15th April 2004
Hey, George. We’ve been through a lot these past couple of years haven’t
we? You know I have been with you every step of the way in the ‘War on
Terror’ despite the misgivings of many people in my country. I’ve told them
repeatedly that they’ve got you all wrong, George. I know you’re not
intellectually-challenged like they keep saying you are. No, events have
just made it look that way.
Many people around the world – including millions of Muslims - have
witnessed what your troops did to hundreds of innocent Iraqis, including
small children, in Fallujah – courtesy of al-Jazeera. Over the past couple
of years we have needlessly alienated the majority of the over 1.5 billion
Muslims around the world. No, you can’t just bomb al-Jazeera’s offices
again, George. Bombing their offices for a third time might look a tad
suspicious to onlookers especially when we keep saying we want to introduce
freedom to Iraq.
Listen, George, I think I can see a way out of this mess that you haven’t
made. After 9/11, at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, I outlined a
vision of a world in which the richest countries were committed to helping
“The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living
in want and squalor from the deserts of northern Africa to the slums of
Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan”. And I got the biggest
applause when I called for Palestinians to receive "justice, the chance to
prosper and in their own land".
So, George. We can make a start by ditching unilateralism and sticking to
the path of multilateralism and international legality.
Let’s begin with Palestine. We need to implement UN resolutions and give
the Palestinians their own state. Just imagine how that would go down in
the rest of the world! And I mean a real state, not a few Bantustans
surrounded by the racist bully that is Israel. And if the Israelis won’t go
for it, then let’s help create one democratic state for both the Jews and
the Palestinians.
Same with Chechnya and Kashmir. Let’s get Putin to honour the treaty that
Yeltsin signed with the Chechens and ask the Indians to hold the plebiscite
on Kashmir that the UN called for over 50 years ago.
Let’s try and win more friends, George.
by
Iqbal Sacranie,
Secretary-General,
The Muslim Council of Britain
