London Bombings Research Articles

Visions of Islam in Europe: European attitudes towards Muslim Asians

CESAA 16TH ANNUAL EUROPE ESSAY COMPETITION 2008 HONOURS CATEGORYThis essay argues that the public discourse surrounding Muslim Asian immigrants in Europe frequently presents them as enemies to stability, democracy and human rights in Europe. Beginning with early-modern descriptions of Muslims by Alexis de Tocqueville, and his perception of Muslims as “deadly”, this essay argues that although his language may seem antiquated today, his principle idea retains acceptance in discussions on Islam in Europe today. In particular, the public reactions to the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the 2004 assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the Jyllands-Posten cartoons scandal and the potential ascension of Turkey to the EU have spurred political speeches, voting patterns and newspaper reporting expressing the notion that Islam and Muslims were dangerous to Europe. This essay concludes that not only do these events undermine European senses of security, the also subject Muslims to continuing suspicion and prejudice in Europe.

Estimating risk-neutral density with parametric models in interest rate markets

The departure in modelling terms from the log-normal distribution for option pricing has been largely driven by empirical observations on skewness. In recent years, the Weibull and generalized beta distributions have been used to fit the risk-neutral density from option prices. In this article, we also propose the use of the generalized gamma distribution for recovering the risk-neutral density. In terms of complexity, this distribution, having three parameters, falls between the Weibull and generalized beta distributions. New option pricing formulas for European call and put options are derived under the generalized gamma distribution. The empirical evidence based on a set of interest rate derivatives data indicates that this distribution is capable of producing the same type of performance as the Weibull, generalized beta, and Burr3 distributions. In addition, we analyze the effect of July 2005 bombings in London on interest rate markets under the best fitting distribution. Our results indicate that there was very little impact on the volatility of these markets.

Patriotism, multiculturalism and belonging: political discourse and the teaching of history

This paper examines the British Labour government's developing political discourse on patriotism, citizenship and multiculturalism since 1997, particularly following the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States and the 2005 London bombings. It focuses on the speeches of key government figures, notably Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and on the ways in which they apply their ideas to the teaching of history and citizenship in schools. It contrasts a broadly cosmopolitan rhetoric about Britain and its role in the world with a narrower focus on British history and “British values”. It considers concerns about the radicalisation of Muslim youth and how such concerns are related to a discourse about separation and communication, applied to minorities in general, and to Muslims and to Muslim women in particular. Political discourse is contextualised within the race relations legislation of the period. The author reflects on challenges that arise when history is harnessed in a project to promote national unity. It suggests that history teaching needs to be reframed, so as to recognize that students are not only citizens of a nation‐state but are also emergent cosmopolitan citizens living in an age of globalization and universal human rights.

Terrorism perception and its consequences following the 7 July 2005 London bombings

Recent work on terrorism has identified a number of individual and group level factors that might contribute to terrorism anxiety and its implication for behaviour and cognition. However, few studies have tried to combine these factors into a coherent model. In this study we examined psychological responses to terrorism threats in the immediate aftermath of the London bombings in July 2005. Four‐hundred and twenty‐nine general public participants completed an inventory assessing terrorism anxiety, perceived likelihood of further attacks and their behavioural and cognitive consequences. Age, sex, normative expectations, values and personal control all predicted anxiety or perceived likelihood of attack. Anxiety was a significant predictor of negative coping, workplace distraction and increased interpersonal contacts. Implications of these findings are discussed in the light of continuing terrorist threats.

Treating Clinically Significant Avoidance of Public Transport Following the London Bombings?

The present paper describes the cognitive-behavioural approach evolved and adapted to treat survivors of the London bombings experiencing fear and avoidance of public transport (travel phobia). Treatment outcomes for a consecutive case series (N = 11) are reported. All individuals who completed treatment (N = 10) had returned to their pre-bombing use of transport and reported minimal symptoms. The need for appropriately tailored treatment based on differential diagnosis and formulation and the importance of incorporating skills for treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder are discussed.

Terrorism and the role of the school in surveillance

Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, schools have had an increasingly central role to play in the surveillance society, notably in the increasing use of dataveillance to help in the identification of potential suicide bombers. What was to most people shocking about the 7th July incidents was that the four people responsible had up to that day led fairly uneventful lives and had had no previous convictions. The ‘War on Terror’ has brought about significant changes to the state's understanding of governance of risk, and the surveillance role of schools has come a long way since the initial surveillance-based reforms introduced during the Thatcher/Major years. The greater detail now requested for the Pupil Level Annual Schools' Census (PLASC) and the development of the National Pupil Database (NPD) provide the state with a mechanism to engage effectively in a panoptic sort of the school population in an effort to render the identity of potential terrorists auditable. The author writes here in a personal capacity. The views expressed are not published to represent those of the journal or its editorial board.

