Terrorist Attack Fizzles Out; State Repression Flares Up

DETROIT, Dec. 27 — Around noon of Friday, Christmas Day, Northwest-Delta Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit was making its final approach.

As passengers sat and readied for the touchdown, a loud bang and commotion in the back caught the attention of several passengers. Suddenly, over a dozen people were out of their seats, yelling for water and blankets, piling on a passenger while flames climbed over the seat and along the cabin wall.

As the plane landed, the situation became clearer: This was no accident. This was an attempted terrorist attack that failed.

Umar Farouk Abd’al Mut’allab, 23, originally from Nigeria, had attempted to set off an explosive he had smuggled on to the flight in his underwear. However, for one reason or another, the volatile mixture failed to properly ignite, and all Mut’allab managed to do was set himself and his seat on fire.

Mut’allab immediately admitted to passengers and flight crew that he was attempting to set off a “high explosive,” and that he was committing his act on behalf of al-Qa’ida’s organization based in Yemen.

Indeed, “Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula,” which is the organization based in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the failed attack, and showed pictures of Mut’allab posing in front of the Salafist group’s banner.

The failed attack sent the corporatists into a frenzy. Within hours, new restrictions were placed on people trying to fly. Everyone was now treated as a suspected terrorist.

Books, blankets and pillows were banned from being used. Passengers were invasively searched. Airports were militarized.

And the corporatist media jumped into the fray, to keep the panic level heightened. They brought out both Congressman and commentator to demand greater restrictions, a military tribunal for Mut’allab, and profiling of Muslims from Africa and Asia.

But all of this begs the question: Is all of this panic appropriate for what happened?

To answer the question, we need to look at Mut’allab and how he came to be on that flight from Amsterdam to Detroit Friday.

Umar Farouk Abd’al Mut’allab is not some poor, oppressed Muslim who has suffered under the yoke of imperialism in Palestine or Iraq, or someone fleeing from anti-Muslim genocide in the Sudan or Congo.

Mut’allab is the son of Al’haji Umaru Mut’allab, a former chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria and, before that, a Federal Commissioner (like a Cabinet Secretary in the U.S.) of Economic Development and of Cooperatives and Supplies in the 1970s.

The Mut’allab family is one of the richest in Nigeria, and Umar Farouk received all of the benefits of that wealthy life. He attended the best schools in western Africa, including the British International School —  the continent’s best boarding school — and later University College in London.

Far from rejecting the “decadence” or “freedom” found in the Great Power imperialist centers, Mut’allab embraced it. Photographs show him in designer clothes and shopping at expensive stores. He even got involved in Internet social networking — creating a page on the Facebook website.

And it’s there where we see how this progression from spoiled rich kid to wannabe terrorist developed. His Facebook page is littered with entries by Mut’allab where he complains about his loneliness and feeling like he is “the only devout Muslim” he knows.

He is where it started. His loneliness led him into the political Islamist camp because of the sense of community, then the Salafists who welcomed him as family, and finally into al-Qa’ida who called him “brother.”

His path was similar to that taken by “middle class” white kids who, feeling alienated and lonely, are attracted by the twisted sense of community and brotherhood one finds in neo-Nazi groups ... or some left groups.

Because this spoiled little rich kid felt lonely and wanted someone to call him “brother,” he was willing to shove explosives in his underwear and try to blow up a plane. And as a result, we workers in the U.S. get to endure more attacks on our democratic rights in the name of “fighting terrorism.”

This facts surrounding Mut’allab and this incident expose the reality behind the inherently reactionary and anti-democratic character of both those who advocate individual terrorist acts, and those among the exploiting and oppressing classes who claim to want to “fight terrorism” through placing restrictions on our rights as citizens.