Overconfident?
Governments are happily increasing their power everywhere by stoking fear of terrorists. Why risk undermining that by spilling over into loony implausibility?
Terrorism is the “biggest threat to all European nations,” Home Secretary John Reid has said as he discusses ways to boost security with five EU ministers.
– BBC
Utter tripe. Terrorism does kill, indubitably. That embarrasses governments that pretend to be perfect protectors.
Ignoring government self-image, it might be a serious enough threat to some people in some European states, to be worth some European governments spending a lot of treasure tackling it; and it might even be serious enough to merit changing the law to cope with it. I doubt both those prescriptions, and the latter more than the former, as regular readers will know. But they could conceivably be true.
However, let us review the facts against Mr Reid’s stronger assertion:
- Terrorism is NOT a threat to any European nation. No European nation state, and no identifiable national group in Europe is in danger of loss to terrorism endangering its identity or existence.
- Terrorism is NOT a threat to any Europen state. There are a handful of states in the world whose existence is from time to time endangered by terrorism. None of them is currently in Europe. The only very obvious example is Iraq. Colombia, Nepal, and others have come close recently, but no EU country has been in that position since the Greek civil war.
- To individual people and certain groups more than others, terrorism may present a threat, it is true. But that is not true of all European nations. The majority of EU countries have had no terrorist incidents whatsoever in at least a decade.
- Even in the few countries with significant terrorism in recent years (which really means France, Italy, Spain, Germany and the UK, if you extend ‘recent years’ to cover the last 20 or 30, which is a pretty generous estimate of the contemporary for a political phenomenon), actual casualties have been small. Hospital infection, food poisoning, non-political crime, bad driving… each presents a bigger risk to any of us. Terrorism is plainly not the biggest threat faced by people anywhere in Europe.
Witless hyperbole is the stock-in-trade of dictatorships propagandising their presumed-credulous servitors, in order to buff up their self-image. (Read any government-endorsed press story from an African or Mddle Eastern bullydom.) Dictatorships cannot bear to be embarrassed, and are embarrassed by terrorists, because they can never concede anything is outside their control. But in liberal states that sort of pretension to deity is supposed to be mocked from office. Which is Britain? Or is the question, which is Europe?
Has anyone watched Brazil recently ?
Islamic terrorism has not yet caused mass murder. Just a few dozens here, a couple of hundred there, some thousands in the US, or so. Definitely nothing to worry about. Why, we just had a little war some 50 years ago that killed 20 million. Now, that’s real killing. That’s what we are acustomed to. These few dozen or hundred deaths don’t count.
But wait, the islamists are working on it. They’ll have the Bomb soon. Then they’ll ascend into premierre league of killers.
Not to mention their gaining control of parts of towns such as the banlieus arround Paris.
Still, nothing to worry for now. So far so good.
jesus christ did you actually read the damn article before hitting the keyboard? he didn’t say there say there was nothing to worry about just that there are a whole lot of BIGGER threats than Islamic nutjobs and as john ried was talking about all european nations, tell me jacob, how many people have islamic crazies killed in ireland, poland, portugal and finland?
Thank you Gordon. That is exactly my reaction everytime the Gorbals Gobsh*te spews more “terrorist this, terrorist that” bile on our TV screens. All I need to hear now is that John Reid dresses up as Santa for the Home Office Christmas party.
No, it just threatens people’s lives. That, by the way, is why the left doesn’t give a stuff about it. What’s your excuse?
With the demise of the Soviet Union, I think that Islamic fundamentalism and all the manifestations it takes does represent the most enduring, foreseeable ongoing threat that Europe faces.
Military threat, that is.
Nothing to worry about(Link), no threat.
“Terrorism is plainly not the biggest threat faced by people anywhere in Europe.”
So, what is the biggest threat ?
What is the issue that should get more attention from the Government’s security organs ? What is the issue that Mr. Reid needs to give more of his time to ?
The pension crisis ?
