POSITION OF THE EUROPEAN REGION REGARDING THE ATTACKS IN LONDON

Today, before anything else, we denounce the mindless acts of terrorism that took place yesterday in London, and we reject any justification of it. We condemn this brutal violence, as we have already condemned the war brought about against the people in Afghanistan and Iraq before. There is no justification for destroying human lives.

If today George W.Bush, Tony Blair and all the other leaders of the rich nations hypocritically condemn terrorism and pretend to be the saviors of great values, let us nevertheless not forget that :

1,941 young soldiers from the US, the UK, Italy, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Spain, Thailand, Estonia, El Salvador, Netherlands, Slovakia, Latvia, Kazakhstan and Hungary have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the war. Moreover, 2,526 Iraqi police and guardsmen have lost their lives in the same period. 13,336 US soldiers have been wounded. And finally, different studies have put in evidence that more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian men, women and children have been killed since the beginning of the war in Iraq. Let us finally also not forget that the declared reason for the US and UK attack were weapons of mass destruction, of which Bush and Blair later said that they had been “wrongly informed“.

The Humanist International denounces also the hypocrisy of those “leaders” who in fact are responsible for the actual worldwide situation of injustice, poverty, discrimination and violence of all sorts. The system they promote and represent is itself based on violence, exploitation, lies and manipulation, and the consequences cannot be different than growing violence, which will again justify their self-declared “war against terrorism“. Even some of the most pro-war analysts both in UK and the US now accept that the invasion of Iraq, far from furthering the war on terror, has actually increased the number of people joining the ranks of terrorist organizations.

It is enough to remember that with the money spent in the weapons industry in one year, mankind could grant to the entire worldwide population health and education. In this light, debt relief for some countries, as proposed in the G8 summit, is nothing else than an attempt to calm down the growing rejection of the system by the people. If those leaders today claim in their arrogance that “they will prevail” the Humanist International firmly declares its conviction that they are completely wrong! It is mankind that finally will prevail; it is justice that will prevail, equality of opportunities, non-violence and non-discrimination that will prevail – far beyond the actual violence, which is inherent in the actual system.

In this moment of grief, we are with the inhabitants of London and the United Kingdom, and we wish them force to resist to this violence by not letting themselves be manipulated by those who take advantage of such situations, trying to awaken the worst in people, and trying in this way to advance their destructive interests that are, after all, at the origin of those disasters.

Once more, the Humanist International affirms that the only way to combat violence is through the methodology of active non-violence. The only effective “war against terrorism” rests in the creation of a universal human nation, in which all human beings have not only the same rights, but above all the same opportunities.