By Edward
I realize there are those in certain quarters who will cry "what took so long?" as if there were no cultural, practical, or personal (including personal safety) obstacles, but two moderate Muslims are now clearly leading the way toward a brighter future for the followers of Islam who live in the West.
The first has been at it a while actually (and I don’t mind pointing out to those who feel homosexuals harm rather than help society, that it took a lesbian to find the courage to stand up the world and say what’s right here). Irshad Manji (whose book The Trouble with Islam Today sits on my nightstand for quick reference) voiced an opinion that I’ve long held regarding foreign-born Muslims who preach hate in adopted Western countries: they should be deported swiftly:
For a European leader, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has done something daring. He has given notice not just to the theocrats of Islam, but also to the theocracy of tolerance.
"Staying here carries with it a duty," Mr. Blair said in referring to foreign-born Muslim clerics who glorify terror on British soil. "That duty is to share and support the values that sustain the British way of life. Those who break that duty and try to incite hatred or engage in violence against our country and its people have no place here."
With that, his government proposed new laws to deport extremist religious leaders, to shut down the mosques that house them and to ban groups with a history of supporting terrorism. The reaction was swift: a prominent human rights advocate described Mr. Blair’s measures as "neo-McCarthyite hectoring," warning that they would make the British "less distinguishable from the violent, hateful and unforgiving theocrats, our democracy undermined from within in ways that the suicide bombers could only have dreamed of."
Of course, there’s the danger that some folks will misconstrue what Blair said, and Manji applauds, and conclude "tolerance" in and of itself is a bad thing, so it bears pointing out that they’re clearly limiting their statements to a tolerance for for tolerance’s sake that forgives violence here. Any citizen of any nation can work, within the system, for change, but no one has the right to intentionally harm others in that quest. I’ve noted frequently (and long before the July 7th bombing) that the laws that permitted hate-mongering foreign-born Imams to remain in England were foolish. You don’t have to love it or leave it, but you damn well better let it live in peace or leave it. Muslims are obligated, like everyone else, to protect their nation, whether immigrants or born there.
My second hero is new to me, but precisely what the UK needs. Meet Shahid Malik:
Mr. Malik, who represents [the British constituency of] Dewsbury in Parliament and is the only British-born Muslim in Parliament, had come to tell Muslims at mosques and community centers here of the harsh new reality they faced.
"The extremism in our community," he told the Taleem audience, "is now our problem."
After the July 7 bombings and the attempts two weeks later, Muslim leaders in Britain are taking a harshly critical position against long-entrenched militant Islamists.
Many leaders want the police to deal with the agitators and pamphleteers, who were kicked out of mosques long ago but who nonetheless have legal rights to continue to spread their views.
Even after plainclothes officers killed an innocent Brazilian man, Jean Charles de Menezes, many Muslim groups reiterated support for the "shoot to kill" policy for suspected terrorists. Some leaders, like Mr. Malik, are calling on Muslims to root out the militants in their midst.
Now before folks inclined to do so jump to suggest I’m exhibiting a double-standard (praising such comments when Muslims say them, but condemning them for similar statements), let’s be clear about a very important difference here. In short, Malik and Manji are not willing to toss out the baby with the bath water, and that is not only morally, but also strategically, crucial. Consider Mr. Malik:
Mr. Malik says, though, that he hopes his tough stance will encourage others to speak out.
"You saw me deviate 100 percent from the norm, saying it is not enough to condemn – you must confront," he said. "People criticized me for it, but most people ended up standing with me."
In some ways, Mr. Malik has sought to fashion himself as a fresh face for Britain’s Muslims. He understands the frustrations of young men torn between their parents’ traditions and expectations and their own desire for acceptance in a culture that is so dramatically different.
"I’ve had the anger that everybody is talking about," he said one night as he raced to meet neighborhood leaders about plans for protests by right-wing parties in the area. "Anger may have its place, but you need to develop ways of using anger in a democratic society, and prevent it from turning to violence."
Because he’s felt the anger about his treatment as a Muslim himself, he is uniquely qualified to lead other Muslims to root out the radicals. It’s only because he truly understands them and cares what happens to them that he’ll do so with compassion and respect. Without compassion and respect, such efforts will backfire, and only make matters worse.
