The Guardian view on posturing answers to the jihadi threat
|
Version 0 of 1. Wicked deeds have often been answered with bad ideas in the greater Middle East. Indeed, the opposing reactions have sometimes come to overshadow the malign actions. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan inspired indiscriminate US backing for the mujahideen, out of which the Taliban were eventually to grow. It facilitated 9/11, a crime which provoked a disastrous fresh Afghan war, and – by a warped leap of logic – the attack on Iraq that gave way to civil war, and now Islamic State (Isis). Along the way, legal processes in the west have been warped, community relations strained and civil liberties bartered in the name of fighting extremism. At the end of it all, we’re left facing, in the words of foreign secretary Philip Hammond, the “terrible threat”, made vivid by the orchestrated murder of the US journalist James Foley apparently at British hands. To observe this miserable record is not to dispute the toxicity of the jihadis’ sub-theological rationalisation of savagery. The point of rehearsing the failures and perverse consequences of western policy is to appeal for rigour in distinguishing between initiatives that might be of practical advantage, from those whose only purpose is to posture as tough. Most of the moves that home secretary Theresa May is canvassing – outlawing “extremist” groups, Asbo-style civil orders for hate preachers, and a new duty on all public bodies to discourage extremism – would fail this test. From the detainment of octogenarian peacenik hecklers at Labour conference under anti-terror laws, through to the infiltration of the lives of environmental protesters by undercover cops, the British state has long adopted a sweeping definition of groups that might pose a security threat. Outfits promoting (as well as conducting) assaults on property (as well as people) are already classed as terrorist. A broader ban on groups with views judged – how? by whom? – “extreme” could force more networks underground, but what good would that do? Tony Blair, rarely a cool head on terror, tried to ban certain Islamist groups on such criteria, and ran into resistance from the security services, who were not prepared to allow the case to be rested on claims about intelligence. The Asbo-style order is a familiar attempt to escape the workings of the criminal law, and the duty on public bodies would clumsily lock into law the old Prevent strategy. In seeking to conduct a battle of ideas through public services, Prevent muddled roles and tested Muslims’ trust in state institutions. A scandal caused by a Birmingham police scheme to place Muslim streets under permanent surveillance showed how counterproductive this can be in a battle of hearts and minds. The home secretary is, then, reheating stale schemes with a troubled past, but instead of challenging her about this, Labour is demanding that she bung even more post-sell-by date policies in the microwave, calling for a restoration of the discredited control order regime, despite the fact that so many of those who were subject to it disappeared as to render it a dangerous joke, and even though most of the powers remain in place under the coalition’s “Tpim” powers. Meanwhile, Tory David Davis – a brave libertarian when the mood takes him – reveals he may not have quite given up on his leadership ambitions by calling for Mrs May to ignore international treaties, and render young Britons heading to fight in the Middle East stateless. Does he really think it is a good idea to treat Islamic State as a state proper, and invite it to issue young Britons heading its way with a passport? That would finally cut off any route back to home and to reason, fating them to fight out their days where they might otherwise have matured and calmed down. Over the past decade, the west may have deflected the jihadist poison from one location to another, but has failed to drain it. It remains, and in a nastier strain than ever. If experience ought to have taught us one thing by now, it is that we would do well, to use a phrase Mr Blair favoured in non-terror contexts, to restrict our actions to “what works”. |