Jacob:
You’re right to say that the fact of his being Home Secretary does prevent Reid from being able to see the situation as a reasonable person might.
In terms of the number of people dying it’s small potatoes and does not in anyway effect Britain’s statehood.
And the post is really about exaggeration so you’re missing the point a bit.
Do you think the Home Secretary should exaggerate hysterically? Because I think you’ll find that position hard to defend.
State encroachment upon civil liberties is the biggest threat by far. As an earlier commenter said Jacob, Guy did not say terrorism is not a threat to people in Europe, but many parts of Europe hardly experience it at all and probably have more people killed each year by lightning strikes. The biggest threat Islamic nutjobs pose to me is not via terrorism but rather by them getting the state to limit my liberties to say what I please about them.
I am all for facing down terrorists but I am also all for keeping the threat they pose in perspective.
I’m confused. Does Jacob think that rioting gangs constitute terrorism? If so, the US has much more terrorism than Europe, but it’s frankly not a big threat either.
… the (redefined) terrorism, that is. The US, on the other hand, could easily be.
The US has a lot of rioting gangs?
More gangs and more riots. But it’s not a big deal either, like I said.
I live in the US and have not heard of any rioting gangs…care to have a link to a news article
“With the demise of the Soviet Union, I think that Islamic fundamentalism and all the manifestations it takes does represent the most enduring, foreseeable ongoing threat that Europe faces.”
A friend of mine was alerting me to the fear that the Soviety Union may have simply faked its own death, by switching outward ideology. What exactly is so crucially different between Russia’s foreign policy today and of yesterday? It is still playing power games that alter the balance of power in the Middle East and elsewhere. And with all those gas fields, it is not going to be too poor to exert influence anytime soon. What if behind all this Islamic fundamentalism that makes the occasional bang, it is all just the same old game of diplomacy between the old powers?
“Does Jacob think that rioting gangs constitute terrorism?”
If the rioters are muslim (as they are in France, for example) and part of a widespread phenomenon of preaching violence in the mosques in all countries… and if the terrorist acts like the 7/11 bombing is performed by people coming from the same circles – then – yes – those rioting gangs are part of the Islamic threat, cousins of terrorism.
Don’t give us this milti-culti PC nonsense of just random “rioting gangs”.
I’d rather have the home secretary exagerate the threat, and counter it effectively, than going around saying – “no threat, a few dead don’t count”. You don’t have to wait for a big catastrophe – and this is really not a far fetched possibility.
I’m not worried by the secretary’s rhethoric, I’m worried by his ineffectiveness, by his not arresting those who march in the streats with placards calling for the beheading of infidels, by his not arresting and extraditing those suspected of terror acts in Paris and Spain… etc.
“State encroachment upon civil liberties is the biggest threat by far.”
That is undoubtly the biggest threat, over time, but it is of an entirely different kind, and totally unreleated to the other threat (terrorism). We need to fight both threats.
Jacob, the greatest threat of terrorism is what it facilitates governments to do. That’s its entire reason for being.
The only reason terrorism exists is to change the will of the people and hense, the government.
For it to succeed, we have to change. And like Israeli policy, we should absolutely avoid rewarding threats and violence by changing.
The terrorists want to turn us into a totalitarian state and they have us laying the groundwork and building the infrastructure for them. It’s absolutely nuts.
OK, but what pray tell is “becoming totalitarian”?
If it is banning evil such as the Burkha, Nakhib, etc. then I say, let’s have more. Only the most pathetic multiculturalist would support such an evil and reprehensible thing (unfortunately Bill Bennett did in recent NRO article).
I am not up on what is happening in Merrie Olde Englande, but I suspect that the offenses are more the fumbling incompetence of the Labour and emasculated Tories under Cameron. However, I see hope that the locals will kick ass and get the twit leaders to do what’s right, even in England. If the US Congrees took GW to school in the border, then anything is possible.