That’s the mistake many Westerners make, they leave out the crucial ingredients of compassion and respect, saying "let them fend for themselves, I don’t care what happens to them, so long as the violence stops." Not only is that the textbook definition of a non-Christian attitude, IMO, it’s guaranteed to fail, and it will ensure those inclined to be patient and hold strong for change will be talked out of it by increased alienation. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, despite all he’s done to make matters worse, Bush has the exact right approach to this aspect of the conflict. Moderate Muslims must see a welcoming alternative to the radicals.
May Allah bless Mr. Malik and Ms. Manji.
Welcome back, Edward!
Manji is a hero for saying the obvious? Few American muslims disagree with her – the only reason she gets attention instead of them is because she’s adept at cultivating her media image.
Manji is free to call herself a muslim, and free to do whatever she likes, but most of th etime she chooses to excercise hat fredom in telling me that I am not free to practice MY faith as I like and that the actions of an extremist minority compel me to change the fundamental tenets of MY faith.
Case in point – see this essay by Umm Yasmin of Dervish’s Dua blog, entitled “Tampering with the Text“.
For an example of the right way to speak out against extremism without insulting the faith, see Shadi Hamid. There’s your true hero, Edward.
Shadi Hamid seems a nice fellow. We’ve swapped e-mails a few times. Highly recommended.
Josh, I think Shahdi is a She, not a He 🙂
oops, I am an idiot. never mind.
No worries. I only knew ’cause I read the gender pronouns on the CMS attribution.
Aziz, your “case in point” turns out to be Manji asking if reasonable, moderate Muslims can read parts of the Koran as less important than other parts. So, for example, the exception “in punishment for murder and other villiany” should not swallow the rule “do not kill.” At most, she suggests ignoring the exception in practice.
In what possible way does this “tell me that I am not free to practice MY faith as I like”?
And how can it be an “insult to the faith” for her to exercise her right, which you admit she has, to “call herself a muslim, and . . . do whatever she likes”?
Let me clue you in on a fundamental point of liberal thought: you and your faith don’t get immunity to opposing points of view. You find a different view of your scripture insulting? Too bad. Suck it up. It doesn’t count as coercing or harming you, not even a little bit.
Now, maybe Manji has said other things that would justify your claim of potential victimhood. But I’ve never heard of one. Got a real one, or do you just want to stir up trouble about her?
the only reason she gets attention instead of them is because she’s adept at cultivating her media image.
I think it’s more than that, though, Aziz. She’s adept at communicating. If, as you say (and I believe) she’s getting credit for saying what others are saying all around her and before her, the issue remains that many many Americans are not hearing them saying it. They hear Manji because she’s accessible and an excellent communicator. It’s no small matter.
Which brings up a good point though. Perhaps two messagess are needed here. One for nonMuslims and one for Muslims. Manji writes in a way that nonMuslims can appreciate. They can relate to her easily.
that the actions of an extremist minority compel me to change the fundamental tenets of MY faith.
I’m far from an expert in Islam, but if you mean “fundamental” in the way Christians mean “Fundamental” then I suspect you’ll find more people agreeing with her that adherence to the Fundamentalist approach is a BIG part of what the extremist rely on to recruit. So perhaps you don’t want to change, but she’s well within her rights IMO to suggest change in this case might not be the worst of the two dilemmas.
That is a great essay by Shadi Hamid, though. Thanks for sharing.
You are missing a crucial distinction here. Conservatives have known all along that Muslims were uniquely qualified to root out the radicals. What I have been complaining about was that they were not typically doing so. And it isn’t about lack of respect or compassion, and it certainly isn’t about letting them fend for themselves. The problem is how to support them without undercutting their ability to root out the radicals. And that is a thorny problem indeed.
Conservatives have known all along that Muslims were uniquely qualified to root out the radicals.
That sounds suspiciously like regarding the War On Terror as a police action, no?
For whom? We can’t quite send OUR police overseas, after all.
By the way, Aziz, I love how the Dervish post goes on and on about why Manji’s out of line for her suggestion, just to eventually conclude:
May it’s an editing mistake (because none of the rest of it seems to support this idea), but I found it amusing all the same.
What I have been complaining about was that they were not typically doing so. And it isn’t about lack of respect or compassion, and it certainly isn’t about letting them fend for themselves. The problem is how to support them without undercutting their ability to root out the radicals.
