War on Terror: From Basra to Bradford
An invisible front line in the war on terror is running through Europe, writes Timothy Garton Ash for the LA Times. This front line, however, is not a military but a cultural/political one to be fought by winning over the hearts and minds of young European Muslims. A soldier returning from Basra to his hometown Bradford may do more to reduce the threat of terrorism in Britain through this approach toward British Muslims than by fighting in Basra. For besides the small fraction of fanatics also exist what Germans call sympathisanten — sympathizers who could easily choose the wrong path. It is these sympathizers we need to inspire into becoming integrated pillars of European society.
Mon, Apr 21st 2008, 17:21
amarjyoti acharya
Politics of ressentiment often propels states towards making strategic mistakes that help the political elites perhaps win constituencies but often costs the state in the longer run. The very imagination of 'conflictual difference' that bedevils what is called as the 'sympathisanten' and the already converted called the 'Tafriqs' vis-a-vis their target audience is what needs to be addressed. Similarly, the majority sections that harbour similar imaginations or 'prejudices' needs to be examined too. Not from the 'now-possessed' view-points of patronization-oriented programmes that usually form what is called the politics of ressentiment. Rather, a clear-headed approach is needed. Britain, like most of Europe, adheres to Human Rights as its parameter of fundamental rights - that do look at ensuring an equal freedom of thought, faith, belief and worship - and an equal freedom of participation that favours the freedom of the individual.
What, under such conditions, fosters such 'jehadi' sentiments? And you will find a host of people all eager to find their place under the sun. Put more plainly, the mismatch between human ambition and the abilities of those harbouring certain ambitions. That will lead to many a force attempting to direct the course of 'local' developments - for money and/or for those moments of 'relevance' and/or worse - sheer malice. The already-converted work usually with cold mechanical detachment and are rarely seen in the crowd.
It is them and it is the separation of the wheat from the chaff that calls forth for equally cold and detached problem-solving that is cognizant of not merely the complex problems at hand but also the room for interfernce from political novices who have ambitions.
It brings one back to the original question of "why should someone born and brought up in Britain go and fight a 'jehadi' war in Basra?! The answers to this rather simple question usually has quite sobering effects, even if one is not aware of 'rogue' states and nations and the undercurrents that move beneath the surface of world politics.