Growing terror requires global response
- By Earl Bousquet
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E-mail China.org.cn, June 29, 2017
In 1992, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II publicly described it as an "Annus Horribilis" (a Latin phrase meaning "terrible year") for herself. She was actually referring to a number of headline-grabbing scandals involving various members of her family, including separation and divorce.
However, the phrase could have been equally applied to 2005, when a succession of terrorist attacks shattered the calm of London, leading 52 people dead and some 700 injured. And, again, it could be applied to this year, with stacks in London and Manchester claiming the lives of many innocent people.
To remind you of the latter incidents: The first was the March 22 attack outside the British parliament in Westminster that left five persons dead and 60 injured. The May 22 Manchester bombing after a concert by young American singer Arianna Grande left 22 dead and 48 injured. On June 13, the London Bridge attack left eight dead and 48 injured. Then, on June 18, one person died and 10 were injured outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, North London. In three of the four attacks, vehicles were used as weapons, confirming a new trend previously used in earlier terror attacks in France and Germany. The last of the four London incidents turned out to be a copycat vehicle attack on Muslims after night prayers in the holy month of Ramadan.
The June 18 attack on Muslims after prayers highlighted just how high the level of "Islamophobia" has become in a country that has 1,200 mosques; by coincidence, an equal number of anti-Muslim attacks has been officially recorded across the country since the London Bridge outrage.
The tendency to exact revenge against Muslims for terrorist attacks is not restricted to Britain. "Islamophobia" is also very much alive in the United States. But painting the world's 1.8 billion Muslims with the same brush is totally wrong, even though it's hard to convince those holding that mistaken view.
Really, as British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said in parliament: "Terrorism and hate have no creed – and violence has no religion."
Noticeably, the increasing deadly incidents have also led to terminological distinctions between "terror attacks" and "hate crimes," between "legality" and "reality." However, it will take more than selective adjectives to restore calm in the face of the chaos now haunting the U.K.
The U.K. government says it will look at revising existing anti-terrorism laws, including the Prevent strategy introduced after the London attacks of July 2005, the Terrorism Act of 2006 and the Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIM) Act introduced in 2011 and strengthened in 2015.
In 2016, the Investigative Powers Act was also introduced, legalizing a large number of surveillance programs, forces internet providers to store customers' data for one year and allows for British citizens' phones to be hacked (even if they are abroad) without needing police to obtain a warrant.
Britain already has 6 million closed circuit TV (CCTV) cameras – equal to one camera for every 11 persons – installed in businesses, on streets, public buildings and public transport.
Yet, even as one of the countries with the highest level of surveillance in the world, the new face of terror has not only continued to haunt Britons, but also led to seemingly endless reviews and updates of counter-terrorism measures. The latter include new guidelines to counter terrorism on the Internet, making it an offense to encourage or prepare for acts of terrorism, allowing for restrictions on the movement of terrorist "suspects" who are on the intelligence services' radar and for individuals to be placed under house arrest for up to two years, or relocated up to 320 kilometers from their normal residence.
Coming so soon after the June 8 British general elections, the four incidents forced Prime Minister Theresa May to adjust her response. Where she had earlier launched a four-point plan that included a pledge to fight against "the evil ideology that inspires attacks," she was forced to raise the bar by pledging "to eliminate all forms of terrorism, including Islamophobia."
However, May's critics strongly question just how effective her promised new measures would or could be, against the background that as Home Affairs Minister for five years under the previous David Cameron administration, she had slashed the national police budget by £2.3 billion. As a result of these "austerity" measures, there are 600 less police officers in London today. However, as similar experiences in Canada, France, Germany and the U.S. have shown, it is impossible to police all the "suspects" on the various national intelligence services' radars.
There is no easy solution to the growing problems caused by those committed to terror, whether in the name of religion or not. Even the harshest measures implemented thus far in most countries have not succeeded in either making a dent in the problem or daunting the perpetrators.
A hard-and-fast solution continues to evade nations that try to go it alone, which is why the likes of China and Russia have increasingly advocated, especially at the United Nations, that there must be a global approach to what is indeed a global problem.
Earl Bousquet is a contributor to china.org.cn, editor-at-large of The Diplomatic Courier and author of an online regional newspaper column entitled Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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