The shocking and horrific actions of Friday night in
Paris, where people enjoying end of the working week entertainment in bars and restaurants
or sporting and musical events, were slaughtered by terrorists, the
ramifications are still sinking in. With
129 people killed and over 350 injured, many critically, the sheer scale of the
attack is difficult to fully take in. Investigations are ongoing and
information seeps out bit by bit, but it does appear certain that the Islamic
State (IS) terror group had a role in the atrocity of some sort.
It has brought back memories for me of the London transport system bombings of ten years ago. There was a very strange feeling
about in London in the days after the attack where 52 people and the 4 bombers
were killed. Travelling on the London Underground was a scary experience,
everyone was nervous, but there was also a kind of camaraderie present among
the commuters. People with rucksacks and bags left them wide open so all could see what was inside of them.
There was also a highly visible police presence in
central London. I took a bus along Oxford Street a few days after the attack
and two police officers boarded the bus and started searching everyone’s bags,
including mine. It did occur to me at the time, that if I was a suicide bomber, this
would the moment I would detonate the device taking a couple of ‘bobbies’ with me.
It was a public relations exercise of course from the police, and I guess it did
reassure some people. It took quite few weeks to get back to a normal feeling
in the city.
The Paris attack comes only ten months after the attack
on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and a Jewish supermarket, but from listening
to the news reports it seems that the people of Paris have not by and large,
taken Friday’s attack quite so stoically. The Charlie Hebdo incident was
clearly an attack on one publication and a wider attack on the freedom of
speech. Friday night was indiscriminate, anyone in the wrong place at the wrong
time was caught up in it and it is clear that the terrorist’s intention was to
kill as many as possible.
Two of the seven or eight perpetrators are said to have been
French nationals and the French security forces believe that there are many
sleeper cells in the country. But another report quickly surfaced in the media
suggesting that one or maybe two of the assailants were Syrian, having entered
Europe through Greece.
The worry now is that right wing politicians in France
and elsewhere will want to bar further refugees from Syria and the surrounding
countries from entering Europe. Indeed the new Polish governing party Law and
Justice have already made this point. Will the Front National in France increase
its support amongst the French people? Situations like this often lead to
extreme politicians being listened to and the often simplistic solutions they
make gaining popularity.
There will be renewed calls for stepping up military
action from the West in Syria, which again will probably be received well by a
nervous public. The fact that the Americans estimate that they have killed
20,000 members of IS since they started bombing Syria, but estimate that IS
have recruited 50,000 over the same period is a sobering thought. The more IS
is attacked, the stronger it gets.
There will also be calls in the UK particularly for
increasing surveillance of internet users, with the so called ‘Snoopers Charter’
about to be debated in Parliament. Governments always use atrocities like Paris
to force through draconian anti civil liberties legislation. That these type of
freedoms are what we are supposed to be fighting to protect, often gets lost in
the general paranoia.
It is a sad fact that before Western countries got
involved in wars in Iraq and the region, IS did not exist, and we must accept
that our foreign policy has had an impact on what happens in our own countries. If we
are to defeat IS and similar groups we need to, as George Galloway has put it,
(not someone I’m a huge fan of), ‘drain the swamp.’ We need to stop making IS
an attractive organisation to our citizens so they do not want to join the group, and
we need intelligence on the ground in Muslim communities, so events like Paris are
foiled before they can be launched.
Is there a contradiction between your penultimate paragraph re civil liberties and the assertion in the last paragraph that 'we need intelligence on the ground in Muslim communities'? The Prevent Strategy has been condemned as putting all Muslims in the category of potential terrorist with public sector workers such as teachers and social workers tasked with monitoring them for signs of 'extremism'. Is that not a threat to their civil liberties?
ReplyDeleteIf I look of the CV from "John" a IS follower ,I only can find that the MI5 force him to become a terrorist.
ReplyDeleteI think not Martin. We need people who know these communities to cooperate, it is the only way to get information - better than internet snooping.
ReplyDeleteSo you are happy that the Muslim community, particularly its young people, is put under survellience in their day to day life in schools and colleges. How can you say that is not a threat to their civil liberties or freedom of speech when they fear that criticism of the Government's Middle East foreign policy or support for Palestine will lead to them being reported as 'in danger of radicalisation' ? In one Prevent training people were told to look at eco-campaigners as possible terrorists because they are committed to direct action. How do you propose that 'people who know these communities' cooperate? I suggest readers look at this article:
ReplyDeletehttp://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2015/10/challenging-prevent-strategy-outline-of.html
No one has a good word for Prevent, and obviously eco campaigners are not the problem. The vast majority of Muslim people do not support these IS types, but we allow the opportunity for tacit support by our actions. All I am saying is if we want cooperation, which we clearly do, then we need to consider our actions, especially abroad.
ReplyDelete