Speaking of “terrorism”…
One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying “We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]”. […]
[Long rambling space-wasting conspriacy-theory diatribe deleted. I’m with Bush on very few things, these days, but on that point…- GH]
embutler,
Hows this, less than a couple of weeks ago: Riot Breaks Out At Calif. High School but they were mostly latino, not mostly (presumed) Muslim, so perhaps they don’t count as “terrorists” by Jacob’s extended definition, in which it seems a yob is part of a plan for world domination if his grandparents were from Algeria or Gabon.
Sporadically, the US has big riots. They are rare there, and they are rare here. Western countries don’t have the mob any more like the others still do.
What we do still have is gang violence, which in general is more widespread in the US than in Europe.
But all of that – just like the Parisian riots – only really affects poor people in rough areas. And because it doesn’t involve foreigners and therefore doesn’t ‘prove’ the outside world is a threatening place, it isn’t accorded great geopolitical significance it doesn’t deserve.
nic,
Indeed. Wouldn’t it be terribly shocking and surprising if the way the world has worked for good and bad for many hundreds of years had not been entirely cancelled and redirected into an apocalytic bipartisan struggle by an odd, unrepeatable, event five years ago? What if realpolitik were to turn out to be, you know, real? Cujus regio, eius religio and all?
Worth noting that the cast of Great Powers (f/k/a Great Kings, in the era that the Minoan franchise went so spectacularly out of business) does change from time to time. Persia is making a big comeback, as is China, after they have spent many years, respectively, out of the game, and badly-managed and playing below strength.
I often wonder how the IRA would have reacted to the draconian measures introduced by Blair & Co. had they still been waging their war of terror against the UK. With the high level of erosion of individual rights and liberties I would imagine the IRA might have had a sense of schadenfreude about the whole thing, as I imagine many Muslims must feel about ‘modern’ Britain now.
Somewhat more like a more intense version of the chagrin that the Irish in Britain felt – and still feel – at being targetted under the relatively much milder terrorism legislation of the 70s to the 90s, and thought of as natural terrorists, I’d say, Julian.
“Jacob’s extended definition, in which it seems a yob is part of a plan for world domination if his grandparents were from Algeria or Gabon.”
A yob is part of the Islamic terrorist danger if he perpetrates his acts of violence as a result of incitement to violence he absorbed at his local mosque, and the local islamic circles.
Remember that a big percentage os muslims in Britain said they supported justified or “understood” the 7/11 and 9/11 murders. (I don’t remeber if the percentage was 25 or 50).
And those rioters in Paris – they are not from the Ukraine, Romania or Vietnam. They aren’t the French underclass either.
They aren’t the French underclass either.
Oh yes they are. The French underclass consists largely of the children and grandchildren of immigrants from the former colonies of French West Africa, which is very largely a Muslim area. You might as well conclude that the black Americans who rioted in LA a while back did so solely because they came from Southern Baptist backgrounds, or the Latino kids noted above were threatening police with weapons because they were Catholics.
An Islamist preacher (not the same as any old Imam) or a proselytiser of any other rigid, seperatist cult (cf. The Nation of Islam) is likely to do well among resentful idle youths. But resentful idle youths from every underclass, everywhere, find solidarity and meaning in riot and gang violence.
Guy, I think the fact they are muslims is not insignificant. Blacks in the US started off with the dice loaded against them… slavery followed by Jim Crow and a dominant culture which took racism for granted… all of these things meant that US blacks did not assimilate into US mainstream culture (initially because they were slave and then because they were legally second class citizens)… over time as they changed, US blacks have entered the mainstream that was denied to them and as a result clearly black people in the US are vastly better of than they were 30 years ago. Although US blacks are still disproportionately poor compared to the country over all, clearly the trend for advancement and integration is going in the right direction.
Muslims in the West on the other hand refuse to either assimilate or even to tolerate the ways of the host culture they have moved into because of the very nature of Islam itself. It is not something being done to them by the state, they do it to themselves.
Whereas I agree with your article that the threat of terrorism is vastly overblown and sued to trammel civil liberties by fundamentally illiberal politicians, the threat posed by Islam as a political and cultural force is vastly ‘under-blown’.