You don’t represent the contingent I’m referring to Sebastian. I would agree with this statement you make here in general.
For whom? We can’t quite send OUR police overseas, after all.
What did that phrase ever mean?
Hmmm…did I speak German, by accident?
Seeing how there’s been a spate of incidences where what’s crystal clear to me is highly confusing to others, what I meant by that was: it ain’t a case for police action unless there are police both willing and able to take action. Our police: willing, but unable. Other countries’ police: who knows? Maybe unwilling AND unable; more to the point: insufficient.
I took Anarch to be implying that we sent our police (i.e., military) overseas into Afghanistan and Iraq…
I was totally underwhelmed with Manadi’s piece. Tolerance has always been about things that “neither pick my pocket nor break my leg.” In the U.S. the people who object to Britain’s laws are generally motivated less by a straw man form of tolerance than by free speech concerns. It is true that there is no Constitutional right to immigrate, so that one can legally deport someone for things you cannot legally jail someone for. But that could be applied not only to advocacy of violence, but to any sort of political speech at all, and still be constitutional. I think most of us would agree that’s a bad idea.
There’s no obligation to give refuge to people trying to destroy you, but:
–I would draw the line at advocacy of the deliberately killing of civilians or explicit statement that deliberately killing civilians is morally justified, rather than the far more nebulous and easily abused categories in Blair’s laws.
–Stripping naturalized citizens of their citizenship for “engaging in extremism” is wrong, wrong, wrong. The only valid reason for denaturalization that I am okay with is lying on your citizenship application. This provision makes second class citizens of naturalized citizens.
–I recognize that this doesn’t help for people already in the country, but in general I would prefer that one make a promise not to advocate violence against civilians as a condition for entry into the country, and deport people for dishonestly answering this question rather than for their speech itself. That way you put people on notice of what is and not permitted and avoid ex post facto concerns, and you do not have what amounts to a separate first amendment for aliens and citizens, let alone for different kinds of citizens.
–Obviously I don’t like it when countries decide they can use diplomatic assurances as a substitute for Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture. No one sane would require that you grant political asylum to a terrorist because he will be tortured if deported; but there is a possible middle ground–you grant deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture and detain the suspect until he can be deported (either because the danger of torture declines or he decides he would rather take his chances abroad than remained in immigration detention in England.)
What Blair wants goes far, far, far beyond anything in the PATRIOT Act. My respect for him just dropped several more notches. Manaji doesn’t address the specifics at all, and she acts as if it is the only alternative is the status quo.
Manji, not Manadi or Manaji. D’oh.
rather than the far more nebulous and easily abused categories in Blair’s laws
Can you think of an example of how one could be abused?
“Fostering hatred” is too vague. “Justifying or validating such violence” and “condoning or glorifying terror” are also too vague. The laws must make it clear that actual explicit statements in support of the deliberate killing of civilians itself is forbidden, but criticism of a policy–even overheated and inaccurate criticism–should not be outlawed because the murderers also use that policy as justification. The Home Secretary already seems to have a close to unlimited power to ban groups “concerned in terrorism” and will now have a close to unlimited power to designate “extremist” centers, bookstores and mosques, shut them down and deport those associated with them. All of these terms need precise definitions, or they can be abused. Maybe they have them in the bill, but from the news accounts it doesn’t sound like it.
The worst provision is “extreme views…in conflict with Britain’s culture of tolerance.”
They’re banning Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which a lot of people say is nonviolent and does not advocate violence. If that is correct–I wouldn’t know–it should not be banned.
As far as the actual criminalization of speech or prior restraints on it, I have said before why I support the Brandenburg test.
The power to detain people without charge for three months is also subject to abuse, obviously. That didn’t work out so great the last time Britain tried it.
I should clarify that I do believe that it’s all right to deport people and deny them asylum for advocating terrorism. I just prefer those requirements imposed at the border and as a condition of entry.
I assume I don’t need to rattle through the spiel about how diplomatic assurances are not sufficient to eliminate the risk of torture. I think there’s a moral distinction between sending someone to those countries for interrogation purposes and doing it to get those jerks the hell out of Britain, but the legal requirements are the same, and if those assurances are accepted I will bet you right now it won’t only be in cases where someone is advocating terrorism. I don’t see why immigration detention doesn’t incapacitate someone just as thoroughly.
oh, and some of these are ex post facto laws. Boo.
see this from human rights watch for more.
