News & events
Woolwich murder: we must use reason to beat terrorists
Terry Eagleton, The Guardian: 26 May 2013 - To deny the Woolwich attackers any shred of rationality is to come perilously close to excusing them. Why did the Woolwich killing happen? Less than a week on, the debate has swiftly moved on to the issue of "preventative measures", with Theresa May proposing new internet controls and the banning of groups preaching hate.
Yet anyone who dares to use the words "western foreign policy" in this context is bound to be speedily shut up by the likes of Paxman and co. This isn't because they have never heard of drones and Guantánamo. They are surely aware of the countless thousands of innocent civilians dispatched to their graves by western operations in the Arab world, for whom there are no floral tributes piled on the London pavements. It is rather because they imagine, in their muddled way, that to explain an event is to excuse it. Those who point to the dead of Iraq and Afghanistan are surely doing so as a devious way of justifying the slaughter of a young soldier outside his barracks.
Read the full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/26/woolwich-murders-reason-beat-terrorists