One of the startling thing about Western responses to current Islamic extremism is how it misunderstands the essential thrust of the problem.
We in the West are mesmerised by the ranting of so-called Islamic leaders against “the Great Satan” and threats to extend their rule over all the world.
In fact, nothing of the sort is happening. What is really happening throughout the Middle East and elsewhere is a sectarian conflict between Muslims and between ethnic groups who also happen to be Muslim.
As we mourn two dead hostages in Sydney, so Pakistan now mourns an infinitely more horrible attack from the Taliban from the tribal areas of its own country. As AFP and Yahoo report, a teenage survivor of a Taliban attack on a Pakistan school has described how he played dead after being shot in both legs by insurgents hunting down students to kill.
Militants rampaged through an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar and killed at least 141 people, almost all of them children, in the bloodiest ever terror attack in Pakistan. Chief military spokesman General Asim Bajwa said 132 students and nine staff were killed, and 125 wounded. This exceeds the 139 killed in blasts targeting former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi in 2007.
Speaking from his bed in the trauma ward of the city’s Lady Reading Hospital, Shahrukh Khan, 16, said he and his classmates were in a careers guidance session in the school auditorium when four gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms burst in.
“Someone screamed at us to get down and hide below the desks,” he said, adding that the gunmen shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) before opening fire.
“Then one of them shouted: ‘There are so many children beneath the benches, go and get them’,” Khan told AFP.
“I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches.”
Khan said he felt searing pain as he was shot in both his legs just below the knee.
He decided to play dead, adding: “I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream.
“The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again.
“My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me — I felt as though it was death that was approaching me.”
The Army Public School is attended by boys and girls from both military and civilian backgrounds.
As his father, a shopkeeper, comforted him in his blood-soaked bed, Khan recalled: “The men left after some time and I stayed there for a few minutes. Then I tried to get up but fell to the ground because of my wounds.
“When I crawled to the next room, it was horrible. I saw the dead body of our office assistant on fire,” he said.
“She was sitting on the chair with blood dripping from her body as she burned.”
It was not immediately clear how the female employee’s body caught fire, though her remains were also later seen by an AFP reporter in a hospital mortuary.
Khan, who said he also saw the body of a soldier who worked at the school, crawled behind a door to hide and then lost consciousness.
“When I woke up I was lying on the hospital bed,” he added.
‘Only I survived’
Another student at the hospital, Hammad Ahmed, added: “I was with my friends in the corridor in front of my class when we heard gunshots.
“We rushed inside the classroom, our teacher closed the door, she was trying to lock it when the terrorists kicked on the door and forced it open,” he continued.
“All 10 of my classmates and our teacher died, only I survived,” he said.
But like Khan, he survived despite being shot in the feet because his attackers assumed he was already dead and moved on.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have claimed responsibility for the attack as retaliation for a major military offensive in the region, and with incredibly chilling cruelty said its militants had been ordered to shoot older students.
This is just the latest in a pattern of sectarian bombings and massacres that far outweigh any attacks on the West or Western interests.There is a civil war raging – raging to the death – in Pakistan/Afghanistan that is largely misunderstood by most people in Western countries. Many of the most recent horrors have been designed by militants to derail tentative peace moves between the Governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and America and the Taliban.
Elswhere, IS, for example, in Syria and Iraq, is almost entirely concerned with taking over Sunni regions and imposing its own “pure” version of Islam, indiscriminately slaughtering Christians and Shia Muslims by the tens of thousands.
Over the years, Shia attacks on Sunnis have been equally bloody.
The participants have no real anger with the West, no matter how wildly they proclaim that they do. In fact, we are merely useful targets to galvanise their own supporters.
Far from presaging some wider conflict in which the Middle East turns outwards and invades the rest of the world, killing Westerners is, in fact, the violent version of nothing more than a slogan to enliven the supporters of one side or the other.
What is to be done?
One could write for days and only start to scratch the surface. But it is important for the West to understand that – with peaceful periods of co-existence – this conflict has been raging for 1500 years. What makes it so terrifying now is the free availability of weapons of all kinds that enable such terrible destruction, and also that over 95% of violent deaths in conflicts around the world occur from bullets.
Starving the region of small arms and ammunition would be a far more effective strategy for the West, if it really wants to be involved, than indiscriminate bombs and invasions of societies which we do not understand, and which do not seem particularly inclined to understand us.
As we pray and weep for the 2 dead hostages in Sydney, which so galvanised world attention, let us also pause, pray and weep for the dead and insured of Peshawar, and their parents and families.
Well, This Is What I Think 
Extreme Islamic terrorism is only part of the problem Yolly. The real problem, far greater than acts of terrorism, is the demographics pertaining to the gradual increase in the Muslim population of Western countries-democracies. For instance, England is rooted-forever-there’s no return. Would you like to come for a stroll through East London with me? Or perhaps we’ll both pop over to France and go for a holiday in Marseilles? Did you know that the socialist government in France only got in because of the immigrant vote?
