July 18, 2005

"They hate Americans because Americans resist them."

George Miller of London Calling examines how the bombings of London's transit system by Islamic terrorists last week may impact the British national identity - and what that could mean for Islamic radicals.

The British have one of the least self-conscious national identities of any modern people. They are as racially mixed and immigrant a people as any country in the world. This sense of identity has been so taken for granted, that the ideology of multi-culturalism has grown unchallenged, and not been perceived as the threat that it is.

The Yorkshire suicide bombers have pushed national identity back into the national conscience. If the British people manage to rediscover their national identity, they will make mince-meat of the provocation of the Islamic radicals.

Too Many Words
Many British people "resent" the European Union in the same way that I resent being bombed on my way to work. But "resentment" is an emotion felt by people who have lost control.

Dicing With Death
What is it about Islamic violence that people don't get? It's not like the followers of Allah haven't proved their blood lust in slaughtering innocents before 7/7. They murdered hundreds of school children in Beslan, and killed 25, Shia apostates, children each one, in Iraq today. But tonight, the BBC is still not sure whether four British lads had the will, and the inclination, to murder their fellow citizens on London's transport system. They're still clinging to hope that the bombers may have been duped into delivering their bombs.

This response has echoes to the American reaction to 9/11 when many Yanks asked "Why do they hate us so much?" That question now looks as silly as it was then. They hate Americans because Americans resist them. If they don't hate you, grow your beard and buy a pair of sandles, because you've already lost the war.

Also, Miller notes that even after Muslim terrorists bombed London's transit system, the BBC can't quite bring itself to calling them terrorists. Miller and his clever readers have some alternate euphemisms. My favorite is "mobile self-demolition specialists.".