Last night I sat on the patio tapping away at the laptop and listening to the sounds of the Meatloaf Concert at Chatsworth. It was a surreal experience. Bat out of Hell was particularly clear, as was someone screaming out his thanks to those who had been fleeced to buy a ticket! Shame there were no fireworks.
As I sat there, I thought about Phil's comments about losing patience/understanding about the bombings in London - about how it wasn't the imperial guards who were killed but normal working people from Hackney (et al.). I can see Phil's point but I don't agree with his conclusion.
With insurgency against an empire, the only people to attack are those without defences. The rich, the powerful, those in office (the imperial guards), are usually so closeted and protected that it is always impossible to get to them - unless you live in such a chaotic society such as Iraq and Palestine and so on - we don't live in that level of chaos, yet. As such, the insurgents will always need to go after the soft underbelly - the people they can possibly strike, in an attempt to ensure that the masses will rise up in revolt against the imperial guards. Indeed, this has been an attempt which the empire itself has used on many occasions - what else were we doing when we bombed Baghdad before the war, or Libya, or Belgrade? What is the difference between a jaguar jet hitting civilian targets and an Al Qaeda operative planting a bomb on a tube train? Does it make sense because we have the Empire's backing? Warfare in all its guises is wrong and those who live by the sword will die by the sword. We live in a militaristic culture where empire has to be reinforced with military might. As soon as you ratchet up the military agenda and remove the 'covenant of security', you end up with terrorism. The only way out, I would suggest, is to sit down and talk - to negotiate between equals.
In the New Testament period, there were a bunch of urban terrorists called the Sicarii - the short dagger brigade. They wanted to rid Jerusalem of the Romans. They wanted to see a return to theocracy/home rule. However, they were well aware that the Empire was too strong and that an all-out military attack would fail (as it did in the 60s and 130s). As such, they caused as much upheaval as they could by randomly killing people in crowds in the city. This caused a sense of panic and uproar. People were no longer safe. The resulting increase in tension and dis-ease was enough to make life hell for the Romans - and in turn made life even worse for the Jerusalemites who eventually rose up and, of course, the temple is destroyed, Jerusalem abandoned, the Romans simply swatted the fly!
It was interesting to hear the young muslim man and ther young woman victim of the bombings on the news last night - the only answer is for Tony Blair to resign. He took us into a war the country did not want and this is the response. Understandable but deeply flawed. Blair is as much a pawn of the Empire as anyone else. The Empire goes back much longer than Blair and is actually governed by multinational companies rather than individual governments. The G8 is a front for the Empire - the political face. The real power lies elsewhere. This is where Al Qaeda are completely wrong in hitting the national governments/national territories. All they are doing is putting a halt to the opportunity for Islam to build its own status as an alternative worldview. Every bomb that goes off in the UK will destroy the public's will to question the supremacy of 'democracy', to question the reign of 'Macworld', to see that there are other ways of being human than the dehumanising empire of western capitalism. In fact, as Baudrillard told us all along, the attacks on the Empire simply reinforce the Empire's control over us - Al Qaeda are as much tools of the Empire as Bush and Blair!
Pete
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