Terrorism and the role of the school in surveillance

Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, schools have had an increasingly central role to play in the surveillance society, notably in the increasing use of dataveillance to help in the identification of potential suicide bombers. What was to most people shocking about the 7th July incidents was that the four people responsible had up to that day led fairly uneventful lives and had had no previous convictions. The ‘War on Terror’ has brought about significant changes to the state's understanding of governance of risk, and the surveillance role of schools has come a long way since the initial surveillance-based reforms introduced during the Thatcher/Major years. The greater detail now requested for the Pupil Level Annual Schools' Census (PLASC) and the development of the National Pupil Database (NPD) provide the state with a mechanism to engage effectively in a panoptic sort of the school population in an effort to render the identity of potential terrorists auditable. The author writes here in a persona...

Are Londoners prepared for an emergency? A longitudinal study following the London bombings.

The UK government sees increasing individual preparedness as a priority, but the level of preparedness of people in the UK for a large-scale emergency is not known. The London bombings of July 7, 2005, affected many Londoners and may have altered their sense of vulnerability to a future terrorist attack. We used a longitudinal study design to assess individual preparedness within the same sample of Londoners at 2 points in time: immediately after the bombings (T(1)) and 7 to 8 months later (T(2)). A demographically representative sample of 1,010 Londoners participated in a phone interview at T(1). Subsequently, at T(2), 574 of the same people participated in a follow-up phone interview. At T(1) 51% of Londoners had made 4 or more relevant emergency plans; 48% had gathered 4 or more relevant supplies in case of emergency. There was evidence of increased preparedness at T(2), by which time 90% had made 4 or more emergency plans. Ethnicity, low social status, and having felt a sense of threat during the bombings predicted increased preparedness between T(1) and T(2). Women in general, and women of low social status in particular, perceived themselves to be unprepared in the event of a future terrorist attack. In summary, Londoners show moderate levels of emergency preparedness, which increased following the London bombings. Although we cannot know whether this association is causal, the prospective nature of the study increases the likelihood that it is. However, preparedness is still patchy, and there are important demographic associations with levels of preparedness and perception of vulnerability. These findings have implications for future development of individual and community emergency preparedness policy.

British National Party representations of Muslims in the month after the London bombings: Homogeneity, threat, and the conspiracy tradition

This study presents an analysis of articles written by prominent members of the British National Party. Each of these articles discussed Muslims and Islam in the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Two prominent discursive themes are discussed here. The first concerned the writers' constructions of the threat that Muslims and Islam pose to Britain. Central to this theme were constructions of Muslims as 'fascists', anti-white racists, and all potentially dangerous, although there was variability in this. Using the Koran as evidence, the articles present a vision of a faith which intends to take over the country; in this way, a homogenous, culturally essentialist version of Muslims is worked up. The second theme illustrates how the writers challenge those who believe that creating a British multicultural society is possible, and in doing so construct liberals and multiculturalists as also posing a threat to the country. The ways in which this represents a variety of conspiracy theory, and the implications of these constructions for social action, are discussed.

Fallout from the thunder: poetry and politics in Seamus Heaney's District and Circle

This article examines Heaney's preoccupation in District and Circle (2006) with international political events during this ‘new age of anxiety’, and how he initially approaches these circuitously through a return to originary, boyhood experiences. Such momentous acts as the attacks of 9/ll, the ‘War on Terror’ and the London bombings are filtered through, juxtaposed with and illuminated by episodes both from the ancient past and Heaney's family history. In attendance, as always, throughout the latest volume is the poet's diverse literary ancestry, a reminder of how his work exemplifies core claims made in ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1919), where Eliot argues that ‘what makes the writer most acutely conscious of his own place in time’ is ‘the historical sense’, ‘a feeling for the whole of literature’ from Homer onwards. Thus, alongside its detailed address to politics and such crucial literary matters as structure, form and metaphor, the essay repeatedly returns to the intertextual ‘presences’ which haunt and animate Heaney's continuing creative project.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Sociology of Terrorism and Counterterrorism: A Social Science Understanding of Terrorist Threat

