Professor Ron Geaves, if he is noticed widely at all, is going to be (fairly) compared to CU’s Ward Churchill in that strangely-removed from reality portion of the left wing. He is courting the comparison by insisting that the London tube and bus attacks weren’t actually acts of terrorism; they were merely extreme examples of political demonstration.

Prof Ron Geaves has sparked controversy by claiming that the attacks on Tube trains and a bus that killed 52 innocent people in July were part of a long history of protests by British Muslims.

He also said that to refer to the attacks as terrorism risked “demonising” those involved.
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“I have included, rather controversially, the events in London as primarily an extreme form of demonstration and assess what these events actually mean in terms of their significance in the Muslim community,” Prof Geaves said last week.

“Terrorism is a political word which always seems to be used to demonise people.”

Of course, sane people of all stripes are rolling their eyes already. If strapping explosives to yourself and blowing up a bus isn’t an act of terrorism, then most of us will need a new dictionary from which to work. It’s ludicrous to even suggest that the suicide bombings were anything other than an act of terrorism.

But, if we allow his argument to stand and call the terrorist act by another name, why is it that we wouldn’t want to demonize the action? Isn’t a bombing of a bus or a tube station an act worth demonizing? Isn’t it worth a little disgust? Political demonstrations and civil disobedience are, or can be, admirable actions by principled people. Blowing up buses filled with children, old folks, mothers, and business people doesn’t precisely qualify as admirable or principled.

A civilized society should demonize bombings disguised as political protest in the hopes that its citizens realize that the best way to work for change is rarely by blowing up fellow citizens. It doesn’t amaze me that someone in academia would reach to find excuses for the actions of terrorists, but it is shocking to me every time they refuse to condemn those acts in the strongest possible terms.

One of the most colorful responses came from Labour MP Andrew Dismore:

“What happened on July 7, 2005, fits with every international definition of terrorism. If any of the men behind the attacks had survived the incident they would have quite rightly been tried under the anti-terror laws. I don’t think it’s helpful that we have a mealy-mouthed academic trying to justify deaths of innocent people. It is ludicrous.”

It is ludicrous to spend so much time trying to excuse the inexcusable.

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