Sunday Times 2
Britain’s flawed policies breed home terrorism
Last Wednesday British Government introduced a bill with a raft of laws to deal with a security threat which it claims is “perhaps greater than it has ever been”.
The threat level has been raised from “substantial” to “severe” as vigilance has been heightened for the return of jihadist fighters who have been involved in the conflicts in Iraq and Syria.
Armed officers from the British Transport Police patrol armed with automatic rifles and tasers as part of Counter Terrorism Awareness Week at London Bridge station in London on November 27, 2014. British police urged the public to be alert to potential terrorist activity as they said the threat of extremist attacks would last for several years. Launching Counter-Terrorism Awareness Week, police said that even if the violence in Iraq and Syria subsided, the risk of attacks in Britain would continue. AFP
These are British citizens many of whom are said to have been born here. The Cameron government has claimed that at least 500 of such jihadist combatants have gone to the conflict-ridden countries to fight on behalf of the new Islamic State (IS) or joined battle in Syria for one side or the other.
The new laws tabled to be passed before the next general election in May have been slammed by human rights groups such as Liberty and Amnesty International.
Liberty’s director Shami Chakrabarti described them as “another chilling recipe for injustice and resentment by closing down the open society you seek to promote,”
Amnesty International said: “Overall, it is worrying that the Government is intent on fast-tracking a whole host of potentially draconian new measures without – again — allowing proper time for parliament to scrutinise them.”
That is the debit side as seen by defenders of human rights and civil liberties. The credit side of the argument and the need for tougher new measures to combat what it seen as the rising tide of a terrorist threat was articulated by Home Secretary Theresa May in a talk she gave last week spelling out the scale of the threat.
She produced a range of statistics which she said was proof enough of what lies before the UK. Since May 2010 counter terrorism officers have arrested 753 individuals. Whether there was sufficient evidence against them and whether they were produced in court and how many were convicted she did not say.
What she did say was that 138 terrorists have been jailed since the Cameron-led government came to power the same year. She also said 40 plots to unleash terror had been foiled since the July 2005 bombing attacks in the UK.
While this debate will no doubt continue for months — and possibly years — to come, the central issue here is not that of foreign jihadists entering Britain to unleash terror but of home-grown British citizens born or bred here who have embraced ideologies that encourage or actually instil terrorism as a legitimate tool to be used to against what they perceive as discrimination or repression.
If these “extremists” or jihadist fighters as they are often called, are home-grown — those who live here and attended school and university in the UK — what caused them to take up arms against a sea of troubles as represented by successive British governments.
The radicalisation of these youth, the vast majority of them of the Islamic faith, did not happen suddenly. They did not wake up one morning ideologically transmogrified into an inexplicable terror machine.
Let us admit that when the British Government talks of the radicalisation of British youth and are now, under the new laws, passing on the onus of monitoring and curbing of such radical change partly to educational institutions, it is talking of Muslim youth.
Listening to some public affairs programmes on British TV last week several participants clearly identified British foreign policy, particularly Britain’s military involvement in and invasion of, Islamic countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria, on behalf of the west determined to destabilise the Middle East and control the natural resources or strategic locations of these countries as a principal driving force in the radicalisation of sections of Britain’s Islamic community.
But there were other reasons as well. One was the hate speeches of some of the Islamic clerics, not all of them British, and their call to the Muslim youth to avenge insults hurled at the Muslim world.
However there was another reason that is not spoken about publicly because it exposes the failure of British policy when it tried to show the world that it was a stout advocate of human rights and a strong defender of international law and international humanitarian law.
Britain admitted to the country asylum seekers and refugees from Sri Lanka. While there were hundreds of genuine cases, some of those who were admitted during and immediately after the war against the LTTE were those who had been hard-core elements of the Tamil Tigers including combatants or those who had undergone military training.
Despite the fact that the UK Terrorism Act 2000 banned the LTTE and any activities that promoted this organisation considered a foreign terrorist organisation, those supportive of the LTTE or the cause of Eelam continued to demonstrate in support of the LTTE and remonstrate against the UK Government for not doing enough to punish Sri Lanka.
Fund raising continued unabated and other activities on behalf of the LTTE took place while the Metropolitan looked on seemingly unconcerned.
Moreover, there were British MPs who joined in these activities such as the annual Maaveerar Day commemorations venerating Tiger Leader Prabhakaran and those who died in battle.
The inaction of the authorities in stopping or curbing such activities was defended on the grounds of free speech and the right of protest were permitted in this country.
The fact that free speech is under threat today with even journalists’ communications constantly tapped and interfered with under laws that were never meant for such use, seem to escape the fertile minds of ministers as soon as the UK is threatened.
Muslim and youth of other communities have watched with growing bewilderment the blatant violations of British terrorism laws with authorities standing by. This farce was made even more ludicrous by the participation of British MPs in the name of human rights and their self-proclaimed commitment to righteousness.
The result of all this deliberate inaction and nonchalance by the British law enforcement authorities even when some of the participants had terrorist backgrounds and had been admitted to this country, naturally emboldened young impressionable youth of British origin to ask themselves why they too cannot flout the law and get away with it.
So triggered by British foreign policy that is seen as an attempt to crush rising Islam, its lackadaisical attitude towards the violations of its own laws at home and the vehement speeches by Islamic clerics, a new breed to radicalised youth have been born willing to take up guns and bombs at home or abroad in an assertion of their faith.