I am much less worried about them blowing me up than I am of them distorting and poisoning the politics of Western nations and causing us to become ever more illiberal, both as a defence against them and as a way of appeasing their intolerance of criticism.
Wait until the first container ship arrives in Antwerp, Marseilles, or any other major port city in Europe carrying a nuke as part of its cargo, then gets detonated when the crane unloading it reaches its high point. Then tell us again that terrorism is no threat to Europe.
Can’t happen? Why not, especially if we let freedom-hating tyrants make nukes and hand them off to their plausibly-deniable terrorist proxies?
What is it with you people? Stop putting your own interpretation on the article and actually read the fucking thing! He does not say “TERRORISM IS NOT A THREAT TO ANYONE IN EUROPE”, he just says that it is clearly not the biggest threat to anyone in all of Europe and it clearly does not threaten the existence of any nation-state. Al Qaeda ain’t Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. People die before their time for a myriad of things and those are VASTLY more common than terrorism.
I see it thus: Europeans are saturated with the multi-culti-PC-leftie-pacifist-welfare ideology, and besides are extremely weak and impotent militarily (in part due to same ideology).
The “no threat there, nothing to worry about” meme is a result and a rationalization of these two factors.
I agree with Jacob. Civil rights etc can be reversed when enough people realise what’s happening. As long as there is some mechanism to elect officials from whatever background to power, there is hope for reversal.
However, loss of life can be quite permanent, as is submission under the Religion of Peace(tm).
Perry,
An underclass is an underclass. It doesn’t matter how it got to that position, or whether the people in it are completely trapped or exfiltrating. (It so happens I’m acquainted with a handful of chaps from the Paris exurbs who have invented their own sport and made themselves international stars: had they made different personal choices, or had different breaks, or just been more ordinary human beings, they could be burning buses.)
Whereas I agree with your article that the threat of terrorism is vastly overblown and sued to trammel civil liberties by fundamentally illiberal politicians, the threat posed by Islam as a political and cultural force is vastly ‘under-blown’.
I am much less worried about them blowing me up than I am of them distorting and poisoning the politics of Western nations and causing us to become ever more illiberal, both as a defence against them and as a way of appeasing their intolerance of criticism.
That I half agree with. And all the nonsense about “terrorism”, encouraging us to characterising the anti-liberal cultural threats as external, military ones helps obscure our differences and agreements on this question.
In short, I don’t think Islam by itself presents a great cultural threat. It is actually rather feeble, particularly so in the cultish Salafist form. The militants attack most of those things that are attractive in older Islamic high culture, too, because they are anti-culture. Subtlety is suspect.
I do think that liberal modernity is seriously threatened by new and subtle forms of authoritartianism that are co-opting religions and the fundamentalist counter-revolution. Cringing before angry Muslims is just a symptom of the general promotion of passivity, compliance and duty-of-care as constraints on individual liberty.
TWG –
You’re dead wrong. Civil liberties aren’t an optional add-on like a CD-player, they are the fundamental characteristic of Western society. (I nearly wrote ‘our society’, then I remembered you write from Singapore, poster-child of the ‘civic republican’ movement.)
A culture of liberty did not and will not grow spontaneously overnight. The misjudgment many of us made about Iraq illustrates that. It appeared to me that the free-ish “Westernised” elements of Sadam’s society were somehow natural for people, and the autocracy held back a bigger Beirut or Istanbul. That was wrong: the brutal dictatorship was – shockingly – less brutish than the mob. Illiberal democracy has no way displace the management of the mob as the key function of politics.
Oh it matters. In the case of blacks in the USA, the host society had to do thing about itself to make it possible to make things right (which it did). The solutions, at least initially, were restorative in nature.
In the case of Islam in the west, host societies are not the problem , Islam is, which means to make things right measure have to be taken which are not restorative but rather work to break down Islam in one way or another (either that or mass expulsion at gunpoint, which I would regard as an… unfortunate… way of dealing with a problem). The civil rights movement in the USA had to be accommodated; Islam on the other hand has to be confronted. There is a huge difference.
