On Jumping to Conclusions!
By Khalid Saleem

THINGS and events that have unfolded in the wake of the grievous happenings in London need to be looked at with more circumspection than that exhibited by several knee-jack pseudo-desi liberals. In the first place, it must be stated that jumping to conclusions is never a very good idea. For another, neither is the unholy haste in exhibiting one’s own slip in public, whatever the expected crumbs from the High Table.

Civilization owes an awful lot to the hapless Brazilian young man who was so cruelly cut down by the plain-clothed police gunmen in London. His tragic death has brought home the utter futility of first jumping to conclusions and then shutting one’s mind off to other matters.

The hastily drawn “conclusion” in this case was that the culprits were Asian (read; Pakistani) and that was that. The principal fault of the Brazilian young man was that he looked like an Asian and was, therefore, considered fair game. This is what appears to have led to the tragic-comic chase through London town and the ensuing tragic denouement.

Having enacted the tragedy, the authorities then thought it fit to jump to another hasty conclusion. When they discovered that the person they had cut down was not Asian at all but actually a Brazilian and a Christian to boot, the authorities rushed to admit that it was a case of “mistaken identity”, triggering a chain of apologies at all levels.

The least Scotland Yard could have done is to carry out one of their much-vaunted enquiries. Without meaning any disrespect to the late Brazilian citizen, one is entitled to ask as to how did the police jump to the definite conclusion that he was not connected with the bombings at all?

For all they knew at the time he could well have been a member of the “gang”. One would hate to go through the exercise of speculating about what the reaction of the police would have been had the victim been Asian. But let us begin at the beginning.

Within a matter of hours, the police – after an unbelievably quick investigation — had pointed the finger of blame at Pakistanis (and Pakistan) and, thereby, closed all other avenues of inquiry. The effect of this line of reasoning, that too made public in indecent haste, was that Pakistanis and Pakistan became the objects of suspicion. The result was a blinkered, linear police response. This attitude led to the subsequent event.

While the police was hunting all over for Asian suspects, the real perpetrators got the opportunity to have a second go! Mercifully, the bombs failed to explode this time around, otherwise the police would have been left with egg all over their collective face! It is a matter of record that the suspects (not the ‘usual suspects’) rounded up so far have been of African (and not Pakistani) origin.

And now to the most startling bit of all news! An Associated Press despatch, datelined New Delhi, quotes the Indian paper “The Asian Age” as disclosing that, “A British Al-Qaeda suspect wanted in connection with the London…bombings and reportedly the mastermind behind the attacks was of Indian descent.”

The suspect, Haroon Rashid Aswat, of Indian descent, who grew up in West Yorkshire, “was detained last week in Zambia and is being held for his alleged role for setting up a terror camp in Oregon.” The newspaper adds that, “The reports have been played down by Scotland Yard.”

The above mentioned news item, incidentally, coincides with the publication of Mr Kuldip Nayyer’s widely distributed column in which he has crowed over the “fact” that his Prime Minister had informed the Americans with pride that, unlike Pakistanis, no person of Indian origin had ever indulged in terrorism. Another blatant example of jumping to unwarranted conclusions! What?

And now to the part that hurts most. Our own armchair critics immediately jumped on the “liberal” bandwagon and started an animated campaign of self-flagellation at what they were overly quick to admit was a “Pakistan connection to the bombing”.

Most, if not all, of them, who incidentally spend their summer holidays in the hospitable climes of the United Kingdom, tried to outdo each other in firing their volleys at Pakistani “Islamists” and their “terrorist nurturing madrassahs”. The unholy efforts of our own pen-pushers resulted not only in inviting unnecessary flak from around the world but also in bringing a bad name to the country as a whole.

The whole thing came at a time when the Indian Prime Minister was on a visit to the United States and he lost no time in using the hype to pin the terrorist label on Pakistan and Pakistanis. It is something of a pity as to what level some of our own nationals will stoop all for the sake of a British visa!

If the above narrative has at all conveyed the impression that one is out to criticize the British or British institutions, this is far from the truth. From all accounts, Britain is one of the friendliest and fairest of countries for anyone to live in. London is a tourist destination matched by few cities in the world. That the recent bombings had to take place in London of all places will remain a matter of profound anguish and sorrow for all right thinking people.

This said, one must add that it is not fair at all to jump to the unwarranted conclusion that the epicentre of all that is evil lies in the seminaries of Pakistan. If anything, the London episode has proved, if proof was at all needed, that terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon and has no fixed abode. The rational thing to do would be to analyze and effectively tackle the root causes of terrorism rather than look for ready scapegoats to chastise.

Meanwhile, would it be too much to expect that we, as a nation, show greater self-respect and, if at all possible, some backbone and not take lying down all the accusations and insults hurled at us by people who are certainly no well wishers.●

© 2005 Khaled Saleem