They’re banning Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which a lot of people say is nonviolent and does not advocate violence.
Chas and I banged heads about some points, which included discussion of HT in this thread. It’s an interesting organization, and I personally don’t see how a group wanting to revive the Caliphate through non-violent means is all that different from Christian conservatives wanting a nation to be run on more Christian principles.
I will add that I also don’t know the precise extent HT’s (non) commitment to violence, but I didn’t find any of the links provided by Chas to be very convincing.
thanks Katherine
I very much agree that borders are the place to deal with this (although it reminds of stories I heard where young Irish tourists entering the States were asked to swear on the Bible they wouldn’t overstay their visas). But there’s clearly potential for abuse here.
Clear definition, as you note, seems to be the key. Perhaps a civilian board or something, comprised of a spectrum of people, could be appealed to…something to intercede and give those who were merely misunderstood an appeals process outside the government. I don’t know, sounds complicated, but in general the sort of speech that needs to be stopped here is like pornography…most citizens can’t define it, but they know it when they hear it.
Slarti: Do you not recall the myriad instances in which those of us who protested the phrase “War on Terror” were told that it was indeed a war and could not possibly be anything less openly violent, say a “police action”? That “law enforcement techniques” were somehow indicative of a “pre-9/11 mindset” that failed to fully apprehend the modern world and its modern terrorist challenges?
And yet here we are, a few scant years later, and of a sudden I’m being told that “Muslims were uniquely qualified to root out the radicals” and, what is more, that everyone seems to have known this. Really? Where, then, the “War” on terror[is(m|ts)]? Where, then, the reason for our deployment of troops? Where, then, the “post-9/11” understanding that necessitated the military conflict that made this a “War”?*
Now none of those phrases I quoted are mine, so it’s possible that I didn’t quite get all the nuances involved — although, given that most of the people churning out those phrases were proudly touting “moral clarity” (again not my phrase) and decrying nuance as weak/liberal/treasonous/leper/outcast/unclean, that’d be pretty friggin’ ironic — but I think that’s unlikely. No, I think the past is once again being frantically revised to make it more palatable, and less obviously broken, now that we know what a trainwreck we’ve created.
Because, after all, as long as we can convince ourselves that this was an accident, that it was bad luck, that no-one could have predicted anything like this… why, then, we never have to reflect, we never have to feel guilt, and we never have to hold anyone accountable for their wrongdoings. And we never have to learn.
It’s the American way.
As it happens, I agree with Sebastian that Muslims are uniquely qualified to root out the radicals. That’s been a large part of my opposition towards the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, that they keep trying to forcibly insert America — its people, its institutions, its ideals — into a milieu where it doesn’t fit and doesn’t belong instead of helping Muslims to craft their own slice of modernity. What I’m objecting to is that this was somehow the received wisdom all along, as if whitewashing today can retroactively cleanse the fallacies of the past.
If we don’t acknowledge the actual mistakes we made — for which screed see above — then we’re never going to learn from them and we’re going to keep repeating them and people will keep dying. That, more than anything, is what I want to stop; and I’m sorry if this post seems unduly pointed since it’s not really addressed at you any more, is it?
And with that, I’m done.
* Presuming that one regards Iraq as central to the Whurgit on Whatsit. Many do, though I seem to recall you’re not one of them. OTOH, it’s remarkable how many people are able to say “It wasn’t then, it is now” with a straight face given their histories…
If you are going to demand deportations based on “preaching hate” by the “foreign-born”, you need to answer a couple of questions. Who decides what “preaching hate” is? What exactly are the rules that make it different from protected free speech? Who qualifies as foreign-born? Hitchens, Sullivan, Kissinger, Peter Jennings, Michelle Malkin, Paul Anka, Keith Richards (is “My Sweet Neo-Con” hate speech?). Or do they need to be ay-rabs? 1st, 2nd, 7th generation foreign-born?
Where do you deport Michael Savage? Supporters of Eric Rudolph?
“As it happens, I agree with Sebastian that Muslims are uniquely qualified to root out the radicals. That’s been a large part of my opposition towards the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, that they keep trying to forcibly insert America — its people, its institutions, its ideals — into a milieu where it doesn’t fit and doesn’t belong instead of helping Muslims to craft their own slice of modernity.”