Gaddafi got it right when he said the next war won’t be fought with guns. We’ll just outbreed them (or words to that effect). That’s the problem. People our age can grin and bear it and pretend that it’s not such a problem, and in Australia right now, it isn’t. We’re allright mate. But for our kids and their kids, your kids and your grandchildren, it will be a problem. Not a racist problem, or a religious problem, but a way of life problem.
Interestingly in a suburb of Perth last week, Greenwood, just near where I grew up, the Christmas concert has been shelved. Banned forever-the school Principal saying that there are now too many non Christian children in the school. So, imagine how you’d feel if you were to go along to your grandkids school Christmas concert to hear them sing Away In A Manger, but it was replaced by something else. And slowly-it spreads……
Now, if we all got on together like the great big melting pot song then that’s fine. It’d be great. Don’t care where you come from, we’re all equal and we all respect each other. You beauty. That’s what I want to see. So whilst I’ve got the right attitude, I’m also a realist and I can see what’s going on. The reality is that the white anglo saxon person is being rapidly out bred and exponential growth is starting to kick in. England is finding it out, Belgium, France, the list goes on. Scandinavian countries have now started doing something about it. Not so many Muslims in Japan nowadays I hear though. Wonder why that is?
Pete
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Pete, I live next to a Muslim family. They have more kids than me. They are Westernised, he’s a copper, they are charming, polite and caring neighbours. Now multiply that a million or so, and where’s the issue?
The problem with immigration (wherever it is) is that we allow the participants to become ghettoised at our peril.
That’s what has happened in France, where the Muslim population barely participates in economic activity. I walked through the backstreets of a town near Marseilles very recently. It did not feel safe, I grant you.
I also agree that there are major demographic shifts in the world and we are not, at this stage, winning the battle for hearts and minds.
As for no Xmas carols at a school, that is simply ludicrous. The head should be sacked. We should be celebrating a variety of religious and cultural experiences, of which carols and Christmas are just one.
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I am so much more scared of white “evangelical” fundamentalist “Christians” who are in love with their guns than I am of Muslims that it is almost pathetic. I do feel deeply for the people of Peshawar and all regions living in sectarian strife. My experience is that everyone is much more likely to be stabbed in the back by a neighbor than by some stranger from across the world.
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That is unquestionably true, just as it is unquestionably true that we have plenty of our own home-grown idiots.
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Yolly, I agree with you and with underwriter505 – these are both manifestations of the Far Right intolerance which seems to be taking hold of our world, and it uses whatever it can as a ‘mask of righteousness’ to hide behind – whether extreme religious intolerance (Muslim extremism or the Far Right ‘Christians’ in America) or politics – the rise of the Fascist parties all over Europe. I am afraid that the whole world is about to descend into a horrid maelstrom of terrorist violence which is only going to be equaled (if not excelled) by governments trying to protect themselves (and sometimes their citizens) if we do not speak out and remind them of wise words in the past – such as ‘the man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither’ – Thomas Jefferson.
I do think that a person calling on the name of God (using whatever religion as a front) then murdering innocent teachers and children is evil personified – and I am sorry to say that I think those monsters are already in Hell (I don’t know where Hell is, but nothing good could be there). I saw on the BBC news last night that a ‘spokesman’ had said that their ‘fighters’ had been told not to kill children – unmitigated liar!
It seems to me that now is the time for all the moderates of the world to gather our courage and always at all times and in all places stand up for moderation and tolerance and generosity and kindness – because if we don’t things are going to get so, SO much worse! I thought this before yesterday’s murderous horrors, and think it still – if we, the moderate (sometimes sheep-like in our moderateness – we don’t like tend to like rows or aggression) don’t speak up for fear of vile things happening to us, they are going to happen anyway!
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Much as I agree with your sentiment Steve I have to point out that the separitist tendencies of the muslim communities in England is widespread and generally they do not mix. I’m sure I could find the odd asian copper or soldier but they are few and far between. Finally the political leaders are having to face up the immigration problem and it is hoped that an adult debate can ensue before it’s too late. Australia certainly gives the impression that it’s a forward thinking multicultural society but a good ‘level headed’ friend of mine in Sydney informs me that it is very ghettoised. Is there any truth in this?
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Paul, Sydney is more so than the rest of the country, yes. Large areas have become “middle eastern ghettos” and this is causing a problem. That said, in general there is much more widely spread wealth in Australia than almost anywhere, and the majority of people are in work, law abiding, and just want to “get on”.
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Immigration is a world wide phenomena, has been for years, and is very likely to continue for years. This makes people uncomfortable. Originally from Seattle, Washington, the area had large immigrant communities from all over the world, including the Middle East, Japan, China, just about every country there is, with huge populations from Latin America. As I see it, none of our countries, including Japan where I now live, will look like they once did. England, France, Japan, Australia — you name it, and each one will be different, some of them vastly different. The US will no longer be a white majority nation; England will not be “English” in the traditional sense, and on and on and on. This is inevitable, has been going on from the beginning of history, and will continue to happen. So, i say we’d best accept it, learn to live with our new neighbors, and leave it at that. Might as well, eh, as none of us has any control over what the future is going to look like. 🙂
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Wise words, George. Change is, indeed, the one constant in life.
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