In Rosemary Hollis's article* in The Guardian yesterday we saw a quintessential example of all those
people in the UK
"David Cameron's Muslim Brotherhood inquiry could
well backfire. If the investigation leads to a ban it may appease the Saudis,
but it would also alienate the millions who never espoused violence. Cameron
will come to regret his call for an investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The move is opportunistic and set to backfire on him. The impetus reportedly
came from British intelligence, not from the Foreign Office, where there is
greater awareness of the dangers of alienating the rank and file of an Islamist
movement hitherto identified as relatively moderate and nonviolent. The prime
minister has created a trap for himself. If his investigation finds grounds to
proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood it will alienate millions who never espoused
violence in the first place."
So let me get this right, the authorities shouldn't
investigate the dangerous, deranged fanatics of this man-made falsehood because
it might upset the milder, more socially innocuous proponents of this man-made
falsehood?
Not only is this the worst kind of craven journalism
around, it inadvertently attempts to rob the moderates of the very integrity
they wish to retain by joining us in repudiating fanatical nutters like those
of the Muslim Brotherhood. One cannot help but think of Iago's famous line in
Othello (ironically spoken by a man whose reputation deserved to be on the line):
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”
In imputing to moderate Muslims a reactionary outburst of
indignation and dissonance in response to David Cameron's investigation, Rosemary
Hollis irresponsibly tries to filch from them the good name they would want to
attain by disassociating themselves from the bad elements of the faith. The
true moderates, pertaining to be good citizens and able to integrate and assimilate
into UK
What about investigations
into terrorism in the UK
When a gardener wants to get rid of weeds, he or she must
ensure they are dug up at the root with no traces left in the soil, lest they
grow back. Leaving aside terrorism for a second, this is the policy the police
use for tackling certain crimes. When an act is criminalised the authorities
usually want to go after the suppliers rather than the consumers - that is,
they want to get to the root of the problem, dig it up, and remove all traces
of it. Think guns and drugs and stolen cars - it is generally the providers in whom
the police are most interested, not the consumers or users. Their logic seems
to them to make sense - if we get to the root of the problem (say, locking up
drug dealers) we reduce the chances of further growth (number of users).
Perhaps that is a good strategy, but perhaps not. Maybe
going after the suppliers is actually less effective than going after the
consumers. By locking up consumers they leave fewer customers for suppliers,
which decreases demand - and unless those sellers find new clients there will
be a superfluity of goods with a scarcity of buyers. Bear in mind too that if
suppliers look for new customers they increase the chances of getting caught
dealing because new customers are unknown, and could be informers, mindful citizens,
or undercover police officers.
So with those sorts of crime it's possible that the 'get
to the root' ethos may have a negative effect on prevention, because
incarcerating providers creates scarcity, which creates rising prices, which may
entice more providers to try to enter the market. If the authorities focused more heavily on
buyers as well as providers they'd probably have more success.
When it comes to terrorism in the form of Islamic extremism,
though, I think the opposite might be true - here the authorities probably need
to focus more heavily on the roots. Unlike drugs or guns, Islam fundamentalism
is sold in the form of propaganda and brainwashing, where influential figures
are able to penetrate the minds of impressionable young men and convince them
to become 'freedom fighters' for the Islamic cause. Lock these people up and
keep them away from society and you'll probably find fewer people there to
replace them, because demand for suppliers of extremism isn't niche-filling in
the same way that demand for suppliers of drugs is niche-filling.
Even failed
terrorism is costly
Finally, another reason to toughen up on Islamic
fundamentalism is that terrorism brings about huge costs on society even when its
attempts are unsuccessful (actually most attempted crimes are costly even when unsuccessful,
but terrorism more so). Imagine the sheer number of stop, searches,
regulations, airport controls, security checks and so forth that occur because
of terrorist threats. Let's just do a very quick conservative estimate based on
a few major airports in busy cities to make the point. Over 60 million passengers
visit Heathrow every year, so let's say with other
So I hope Rosemary Hollis and
those like her will forgive us if we don't pay much regard to fears of
upsetting the people who might not be upset enough by counter-terrorism and anti-extremism.
As far as I'm concerned, Islamic extremism is a dirty lake into which we can
throw as many large boulders of opposition as we can muster.
* See the full article from
Rosemary Hollis here
