London bombings

On June 2nd 250 police, some armed and wearing chemical protection suits, smashed their way into a house in Forest Gate in London, shot one man, beat him and his brother up and arrested them under the Terrorism Act 2000. A week later both were released without charge. The family returned to a home emptied and ripped apart...

In 1867 in the preface to the first edition of his famous work Capital Karl Marx observed that the economic conditions of England, the first industrialised country, were the model of future capitalist development in other lands. England was then the “locus classicus” of capitalist relations of production. From here ascendant capitalism would come to dominate the world.

The slaughter of 55 workers and the wounding of 700 hundred more on the 7th July followed by the attempted bombings of 21st July have confirmed the fears of millions that they risk being blown to bits on the way to or from work. The slaughter and the debilitating fear are the terrible price paid by the working class for the deepening of the impact of decomposition in the heartlands of capitalism. London, the oldest capital city of capitalism, has become part of the carnage that has spread around the globe and which is fuelled by the imperialist chaos in Iraq. It is a glimpse of the future that capitalism has in store for humanity.

After the July bombings in London, Tony Blair explained everything by referring to an “evil ideology”,  and his government tried to deny that there was any connection between the London attacks and the war in Iraq. Many people were not convinced. In an ICM opinion poll (Guardian 19/7/5) 64% thought that the government’s decision to go to war in Iraq bore some degree of responsibility for the London bombings. In a Daily Mirror poll 85% thought there was a connection between government foreign policy and the July 7 attacks. Politicians’ expressions of sympathy have been treated with caution.

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Who were the first victims of the terrorist attacks in the centre of London on July 7 2005? Like the ones in New York in 2001 and Madrid in 2004, the bombs were deliberately aimed at workers, people crowding the tubes and buses on their way to work. Al Qaida, which has claimed responsibility for this mass murder, says that it has acted in revenge for “British military massacres in Iraq”. But the endless slaughter of the population in Iraq is not the fault of working people in Britain; it’s the responsibility of the ruling classes of Britain, America – not to mention the terrorists of the so-called ‘Resistance’, who play their own daily part in the killing of innocent workers and civilians in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. The architects of the war on Iraq, the Bushes and the Blairs, are meanwhile left safe and secure; what’s more, the atrocities committed by the terrorists provide them with the perfect excuse to launch their next military adventure, just as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of September 11.

Since the bomb attacks of the 7th July the British government has used every available opportunity to boost the image of the state as the only thing which can protect the population from attack. The media were simultaneously calling for ‘national unity’ whilst decrying the forces of ‘Islamic terror’ present in our midst. The massive media barrage was repressive in itself, as it sought to overwhelm the population’s consciousness, and it undoubtedly contributed to the huge rise in racist attacks that followed the bombings. With the general fear in the population on their side, the chance arose to increase the repressive apparatus.

In the midst of all the statements on the bombings in London, most of which are only notable for their varying levels of hypocrisy, we have become aware of two statements, both from the libertarian and anarchist milieu, that attempt to defend a class position. One is from the libcom.org website, the other from the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Federation (ZACF) of South Africa.