Opinion How to be anxious
The world is creeping back into a state of nervous anxiety over terrorism. The so-called underwear bomber certainly exposed...
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The world is creeping back into a state of nervous anxiety over terrorism. The so-called underwear bomber certainly exposed the fragility of even the best resourced security system in the world. Here was a bomber on whom there was about as much advance information as there could possibly have been. The Nigerian national,Umar Faruk Abdumutallabs own father had taken the momentous step of informing the authorities that his son might not be up to any good. A combination of luck and alert passengers prevented another plane from blowing up. But perhaps at the level of sending signals Al Qaeda succeeded. It made the American state look fragile; it will probably induce billions of dollars of more expenditure. It will legitimise the introduction of more and more invasive surveillance techniques. And it might weaken Obamas room for political manoeuvre. It is almost as if Al Qaeda is saying,You value your rights to liberty and privacy; see what we can do to them. It is important not to be defeatist in preventing terrorist acts. But societies will have to grapple with the difficult question about how much of their way of life they can concede to terrorists.
The fragility of the state apparatus was on display in the suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed several CIA officers. While the usual suspects,including the ISI,will come under scrutiny,the fact that a Jordanian double agent was involved is significant for two reasons. First,it blurs the distinction between allies and foes. Terrorism is as much a mind game,whose success depends upon spreading the shadow of suspicion. Second,the fact that a double agent was involved is also an ideological rebuff of sorts. Terrorists are saying,we will get you with the means and instruments you yourself cultivate. In fact,this is the larger problem that has plagued the so-called war on terror. The very instruments that are used to combat it in turn go on to sustain those structures. The indispensable ally in the war on terror,the Pakistani state,exemplifies the degree to which the so-called solution becomes the problem. And now,with another corrupt and rickety state,Yemen,the likely target of operations,the vicious cycle continues.
But in some senses,the more anxiety inducing reverberations were being felt in Europe. The Danish cartoonist was attacked. The Nigerian bomber has reopened the debate over exactly why British universities are becoming an ideological catchment ground for would be radicals and terrorists. The small town of Wotton Bassett that has become famous for honouring British soldiers killed in combat,threatened to unleash another polarising discussion. A group called Islam4UK threatened a march in that town,ostensibly to draw attention to civilians being killed in the various wars on terror. Gordon Brown was forced to call this march disgusting; and the prospect of a town not being able to honour dead soldiers without disruption brought out the sense in which so many ordinary Britons are feeling under political siege.
The reason these events are of far more significance is this. They have the capacity to produce even more ideological polarisation through a vicious cycle of argument and counter argument. The self-righteous David Miliband had on his trip to India counselled on the need to be sensitive to minorities. This is sound policy. But his government has been quickly forced to confront questions about the line between being sensitive,and tolerating ideologies that jeopardise liberties. This is becoming an increasingly treacherous terrain to negotiate in Europe. And this has to be said as forcefully as possible. The Danish cartoons may have been offensive to some and in bad taste. But easy compromises on the issue of freedom of expression,or legitimising those who attack that value on the grounds that their religious sensitivities have been offended,should be unacceptable. The attack on the Danish cartoonist was not an attack on a prejudiced European,it was an attack on our values and principles.
The debate over root causes has bubbled again to the surface. But there are confusions in this debate. Some problems,like the Palestinian problem,need to be addressed because of the intrinsic issue of justice involved,not simply because they might not be fomenting terrorism. And the US cannot expect that it can act like an imperial power,widening its arc of intervention on one pretext or another,without generating sites of violent resistance. And on these fronts the news has indeed been depressing. Some of Israels actions have been repeatedly crossing the threshold of moral acceptability as even its own intellectuals,like the incomparable David Shulman,have been pointing out. And for all of Obamas rapprochement strategy,his inability to rein in Israel is making the prospects for peace even more dim. And it is becoming increasingly likely that the US will increase its arc of military and political entanglement in places like Yemen,yet again shifting the frontier of this war.
These issues have to be addressed. But it cannot be denied that there is also something sui generis about the challenges being posed to liberal societies. For one thing,so-called protests from root causes do not address a fundamental asymmetry. We can protest against the US or Britain. But how do we protest against Pakistan or Saudi Arabia or Yemen? Second,even when there are legitimate grievances,there have been more imaginative and morally compelling ways of creating political movements; and certainly Palestine would have achieved a lot more if the political strategy of its leaders had been more credible. Terrorist groups are as much a product of the crisis of authority in the societies they come from; and certainly a lot of the terrorist violence is now intra sectarian. The numbers involved may be,in the larger scheme of things,still small. But then terrorism was never about strength in numbers. It was about magnifying small numbers into large political effects.
The banal truth is that the battle against terrorism will have many different levels. What is producing radicalism on British campuses,and what is producing warriors out of Somalia and Yemen and Pakistan are at one level connected by a narrative. But they may also require different responses. But more than terrorism,the military and political reaction to terrorism has been decisive. Societies with the ability to throw cold water,and not over-react or overestimate their own power,may be able to weather the inevitable storms. But the recent events have reminded us,how close we still are to the precipice of a suffocating and vicious political cycle.
The writer is president,Centre for Policy Research,Delhi
express@expressindia.com
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