This battle of wits can never end. But there is no reason why the fight should be given up, for that will strengthen the perpetrators of evil.
For every successful strike - like 9/11 or 7/7 (the London bombings of last year) or the recent Mumbai explosions - intelligence and police agencies the world over are believed to foil annually at least nine terrorist attempts to create chaos and cause destruction. Seldom, however, are such triumphs given publicity because of the fear of leakage of sensitive information to future targets of anti-terror operations. This is sad but cannot possibly be avoided.
The recent police swoop in the United Kingdom, leading to the arrest of 23 persons involved in a massive conspiracy to bring down nine aircraft over the Atlantic, is heartening for two reasons. First, more than 3,000 lives were saved by the timely intelligence received and the decisive action taken before the deadly plot was executed. Secondly, instead of keeping the triumph under the lid, good publicity was given so that it brought down terrorist morale and boosted the spirit of those responsible for keeping evil-doers at bay.
No amount of praise is excessive for those in the U.K. intelligence and the police who handled the operation. I can only think of the adage, `Give the devil its due', when referring to the reported Pakistani help to the U.K. in this operation.
That international cooperation is of the essence for a counter-terrorist strategy is to state the obvious, and where this is non-existent or is present only in token form it is the terrorist who gains enormously. As I said in one of my recent columns, where law enforcement agencies work in impenetrable silos, exchange of intelligence, the sine qua non for a successful hit at terrorists, is the main casualty. It is perhaps this realisation that persuaded some European Union leaders to meet in London on August 16 and agree on a decisive agenda of action. They decided to push up cooperation in the form of joint anti-terrorist squads and set up websites dedicated to the ignoble cause of spreading the philosophy behind modern terrorism and instigating those who remain in the fringe. Incidentally, it is this phenomenon which distinguishes the present scene from what it was until the early 1990s, when the Internet was just beginning to blossom.
Now neither great manpower nor enormous resources is required to print literature for indoctrinating young minds to resort to violence in pursuit of dubious causes. Terrorist websites that preach hatred towards other religions and also explain how to make destructive weapons are now in thousands and have become an insufferable menace. We need to stamp them out if we want to raise new generations that will abhor violence perpetrated in the name of religion. Those who proclaim themselves protagonists of a free and unbridled Internet should welcome such efforts to cleanse this most powerful medium of communication instead of deprecating such meaningful action.
Coming back to where I began, it is difficult to exaggerate what is happening in the U.K. A major tragedy, nearly of 9/11 proportions, was averted. This was no doubt something to crow about. It would be immature, however, to stop with celebration. We need to analyse how that island-nation came to such a pass, so that conditions conducive to the growth of violence are moderated. There could also be lessons for India.
The pace of terrorist growth in the U.K. has been disconcerting to the average citizen. Ever since it managed the Irish Republican Army (IRA) violence successfully through a political process, the country had been a near-halcyon of peace. The country was no doubt shocked by 9/11. But there was no paranoia nor did the public believe that Islamist terrorism would ever find roots in their country. This optimism took a nosedive after the bombings of the London underground railway in July last year. Things, however, started settling down within months and the average citizen looked upon the events of July 2005 as an aberration in the city's history that was best forgotten. One wonders whether this complacence led to a lowering of guard. What is being witnessed now is sinister beyond words, and it is bound to transform life in the country irretrievably.
There are several theories why terrorism has found the U.K. ambience hospitable. Violent dissent of Prime Minister Tony Blair's unwavering support to President George W. Bush, including the decision to send troops to Iraq, is a facile explanation why some of the British youth owing allegiance to Islam are engaged in disruptive behaviour. This explanation has found only partial support among many discerning analysts. They would rather look at the perceptible societal change that has come about in the past few decades, in the form of a large chunk of second-generation Muslim youth who have been exposed to militant ideology in their formative years.
While Muslim religious leaders in the U.K. and other elders in the 1.6 million strong community will have to take the blame at least partly for not sensing a feeling of alienation among the younger elements, there are many who believe that the Blair government has been more than guilty of soft-pedalling the problem of the mounting numbers of gatecrashers from other parts of the world. This constant flow of immigrants from many countries, especially Pakistan and the countries of West Asia, forging strong international links is, many believe, the root cause of the trouble.
In fact, this is the theme that runs right through Melanie Phillips' Londonistan (Gibson Square, London, 2006), which is now being widely discussed in the capital. An investigative journalist who writes nearly inflammatory prose, Phillips is convinced that a supine immigration policy that is blind to the ground realities has brought about the current mess. She is categorical that the policy-makers have not learnt either from 9/11 or last year's terrorist attack on the London transport system, in which more than 50 were killed.
