THE NEW WORKER

The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 26th May 2017


The bomb attack in Manchester

THE BOMB blast in Manchester on Monday evening was an outrage and a tragedy. The ultimate responsibility lies at the feet of the global imperialist forces, in particular those of the United States and Britain that bring war, aggression, interventions and indiscriminate bombings to countries in the Middle East and Africa whose governments refuse to kowtow to the great god Money.

Tragedies such as happened in Manchester are, fortunately for us, rare and shocking events. For the citizens of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Palestine such events are common but no less tragic for that. And the perpetrators are the same people.

When the air forces of the US, Britain and France are not raining pure terror from the skies using bombers and drones, they use their indirectly funded agents, the terrorists of IS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and others.

Many of the actual agents, who blow themselves up along with their victims, are complete dupes; they call themselves Muslims but do not understand that they are carrying out the tactics of the great god Money and are setting up real Muslims to suffer the horrendous backlash in public opinion that will surely follow.

Globally, these innocent Muslims are the chief victims of the terror attacks — in their own homes and if they flee terrorist atrocities to settle in Europe or Britain they get blamed for the atrocities committed here.

It seems the young man who blew himself up, taking 22 concert goers with him and injuring another 50 or so, was from a family of Libyan anti-Gaddafi activists — the same people that NATO forces used to bring down the left-wing Libyan leader.

Theresa May’s government has responded by filling the streets with armed troops, just two weeks away from a general election. So campaigning, canvassing and leafleting will be resumed under the intimidating presence of armed troops everywhere.

Those most likely to be stopped and searched will inevitably be young people with brown faces and carrying backpacks or wheelie suitcases — which are more likely to contain election leaflets and other campaigning materials than bombs. No real terrorist with half a brain would try another attack right now with security surveillance this high. But the police and troops will no doubt stop and inconvenience hundreds of ordinary people in the next few weeks.

The police have already made their usual response by making a number of almost instant arrests of people who happen to be on their records but who are unlikely to have been involved. These arrests are just the police making a show of doing something whilst the right-wing press berate them for failing to stop the bombing.

The perpetrator, it seems, was known to the police. But they have hundreds of thousands of people on their books — most of whom are totally harmless but may have expressed an anti-imperialist or pro-Muslim opinion at some point in their lives. Apart from human rights issues, logistically it is impossible for the police to intern or keep close tracks on every person who is on their lists or to know who amongst them is likely to become the one-in-a-million to carry out a terrorist attack.

The major political parties have suspended election campaigning for a few days and agreed in public that they should not use the tragedy to try to boost their electoral support. Nevertheless the UK Independence Party (UKIP), hoping for a boost after the bombing in its derisory support levels, has responded by launching an election manifesto after all.

But we would do the dead, the injured and the bereaved no favours if, after a respectful pause, we did not resume campaigning harder than ever for a Government that will protect the ambulance and emergency services and the NHS hospitals that were in the front line of rescuing and treating the victims of the bombing.And we need a new government that does not stir wars, hatred, violence, despair and anger with its international policies. We need a government that will favour peaceful relations, dialogue and negotiation — one that is not led by the high priests of the great god Money.

In other words, we need a Labour government more than ever.