Thread by @ShahrarAli

Reflection from @ShahrarAli twenty years on from #September11 - from Coalition of Willing & Guantanamo to Shoot to Kill & domestic extremism, politicians have failed us internationally & nationally. Watch full statement here

September 11th – twenty years to the day. 2,977 people killed in a grotesque, unconscionable act of mass terroristic murder. Pure evil.

“Where were you when it happened?” Alas, many did not have the luxury of even knowing that it had happened but were soon to face the consequences of years, if not decades of failed foreign policy, or worse.

Make no mistake, it is generally women and children who most suffer and die from the testosterone-fuelled rage of men, from whatever time or place – whether conditioned by religious fundamentalism or racist political ideology.

One has only to look at the failed state of Afghanistan, 20 years on, to see the true scale of collective blunders of George W’s & Blair’s “coalition of the willing”. When I reflect on that day, I think upon scale of the harms which innocents have been made to suffer and endure.

The unspeakable crimes of incarcerating youth in Guantanamo Bay, contrary to the Geneva Conventions; or the men kept away from their families for years on end unable to see their children grow up or, in some cases, be born.

I still use “illegal combatant” Moazzam Begg’s Letter from Guantanamo – a man whom I campaigned for the release of – as a case study in my philosophy classes on the ethics of torture.

Or the assault on our civil liberties in the UK, whether through Islamophobic Prevent or adoption of shoot to kill rules of engagement without public consent – which directly led to fatal shooting of innocent Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, on Stockwell underground in 2005.

Of course, some things never do change. The Gold commander who gave the bungled command to shoot to kill has since been elevated to Metropolitan police commissioner!

Yes, our response to 9/11 is felt today in the proposals of the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts bill to criminalise protest and denounce climate demonstrators as domestic extremists.

When we express deep sorrow for those who lost lives in 9/11 and empathy with the bereaved, whose lives were irredeemably affected, let us also reflect on how we can create a better world for all.

Sandy Dahl, one of the women affected and wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason, said “If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.” Ends.