Over the last decade, increased attention has been paid to terrorism, particularly to the new wave of terrorist groups, fundamentalist movements, and extremist organisations such as Al-Qaeda. September 11 marked the beginning of a turbulent phase in which states face a new kind of threat made up of a complex network of insidious revolutionary and nationalist forces. Such transformations have given rise to an unprecedented number of publications. However, both political violence and terrorism remain sources of endless disputes and controversies because of their political implications. At the same time, in the scientific community, terrorism studies lack conceptual and methodological uniformity. In his article, Domenico Tosini synthesises and discusses some major findings from this research. Courses using such a review will be confronted with the four major topics that any analysis of terrorism, to be comprehensive, should take into account: the definition of terrorism; its history and classification; its explanations; and an assessment of the consequences of counterterrorism policies.

The Dutch and British Public Debate on Islam: Responses to the Killing of Theo van Gogh and the London Bombings Compared

Since the beginning of this century, Islam has become the subject of an intensive debate within Europe. Major triggers of this debate were, in the Netherlands, the assassination of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh on 2 November 2004 and, in the UK, the London bombings on 7 July 2005. Both violent actions were committed in the name of Islam. This article examines and analyses the national debate that emerged about Islam in both countries in response to these events. Four differences — with respect to diagnoses, remedies, openness and ‘temperature’ — are noted between the debates in the two countries. A point of common ground is the weakness of the voice of Muslims and Muslim communities in both the Netherlands and the UK. The differences relate to the balance of power between the pro-assimilation and pro-multiculturalism discourse in the two countries in the period previous to these events and to the attitudes towards Muslims of the Dutch and British people during that period. These attitudes are connected to mechanisms of ‘selfing’ and ‘othering’ and are linked to factors of (un)familiarity with and fear of Muslim immigrants and a lack of trust in the national government to overcome the problems associated with these immigrants.

Advancing Muslim-Christian Dialogue Today

Books Reviewed: Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, andEurope’s Religious Crisis. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,2007; Jane Idleman Smith, Muslims, Christians, and the Challenge ofInterfaith Dialogue. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007;Irfan A. Omar, ed., A Muslim View of Christianity: Essays on Dialogue byMahmoud Ayoub. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2007.Not surprisingly, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent comments aboutintegrating more of Shari`ah law within the United Kingdom’s legal systemraised a firestorm of protest in Britain and in many parts of the world. Yetfor twenty-five years already, Britain’s Muslims have been using Shari`ahlaw in community arbitration; by simply adding elements of Islamicjurisprudence in family matters, Muslims would be able to settle mostdivorce cases through arbitration, thus freeing up already congested divorcecourts. Why is this suggestion so outrageous?The only explanation for the deluge of complaints has to do with thesuper-charged and dangerously polarized socio-cultural and religious atmosphereof the “West” in the 2000s. Besides 9/11, other events have contributedto the ratcheting-up of Muslim-European tension: the Danish cartoon saga;the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh; the London bombings;the “Fitna” film; and, most recently, the tendentious DVD distributedto nearly 30 million American households in swing states during the presidentialcampaign, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” Withright-wing politicians determined to raise the specter of “Islamofascism,” anymention of including aspects of the Shari`ah in “enlightened” secular legalstructures is enough to give some people fits of panic.Yet this is the context in which we must insert the three books underreview, each of which examines a particular aspect of today’s vastly complexMuslim-Christian relationship. Philip Jenkins marshals his consider ...

An Empirical Investigation of the Short Term and Long Term Impact of Recent International Terrorist Attacks on the Japanese Equity Market

In this paper, the impact of five recent terrorist attacks on equities listed on the Japanese Stock Exchange is examined. We analyse how these events affect the different sectors in Japan using the Global Industry Classification Standard. Using parametric and non-parametric tests, we investigate the relationship between stock returns for equities listed in these sectors and terrorist attacks. The empirical evidence shows significant short-term negative abnormal returns around the September 11 attacks and to a lesser extent, the London and Bali Bombings. There is also evidence of a weak positive equity response to the Bali bombing, and a weak negative response to the Madrid attack in the Japanese market. We document negative industry abnormal returns as high as 9.67% in response to the September 11 attack. Our findings show that systematic risk of certain sectors increased after the events of September 11, but remained unchanged for the other attacks.