You are both right and wrong about Islam being rather feeble culturally… in that it poses no threat whatsoever of attracting significant numbers of non-Muslims, it is feeble. Also in the long run our civilisation is so vastly superior that in the end we will indeed make them us.
But amongst their own number it is plenty strong. Why else would they be unique amongst immigrant communities in having both an inability to integrate and an inability to tolerate the host society? For as long as we allow the toxic culture of Islam to exist amongst us, fed by a constant flow of Islamised new immigrants, without confronting their culture and depreciating it, we are simply not fighting the real battle. We need to be blowing rasberries at their sensibilties, not tiptoeing around them. Islam simply needs to be made a whole hell of a lot less welcome whilst making the benefits of assimilation, or at least toleration, attractive. At the moment there seems to be no down side to living a life of Islamic bigotry in the west. Hell, some people devote their lives to it whilst subsidised by tax-funded benefits.
That’s a category error of the sort Jacob was making. My point is that in the case of Paris – and Bradford – rioters, the putative Muslim identification of the unemployable youths involved is contingent, not causative. It doesn’t cause them to riot. And it doesn’t cause them to be an underclass either.
There are plenty of non-rioting working- and middle-class Muslims in Britain. The various cultural communities shuffled under the rubric of Muslims are utterly unlike one another, but are mostly brown, which gives a unified look. We’ve had riots dominated by poor whites and poor blacks in other parts of the country.
What makes an underclass, an underclass is being at the bottom of the heap for historical reasons, and having a de-moralising sense that they are incapable of personal progress save by crime. (The libertarian instinct is that that sense may be aided by the inanition produced by the welfare state and/or victim culture – but I’m not convinced that welfarism produces riots, which pre-existed it.) The historical reasons for being outsiders are different between the grandchildren of Mirpuri factory-workers in northern Britain, kids of Algerian descent outside Paris (or, for that matter, neo-Nazis in east Germany), but they aren’t primarily religion.
Religion may be taken up for a sense of identity in some cases, because it is available. I suspect it is also, in Britain, readily identified in the language of resentment as a “cause” of fecklessness – “It’s Islamophobia stops me getting a job” (not poor education and unwilingness to move where the jobs are). Or mis-identified, but real, racial prejudice. Effect, not cause.
Concerning rioters in general, and those recently in Paris, I wonder (echoing Guy at least somewhat) at the ranking of the following as influence on their motivation to riot:
(i) Religion;
(ii) Poverty;
(iii) Lack of useful occupation;
(iv) Frustration that their own activity “cannot” improve their lot?
Best regards
The discussion here is very interesting. Thanks to Guy for the original posting.
I was wondering about the parallel with the Cold War against communism: eventually won by market capitalism, rather than western militarism.
I was also wondering about McCarthyism, and the long gap between that and the eventual and signal fall of Soviet communism.
Perhaps we are in for a long “fight” (measured maybe in half-lifespans), perhaps we need to recognise that, and perhaps we need keep in mind more strongly the proper perspective of how much this long “fight” should be allowed to impinge on our lives.
Best regards
“I was wondering about the parallel with the Cold War against communism: eventually won by market capitalism, rather than western militarism.”
Communism was destroyed, as Reagan said, by it’s inability to feed it’s people, i.e. – by economic factors.
Still – the firm military defensive stand of the West prevented the crumbling Soviet Empire from embarking on desperate military adventures. So – military power played an important role.
The discussion of the sociological and cultural root causes of the underclass riots is fascinating.
Not all underclasses riot. They need a uniting factor or element – they need a “main idea”, a war cry. In the 60ties in the US, the war cry was “black power”. In Europe, nowadays (as far as I can judge) it is “Islam”.
Riots, and terror acts, whatever their roots, need to be dealt with a firm hand, with firm and effective law enforcement. That – beside treating the “root causes”, as far as they are treatable.