Man, someone should have given trainee journalist Dilpazier Aslam a quiet word of advise before allowing him to pen an article in the Guardian which I hope he will come to regret in years to come–with the benefit of hindsight, wisdom, and a bit of common sense.

Here is how it begins but I encourage you to read the short article in full:

If I’m asked about 7/7, I – a Yorkshire lad, born and bred – will respond first by giving an out-clause to being labelled a terrorist lover. I think what happened in London was a sad day and not the way to express your political anger.

Then there’s the “but”. If, as police announced yesterday, four men (at least three from Yorkshire) blew themselves up in the name of Islam, then please let us do ourselves a favour and not act shocked.

Trainee Aslam goes on to imply that the UK’s role in helping the US in Iraq is the reason why the suicide bombers detonated themselves in London last week. And that the reason these young men took the action they did is that they are not prepared to stand idly by while the US (and, one assumes, Europe) kills and oppresses Muslims around the world. What really got my goat was this:

The Muslim community is no monolithic whole. Yet there are some common features. Second- and third-generation Muslims are without the don’t-rock-the-boat attitude that restricted our forefathers. We’re much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks or not.

and this:

Perhaps now is the time to be honest with each other and to stop labelling the enemy with simplistic terms such as “young”, “underprivileged”, “undereducated” and perhaps even “fringe”. The don’t-rock-the-boat attitude of elders doesn’t mean the agitation wanes; it means it builds till it can be contained no more.

Those “labels” he speaks of are the explanations we fumble for in the West to explain why young men (and women) could want to do the terrible things they do to civilians around the world. They are the best excuses we can come up with for the actions of what we believe are, at heart, decent human beings like the rest of us. Otherwise, we are left with a starker truth–that these people are educated, that they are well off, that they know exactly what they are doing, and that they are possibly even sane.

I am willing to bet that Mr Aslam is in his late teens or early twenties (he is, afterall, a trainee) so he has time to change his mind. He has time to refelct on how many innocent Muslims around the world, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Africa, in Britain and in the US have died because of suicide bombings. He may also do well to consider how well people like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein treated their citizens when they were in power. And, of course, he is completely missing the point—that in a democracy young Muslims can and should speak out as they wish. They just shouldn’t blow people up.

But the editors and fellow journalists at the Guardian ought to know slightly better. Mr Aslam is comparing suicide bombing to “rocking the boat” in a country which is still obviously traumatized by a terrorist attack. I’m sure if I were a relative or friend of one of the victims, I would not be happy at all…

(Thanks to Clive Davis for pointing me in the direction of the Guardian, my former favourite read…)