She charges the Blair government specifically with allowing too many people to come into the country on specious grounds and allowing them to stay on even after they had come to adverse notice. She feels that an undue emphasis on principles of natural justice has led to the unjustifiable prolongation of cases of asylum-seekers who abuse the system only to indulge in anti-government propaganda.
While her rhetoric is strong and sometimes objectionable, as is the language of some Muslim clerics in the country, Phillips in a way reflects the growing resentment of large sections of the British population who are incensed by the propensity to violence of some Muslim youth. Here, I would like to mention what I heard from a cab driver who drove me home from Heathrow recently. He is an immigrant from Ghana who has been residing in the U.K. for more than 20 years. I was struck by his polish and an ability to articulate on current issues.
Provoked into a discussion on the chaos at Heathrow resulting from cancelled flights and harsh hand-baggage rules, Robert fumed at the misconduct of some misguided Muslim youth as totally unacceptable and dangerous. In his view, the U.K. was very kind to people like him who had come from far off countries in pursuit of economic and family stability. He had got both. Nevertheless, he was now worried that more instances of terrorism engineered by immigrant groups would exacerbate an underlying White hostility towards even persons like him, who wanted to engage in friendship with all others, cutting across language, religious and economic barriers. I was impressed with his tenor and candour, something that the Indian community shares very much with him.
Many observers like me are carried away by theories of economic discrimination and deprivation to explain social conflict. If one studies Islamist terrorism of the current variety there is very little to suggest that poverty alone can drive an individual to indulge in violence. There is something more in the form of religious motivation that makes educated and well-settled youth with high stakes in life to be lured by an ideology that is irrational and blind. Otherwise how would one explain Osama bin Laden, coming from an affluent family, leading the whole world to chaos?
Something similar is now happening in the U.K. The three principal characters of last year's London bombings came from a modest background. More than that, they grew up in Beeston, near Leeds, known for its deprivation and run-down setting. Analysts were quick to react that the 7/7 bombers rightly came from an environment that offered them little promise for the future. As if to prove them wrong, some of those held recently for the aborted conspiracy came from either Walthamstow or High Wycombe, north of London, described to be pleasant places where the standard of living is high and there are no signs of economic or religious conflict. A substantial Muslim population there, many of whom are affluent professionals, is said to live in peace with the rest.
The point is there was hardly any major issue of hardship or discrimination that could have driven the youth in question into the madness of a plot they were about to execute. Ironically, three of the arrested persons were generally referred to by neighbours as "good" or "nice", hardly the profile of a mass killer! If one of the Beeston lads played cricket (he could have eventually gone on to play for Yorkshire), a member of this year's gang was a footballer. So, ultimately, there is something that we do not know, or know only partially, that turns on a normal youth to allow himself to be recruited by Al Qaeda or a like-minded group.
Finally, while we gloat over the U.K. Police's success in frustrating the gang of 23, can we decisively say that this was a defeat for terrorism? I am not all that sure, considering the enormous dislocation caused to air traffic. Flights were either cancelled or delayed for more than a week. The near brutal restrictions on what you can carry into the aircraft and what you cannot seemed excessive, bordering on the ridiculous.
I saw a candid and fuming Ryanair Chief telling BBC that the aviation authorities were doing exactly what the terrorists wanted. This might seem an exaggerated reaction to a difficult situation. But then you cannot possibly expect anything different from an aviation boss whose business suffered incalculable loss. How are we to deny a wholly unethical feeling of supreme satisfaction, at having caused disorder and disaffection in the community, to a set of bandits holding all of us to ransom?
Smart and inexpensive innovations in the area of aircraft and airport security, which guarantee safety without inconveniencing a genuine law-abiding passenger, will be the ultimate answer to terrorism in the air. Incidentally, technology here has remained stagnant. There is a terrible need to upgrade it quickly or else we will be heading for disaster. For instance, if the latest terrorist modus operandi is any indication, we need a device to sniff liquids and clear the danger of their being used on board to make explosives.
It is an entirely different matter that once we plug all known loopholes in the protection of aircraft, terrorists will shift their focus to sabotaging trains, which carry much larger numbers and where security arrangements can hardly be foolproof. As we all know, this battle of wits can never end. That is, however, no reason why we should give up fighting, an action that can only strengthen perpetrators of evil instead of weakening them.
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