Debating terrorism

The UK's media have opened up a major discussion on terrorism following the bombing of a Manchester pop concert (22 May). On the fringes, one radio presenter from LBC tweeted in favour of a 'final solution.' There is nothing that needs to be said about this. She was sacked from her post. Another writer in the Daily Telegraph called for the return of internment, the non-legal process of imprisonment by decree, last used in Britain against the Irish nationalist population during the Northern Irish 'troubles.' This was one of the least successful policies of UK governments (among a long litany of appalling mistakes).

Leaving the moronic margins, the left-leaning Observer (27 May) had several 'comment' pieces. Among them were two, brief essays from journalists (Nick Cohen and Paul Mason) coming from very different backgrounds, but who shared a common understanding of the fundamental dynamic of terrorism in the West. (Both insisted that western military and political action against predominantly Muslim countries was not the only reason for terrorist action in the West, 'blowback' as Mason called it. Far from it.)

Both writers pointed out that the eruption of the death cults, like ISIS, has led to the mass murder of many more Muslims in North Africa, East Asia and the Middle East than Europeans or Americans in the West, including those killed in 9/11. Cohen uses this fact to explain that western-led wars and military excursions may have provoked some violent responses - but anti-western terrorism stemmed ultimately from a nihilistic and utterly sectarian platform that had already been built. He does not explain from what this original platform has been constructed; but perhaps his concluding argument - on the need for the West to strongly reinforce its own 'values' - suggests that the West is now facing an overall war of 'values' with the Jihadists, and that the extremism of the Jihadists evolves from a value system that was already in place, regardless of the West. The implications of this argument are, in the end, disturbing. This is the stuff of a 'war between two civilisations'.

Mason, implicates the failure of the West to follow up their military incursions with proper plans for social and political stability. Although he recognises that the Iraq war was a disaster, he focuses on Libya, where the western bombing, he claims, was legitimate at the request of anti-Qaddafi forces, but the planned follow up by the Western powers was never implemented. Mason's point is well taken. His support for Corbyn's demand for more police, desperately required with the pending collapse of ISIS centres in Mosul and Raqqa, is powerful. But although the vast and poisonous vacuum left by the Western military actions and the defeat of the Arab Spring has clearly created a maelstrom of war-lord led violence, which then opened the doors to the most violent and organised lords of war of them all, there is still something substantial missing in Mason's otherwise more sophisticated analysis.

At the heart of the matter is the exercise of the power and the implementation of the ruthless interests of the West. This is missing from both Cohen and Mason's essays. Its modern domination of the Middle East started to unravel with the Iranian revolution. Then it faltered in what seemed like an open goal in Afghanistan. The US created the Mujaheddin to smash the Soviet occupation and thereby created its own enemy - which paradoxically began the reactionary fight for a united Middle East promoting the fantasy of the second Caliphate. It is (and was) clear that a great weakness of the Arab Spring, the predominance of more middle class and secular layers in society in its leadership, turned out to be a barrier to the countryside, the slums and the enormous numbers attached to overbearing state apparatuses that were required in order to keep 'normal' political life frozen.

But that barrier did not stop unemployed youth and migrant workers from developing their own desire for their own Arab Spring. Except this new vision was shaped by sectarian and religious definitions of resistance and power, with the overthrow of the dominant West, and its pervasive influence in the region, as only one of its critical objectives. Another was to purge all western influence in the prevailing political and economic life of what was seen as dominated countries. This is the now the reactionary version of the endless struggle to break the hold of western power. And it is based both among middle class layers as well as linked to sectarian organisation of sections of the poorest parts of society.

The Arab Spring democratic revolution failed in part as a result of its inability to reach masses of people at the base of the societies that they were challenging, related to its ambiguity in respect of its relationship to the West. The same 'struggle' but with the face of violent and murderous religious zealotry, has taken up the battle with the West. It starts by 'purifying' its own base - before seeking the 'purification' of the world. Its technological means and its diaspora from oppressed regions of the Earth give it a reach and impact that prevents its localised destruction. Knocking over Mosul will not break ISIS or its progeny. Its full defeat will not, cannot, come from yet more military exercises of a yet more desperate West. More western led destruction can only extend the reactionary desperation of new generations.

In the West, yes, there has to be the defences ready against local bombers as Mason demands. But the critical measures to unravel the burgeoning radical hostility, underpinning murderous zealotry, are not in the security realm, they are in the sphere of political and social change. Any expert with experience in the field tells us that 'intelligence led' work with the various communities is the decisive 'weapon' in 'homeland security'. Consider the strength of movements among welcomed refugees, supported minorities, an emphasis on education, welfare, good jobs - for all. Consider the effect of a solemn statement by leading politicians that there is now an end to any and all military presence or support of any faction in the Middle East or North Africa. These are the conditions which will isolate those who have been groomed to slaughter as a principle. The West needs to get its own house in order and release its grip on parts of the world it dominates to end the 'terrorist threat' that it has largely created.