‘Foreign’ Terror? London Bombings, Resistance and the Failing State

The British government's response to the London bombings sought to make the terror of that day foreign, even though it appeared largely domestic. This helped construct it as unusual, contingent, part of the uncontrollable ‘otherness’ of the ‘foreign’. However, it also drew the response into the arena of British foreign policy, where the ‘failing state’ has been the dominant conceptualisation of insecurity and terrorism, especially since September 11th. When the bombings are examined through the ‘failing state’ disturbing and important problems are uncovered. Primarily, the ‘failing state’ discourse deconstructs under the influence of the terrorism in London, revealing that Britain itself is a ‘failing state’ by its own description and producing a generalisation of state ‘failure’. It thereby reveals several possible sites for responding to and resisting the government's representation.

Photography after the Incidents: We’re Not Afraid!

Photography after the Incidents: We’re Not Afraid!

7.1.0 How Should We Respond to the Next Global Terrorist Attack or Natural Disaster Event

AbstractDuring the past few years, natural disasters including the major earthquakes in Pakistan, the Tsunami floods of Indonesia, and the hurricanes and destruction in New Orleans, LA and the Gulf Coast region of the United States have caused major loss of life, injury and significant loss of property.During the same period, insurgent attacks in Iraq, subway bombings in London, fire attacks on the city of Paris, and continued threats of terrorists throughout the world have placed life at risk.Terrorism is the systematic use of violence and force as a means of coercion through fear and intimidation. As we have seen since World War II and experienced first hand since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the calculated murder of political personalities has given way to the random killing of innocent people and civilian populations.Natural disasters are perhaps even more threatening. Are we building systems and responding in a way that permits these communities to respond properly and be resilient to these kinds of events? How can the discipline of systems engineering assist in preparing for, responding to, recovering from and mitigate against the risks of natural disasters and terrorist events.Since September 11, 2001, INCOSE through its Anti‐Terrorism International Working Group (ATIWG) has focused the principles, techniques, and practices of systems engineering on how to reduce and eradicate international terrorism. We have taken this opportunity to expand emergency preparedness efforts to natural disasters as well.Through the ATIWG sponsoring of panels at previous INCOSE symposia (2002–2007), writing papers for publication (2003), a tutorial (2004), an Insight Issue (2006) and working group activities, the systems engineering community has discussed the application of collaborative engineering environments, simulation and modeling, religion, system solutions to defend against terrorism, psychology, and root causes of terrorism to address the vulnerabilities of systems as well as the attack responses to threats.This panel continues the INCOSE application of systems engineering to these international problems by discussing the proper responses, recovery and resiliency of society and the systems it builds to natural disaster events and terrorist attacks.

Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism

New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. 'Participatory journalism' and 'user-driven journalism' are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and 'objective' reportage. In this essay I offer a 'contrarian' view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create 'cognitive dissonance' (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen's model and the dangers of 'bad theory' (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of 'citizen', new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two 'self-reflexive' issues are considered: 'pro-ams' or 'professional amateurs' as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ's deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers.

‘Moderate Islam’: Defining the Good Citizen

On 23 August 2005, John Howard, then Prime Minister, called together Muslim ‘representatives’ from around the nation for a Muslim Summit in response to the London bombings in July of that year. One of the outcomes of the two hour summit was a Statement of Principles committing Muslim communities in Australia to resist radicalisation and pursue a ‘moderate’ Islam. Since then the ill-defined term ‘moderate Muslim’ has been used in both the political and media discourse to refer to a preferred form of Islamic practice that does not challenge the hegemony of the nation state and that is coherent with the principles of secularism. Akbarzadeh and Smith conclude that the terms ‘moderate’ and ‘mainstream’ are used to describe Muslims whom Australians should not fear in contrast to ‘extremists’. Ironically, the policy direction towards regulating the practice of Islam in Australia in favour of a state defined ‘moderate’ Islam signals an attempt by the state to mediate the practice of religion, undermining the ethos of secularism as it is expressed in the Australian Constitution. It also – arguably – impacts upon the citizenship rights of Australian Muslims in so far as citizenship presents not just as a formal set of rights accorded to an individual but also to democratic participation: the ability of citizens to enjoy those rights at a substantive level. Based on the findings of research into how Australian Muslims and members of the broader community are responding to the political and media discourses on terrorism, this article examines the impact of these discourses on how Muslims are practicing citizenship and re-defining an Australian Muslim identity.

Vote / Citizen

Vote / Citizen