Vigil for the Victims of the London Bombings

5pm, Saturday 9 July
Garden, Friends Meeting House
Euston Road, London
Opposite Euston station

Called by Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Muslim Association of Britain.

Initial statement from the Stop the War Coalition

Stop the War Coalition unequivocally condemns today's terrorist attacks on the people of London. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. There can be no justification for such attacks. We urge everyone to resist any attempts which may be made to use these crimes to stir up anti-Muslim hysteria or attack the Muslim population of this country. We emphasise the importance of solidarity, peace and justice as our guiding principles in addressing the crisis scarring the world today, of which today's bombings are a dreadful manifestation. It is clearer than ever that the "war on terror" in which Britain has been so heavily involved has not, in fact, made the world safer from terrorism.  Britain's security services warned Tony Blair two years ago that a war on Iraq would make such attacks more likely. That warning has been tragically borne out today.

there is some interesting coverage from:

Lenin
Justin Hortin
Bertinotti

Also a letter from TUC to all Unions:

Dear Colleague

Terrorist attacks

You will have been appalled, as I was, at the terrorist outrages in London today causing loss of life and terrible injuries to so many people. Many members of our organisations, including transport workers, are likely to be amongst the casualties.

Messages of solidarity and support have been flowing into the TUC throughout the day from sister trade union organisations from many parts of the world.

Workers in all the emergency services are, again, doing outstanding and courageous work in rescuing and caring for the victims of these attacks.

Over the coming days there will no doubt be a huge amount of work done to investigate these incidents and cope with the aftermath. It will be essential to ensure that the national anger and grief of people is not converted into Islamophobia that could be so divisive and damaging in our communities.

At an appropriate point in the coming days I am sure the whole trade union Movement will want to find a way of demonstrating the absolute unity of the workers of London, indeed the country as a whole, in all our diversity, in opposition to this terrible act of violence and in determination not to be subjugated by terrorism.

Yours sincerely

Brendan Barber
General Secretary

8 July: now we are at war (again)

Typically nuanced coverage in the British Press: 'VILE George Galloway last night confirmed he is Britain’s No1 TRAITOR after blaming Tony Blair for the terror bombings ... BRITAIN’S 1.6million Muslims were last night urged to pray for the victims, co-operate with police and stay on the alert for any backlash.' From the Sun.

'GEORGE Galloway was accused by a senior minister last night of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood", after the former Labour MP warned the terrorist attacks in the capital will not be the last.' From the Scotsman.

Better quotes from the two unions worst affected: Tony Woodley, general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, which represents bus workers, said: "It is terrible and shocking day."

And the Rail Maritime and Transport union expressed sympathy for the families of the dead and called for a security review of the Tube. General secretary Bob Crow said: "These terrible attacks show just how vulnerable commuters and Tube workers are. Tube workers and emergency services have responded magnificently and there is now a clear need to review security after such an attack."

Meanwhile, people are calling the phone-in on BBC Radio 5 to demand that we bomb someone, somebody, somewhere, in retaliation.

Two thoughts: (1) The most impressive stories of rescue are those that showed working-class people taking control of the situation themselves, and without waiting for the police or anyone else. 

When the bomb exploded on Tavistock Square, people working next door at the British Medical Association came out, looked after the casualties, began organising them into groups and taking them to University College hospital. They didn't wait for a manager or any authority to tell them, but came straight out, and saved people's lives. 

On the Kings Cross building sites, a largely migrant group of building workers downed tools and went en masse to give blood.

(2) We were lucky that so few people have died. When the radio, TV and workplace rumour went into disaster mode, all of us were fearing some extraordinary tragedy. The only markers we had were the previous attacks in Madrid and New York. Hundreds could be dead, or even more.

Taking their cue from the US, the papers have warned for years of the dangers posed by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction: but these attacks seems to have been carried out with nothing more than high explosive. The main obstacle to low-tech terrorism can never be policing, intelligence, lock-out immigration controls, identity cards - or any of the other measures that the Home Office will no doubt force on us now.

The most effective obstacle is emotional: the simple revulsion that almost everyone has at the thought of killing people. When someone becomes willing to breach that barrier, almost anything becomes possible. 

People only become killers for a reason: because of our involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, our support for the regimes in Saudi Arabia, and our sometimes vocal, sometimes tacit approval of the occupation of Palestine.

The papers are reporting that 38, 40, maybe 52 people have died. For days and week afterwards, everything will be different. New laws will come in. Black people, Muslims, will become targets again. People will be talking about these attacks years after. 

But a million people were killed by our sanctions in Iraq in the early 1990s, tens of thousands have died in Iraq since our occupation of that country began. So many lives lost in Iraq, and nothing in Britain has changed.  

Good coverage at http://www.ukwatch.net/article/714 and http://www.leninology.blogspot.com/ 

7 July: the Blasts in London: I blame Blair

I live and work at Kings Cross: when the blasts happened 4 hours ago I was at work just 200 metres away. I must have walked quite past them. Stories flashed around, snatches of emails (mobiles were not working), something a friend had heard from the radio. One friend 8 months pregnant was stuck on a tube train, not moving. Every different person had heard something; the rumours didn't fit together but swelled.

We gathered together as a group: no-one was going to do any work for the rest of the day. People from outside London immediately began to think about returning home. The story was that some great power surge was to blame. Then we heard about a bus whose top had been blown of. Its location was confirmed as Tavistock Square - just near the offices of Universities UK and the Equality Challenge Unit. I still haven't heard whether friends in both offices are well.

The strangest thing was walking home: with all the roadblocks, people seem to have been sent all across London looking for somewhere to catch a taxi or a tube. 'How do I get to Camden?' 'How do I get to Archway?' Kings Cross was quiet: no traffic, people barely speaking, no traffic. And now I'm home. I feel angry. I feel confused. But of one thing I'm certain: its Blair and Blairism that are to blame. 

The BBC and the government seem to be accusing Al-Qaeda or some other Muslim network. If that turns out to be true, then it was our government who has provided them with targets and an excuse. We went to war with Afghanistan. We went to war with Iraq. We turned round to the jihadis and said - everything you think about the brutality, the stupidity and the murderousness of the West - it's all true. Where groups were previously isolated, we were their best recruiters.

I remember how after 9/11 and after Madrid, ordinary Muslims were the victims of many racist attacks. But I also remember how after Madrid the great mass of the people turned round to their own leaders and said they were sick of the lies. That's what we need here.