(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - In this talk with Rodney Shakespeare, Chairman of the Committee against Torture in Bahrain in London who identifies the fact that all present wars aggressively pursued by the West are against Islamic countries and that the greatest fear of the West is the power of Islam to create a viable alternative to failed capitalism. Following is a transcript of the interview.
Q: In your perspective what is the current definition of terrorism as seen in the western world per se? And what should the definition of terrorism be?
Rodney Shakespeare: The Western definition is roughly anything that does not serve the West's legitimate interests. The true definition is that the West defines anything as terrorism that serves its illegitimate interests.
And I take my example from May 2010 when a small flotilla of ships approached Gaza and the ships were carrying medical supplies and toys for children. The people on the ships were completely unarmed. They were attacked and they were shot and killed. And afterwards the Israeli prime minister described them as terrorists and said that they were the attackers. So you see the West uses its definitions in a perverse way and always in support of its illegitimate interests.
I can take other examples and not just in Palestine where anybody who works for an independent Palestine state is labeled a terrorist; in Kashmir where there's a massive majority for the independence of Kashmir, they're labeled as terrorists; I won't go into details of Afghanistan where virtually all the fighters are just people who want national independence; and that's also true in Iraq.
The fact of the matter is that the West wants to dominate, to control, and anybody who shows the slightest sign of independence is immediately labeled a terrorist.
Q: Do you think a conference like this that is being held in Tehran - How successful do you think this type of conference can be? Can there be a re-defining of terrorism?
Rodney Shakespeare: It's a question in the first place of cracking the control of the Western media who are able to allege as terrorists ordinary people without thinking whether this is a terrible person.
But somebody has to stand up and in a big way to point out what is the truth of the situation is that the West is ruthlessly pursuing what are essentially illegitimate interests. So it's not just a question of the definition, it's a question of saying is the West actually helping the world to peace and justice.
I would like to point out something - if you look at the wars that are going and the wars which have been going on since 9/11 - all of them are aimed at Islamic countries. The scale of the war is increasing and it's beginning to look as though we are moving to some form of third world war.
In that, Muslims left right and center are being labeled as terrorists. And the reason is that the West wishes to control their resources; it wishes to make them havens for Western finance capitalism and above all it wants no Islamic country to show any sign of independence.
And the West has been able to do this and to label decent ordinary Muslims as terrorists because of what happened on 9/11. I will only say one thing on 9/11. I ask anybody who is watching this program to look up the subject of Tower No. 7 of the World trade Center.
Q: In the Western world there now seems to be an automatic association when terrorism is mentioned to connect this to Muslims and to connect it to Islam? Why is this the case - a power that be that wants to demonize Muslims? Do you see it that way?
Rodney Shakespeare: Yes I do see it that way. I think your other guest Ali al Ahmad is completely right on what he said about the media. But behind all this there is something much bigger.
It is the potential in Islam for developing a new way forward in the world. More than anything else the Americans and the West want to suppress anything which might have the consequence of, bit by bit or even on a large scale, eliminating interest.
Now that is a way forward - it is inherent in Islam and it's what the West power, financial and political elites fear more than anything else because 'reba' or 'interest' is the way by which they control other countries and by which they rip off the assets of those countries.
So there is something very fundamental going on and I'm delighted by this conference, which is waking up the world to a new way of thinking about the situation even though the Western media is not covering it.
Q: Our other guest talked about how the Western view is that a British or American life lost is more important compared to lives lost in other countries. What is the answer to this - What should be done?
Rodney Shakespeare: The answer is to stand up and face the West in the way that this conference has done. The only way you can change the mindset as to what the West is doing, which is killing people and calling them road kill - that's what's really going on, in a racialist way - is to face the world with what is going on and to form new alliances in a situation where economic power is going away from the West and so things are on the side of those who stand up and are counted.
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