sections of the Establishment, including MI5, the
intelligence agency whose web-site makes the link of Iraq to the
terror attacks. Many measures proposed were tried during the years
of the Irish 'troubles'. Special courts sanctioned imprisonment
without trial, etc. But judges were more reliable in those days.
That is why Blair is proposing that judges who try Muslim suspects
should themselves be security-vetted. In other words files will be
opened to determine the reliability of judges.
While Blair was denouncing soft
judges, his wife Cherie Booth, a practicing lawyer who will have
to carry on working after her husband is no longer Prime Minister,
contradicted the Dear Leader in a public. In a lecture in Kuala
Lumpur she said:
"Sometimes democracy must
fight with one hand tied behind its back. None the less, it has
the upper hand. Preserving the rule of law and recognition of
individual liberties constitutes an important component of its
understanding of security. At the end of the day, this
strengthens its spirit, and this strength allows it to overcome
its difficulties. Our institutions are under threat; our
commitments to our deepest values are under pressure; our
acceptance of difference is at a low point. At this time our
understanding of the importance of judges in a human-rights age
should be at its clearest. And it is at this time that our
support for the difficult task that judges have to perform must
be at its highest."
In the latest New Left
Review, reviewing a new biography of Blair, the historian
Richard Gott suggested that it was religion that explained Blair's
isolation from his own people:
"As an overtly religious
prime minister, Blair has been at odds with the larger part of
his country which, like most of Europe, has become increasingly
secular in recent years. His religious fervour-he was,
unusually, confirmed in the Anglican communion as an adult, when
a student at Oxford-is a relatively unfamiliar phenomenon in
contemporary Britain. Indeed Blair, who has apparently read
through the Koran three times, sometimes seems more at home with
the Muslim revival experienced by part of the British electorate
than with the secular style of the Church of England. Blair does
not like to be bracketed with right-wing religious
fundamentalists in the United States, but like many of them he
is a genuine 'friend of Israel', a country that he visited twice
before becoming prime minister. His knowledge of and support for
Israel has long been guided by Lord Levy, a millionaire in the
music business who became Blair's tennis partner, the Labour
Party's chief fundraiser and, for a while, the prime minister's
eyes and ears in the Middle East."
Whatever the case, it is now
obvious that there will be no peace in Britain or Iraq as long as
Blair remains Prime Minister. He is part of the problem, not the
solution. His departure has become an important prerequisite to a
safe Britain, which could detach itself from the Pentagon and
acquire a tiny measure of independence.
Tariq Ali is author of the recently released Street Fighting Years (new edition) and, with David Barsamian, Speaking of Empires & Resistance. He can be reached at:
tariq.ali3@btinternet.com
(First published in Il
Manifesto, Rome on 12th August)
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