After dropping the boys off at school yesterday morning, I went into Bristol and while I was there I bought a copy of the local newspaper: the Bristol Evening Post.
I wasn’t buying it to see whether or not they’d commemorated 9/11 but they had a few pieces about it: two news items, a short report, a full-page opinion piece and a letter to the editor. None of them were commemorative or offered any sympathy for the dead. All but one were either anti-war or anti-American, but it was the reader’s letter that got me.
The letter, which appeared only in the print edition, was headlined with the words “UK a fascist state just like the USA”. It is ostensibly about a local policing issue but it isn’t long before the writer (“Don Lee, US Navy Cold War veteran”) widens his aim:
If this is how Britain runs, its no wonder that you’re willing to throw in with President Shrub and support the Fourth Reich.I wondered whether the publication of this letter on the second anniversary of 9/11 reflected an anti-American bias on the part of the Post’s editorial staff. The answer, as Bill Davis (the Post’s features editor) told me in a matter of fact sort of way, is: “Not particularly”.
Tell you what, take all your college dropouts, super Christians and fundamentalists, and make them cops. What, you’ve already done that, too?
Make sure you separate people by artificially created racial and cultural barriers. Oh, you’ve done that as well?
Of course, you originated the aristocracy. We’ve been copying that for years. Now we have universities where the rich just pay someone to write papers for them while they drink their way through.
Oh and make sure that all theology degrees are given equal weight with doctorates in science. Incredible. You’ve done that as well?
Congratulations. You’re now a fascist state too.
I’m going to write to the Post, not about the letter, I’ve already made my feelings clear on that, but about the opinion piece.
The full-page article (not available on-line) was by Aftab Malik, an Islamic publisher and member of the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society. He believes that the American reaction to the events of September 11 runs the risk of playing into the hands of the zealots and argues, wrongly in my opinion, that:
Anti-Americanism is driven not by a blind hatred of America or religious zealotry, but by frustration and anger with US policy.Leaving aside the fact that anti-Americanism is by definition the blind hatred of America; it doesn’t impress me to be told that this bigotry is in some way justified.
Malik clearly does not approve of American foreign policy; in particular he can’t stand what he refers to as the “so called War on Terror”. To be fair, the majority of the article deals not with America or 9/11 but with the radicalisation of Muslim youth. Nevertheless, the message from Malik is clear: America was to blame for the events of 9/11 and we should back off unless we want more of the same.
That’s what I’ll be writing to the Post about.
