I'd like to contribute to the vast outpouring of text which will
accompany the rather scary events of today... if you've managed to avoid
the news (how?) then the government is claiming to have foiled a major
terrorist threat to blow up aeroplanes between the UK and the USA. All
the airports on this side of the Atlantic are completely log jammed, as
draconian security measures are implemented - shoes are X-rayed, and not
even spectacle cases are allowed as hand luggage.
I've been meaning to write something about terrorism anyway, so let's
see if I can't get some sort of coherent policy together here.
I want to make a couple of almost-unrelated points. The first is to do
with the role of terrorism in terms of war, and the practice of killing
people. the second is to do with terrorism and its relationship with
technology.
To start with, the idea of a 'war on terror' is, I believe, an empty
slogan, and one I disapprove of. Before 9/11, it was not unusual to hear
the phrase "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".
Curiously, though I haven't heard it that much recently. I suspect it's
because we've become targets, and all of a sudden the situation has
polarized; indulging in seeing both sides of the argument doesn't seem
quite so attractive now, as opposed to when these guys were trying to
blow people up in foreign countries (where they do things differently).
Let me also say this: I believe terrorism is valid as the last weapon of
the dispossessed. Or more correctly, those who believe they have no
other option. If some authoritarian state invaded Britain, and I was
left with no other means to resist them, then causing disruption through
fear might be my final tactic, before I was hunted down and killed. If I
can't rule it out for myself, then how can I rule it out for others? The
problems come when we look at that pithy definition I just put forward.
The young men who (for example) attacked London in July were members of
British society, with a vote each. They were no more politically
dispossessed than I; and yet they felt driven to this. I've tried to ask
myself why - I pride myself on empathy, I think it's very important -
but I can't understand. For all our current government's shortcomings
(and I really won't go into that), they're still subject to the workings
of democracy, and eventually - eventually - they must come to heel,
because they can be voted out. I am not disenfranchised. Nor were they.
If other methods are open to you, then terrorism cannot be acceptable.
(let's throw in an interesting fact here - apparently 40% of British
Muslims aged 18-35 (ish) believe Princess Diana was killed by the
British establishment because she was about to marry Dodi al Fayed - a
Muslim. That was on a Jon Snow program on More4 the other night, called
"What Muslims want")
This brings us to the second point I wanted to raise, which is to do
with the relationship between terrorism, democracy, and technology.
First off, it's fairly obvious that it's a lot easier to get hold of
deadly stuff now than it was twenty years ago. This is a trend which can
only go one way - material goods are becoming cheaper, information is
spreading more widely, it's inevitable that bad people are going to get
their hands on nasty stuff and that this will happen more often.
Secondly, and more importantly, the fact that extreme views can now be
spread more widely thanks to technology (I'm think mostly of the
internet, but that trickles through to other media too) has two results:
one, those with a predilection to believe this stuff are more likely to
be exposed to it; and second, they will come to understand how isolated
their views are from the mainstream. In previous eras, politics was much
more the preserve of those who cared enough to take it up, and they were
more often the ones with extreme views - so the silent majority stayed
silent, and the extremists got a disproportionately large amount of
influence, which suited them just fine. But it also made them more
likely to use conventional politics to achieve their ends. Now, however,
when the mood of the population can be much more accurately judged,
politics has become more and more about the centre ground, and the
extremists are being sidelined. It's ironic, but I think the very
mechanisms that are allowing us to get closer to the ideals of democracy
(for better or worse) are encouraging those with extreme views into
extreme actions.
40% of British Muslims aged 18-35(ish) believe Princess Diana was killed
by the British establishment because she was about to marry Dodi al
Fayed - a Muslim.
Forty per cent!