“Uniquely qualified” doesn’t mean the same thing as “willing”. The fact that we can’t wait for them to become willing is precisely one of the key problems.
When do we deport Tucker Carlson?
“MADDOW: Can I just note that you just made a non-mocking reference to France? That’s the first time.
CARLSON: Actually, I am objectively pro-France. You know, France blew up the Rainbow Warrior, that Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbor in the ’80s. And I’ve always respected them…
(CROSSTALK)
MADDOW: That made you like them?
CARLSON: Yes. Yes. It won me over.”
When do we deport Tucker Carlson?
As soon as they make an airplane with a large enough doorway to fit his fat head through.
What a monumental schmuck.
“Uniquely qualified” doesn’t mean the same thing as “willing”. The fact that we can’t wait for them to become willing is precisely one of the key problems.
I think you might need to revisit the meaning of the word “unique”…
After revisiting the meaning of the word “unique”, I still agree with Sebastian.
We, on the other hand, are uniquely unqualified to conduct overseas antiterrorism police actions, which is why our armed services are over there instead.
Deporting crazy people does not solve any kind of problem — it merely displaces the crazy person from somewhere where he can do very little harm to somewhere with a much larger, broader and less well educated audience. We have crazy white people in England who were born here, and when they say that they want to kill a bunch of people we have ways of dealing with that. If we cannot deal with those who were not born here within the law, then we need to change the law so that we can. Islamist crazies are as odious as the National Front and the BNP, but we’re playing into the latter’s hands by imagining that shunting people out of the country is making us safer. It’s certainly not making us better.
I disagree McDuff
I know each nation has no option but to deal with its home-grown crazies, but foreign-born crazies are another matter to me. I agree that if that foreign-born crazy has become a citizen (or in your case, subject) there should be additional considerations, but anyone in a country as a refugee has a duty to respect that host nation’s way of life. Otherwise take your sorry persecuted ass to some other country.
Edward and I agree!
And, you know, we’re way overdue for a party.
fire up the grill Slarti!
I’ll bring the beer and surf boards
(you are near the beach, right?)
e
Heh. I wish I was that close. It’s probably a 45 minute drive from here. I think I’ll be there today or tomorrow anyway; we’re buying a used Honda Pilot over there.
Yeah, I know. I’ll be one of those evil SUV owners. Still, it gets (slightly) better gas mileage than our minivan, and has a much better maintenance record.
We, on the other hand, are uniquely unqualified to conduct overseas antiterrorism police actions, which is why our armed services are over there instead.
We’re not unqualified, let alone uniquely unqualified, to conduct antiterrorism police actions overseas; in fact, we’ve done numerous such actions already (e.g. cutting off the funding to terrorist organizations through international financial monitoring). OTOH, if Muslims are uniquely qualified to root out the radicals then, a priori, everyone else is unqualified to do so — whether as a police action or as a military endeavour — which raises the question of just what we think we’re going to accomplish militarily.
but anyone in a country as a refugee has a duty to respect that host nation’s way of life.
What way of life is that? Tea and scones? Cricket? Dole fraud? Getting hammered on lager and eating too much curry? Snobbishness? Dressing all our legal professionals in silly clothes? Blisteringly delivered sarcasm? Wearing socks with Jesus sandals? Trying to light a barbecue in the rain on a Sunday afternoon?
We have a great many things in this country of which I am fantastically proud, and one of these things is that, no matter how odious you may be, you are free to speak whatever is on your tiny little mind. England weathered Oswald Moseley and Mad Dog Adair, and it does us a great disservice to panic because some pissant bearded fool talking to a congregation more tiny than the Irish Republicans or the Blackshirts might possibly say something nasty about us.
You’re right inasmuch as, now these immigrants are here, they should obey our laws. But what we should not do is pass laws that treat them as different to any other people on our tiny, foreigner-fearing island. What concrete good will sending malicious preachers “out of sight, out of mind” do to us? How will it make us safer? Since the complaint voiced upthread that our police are “unable” to keep tabs on people in other countries is demonstrably true, why the perverse desire to take people we obviously need to keep a close eye on and send them somewhere where we cannot keep an eye on them?
Your objection strikes me as being one of principle, not practicality, and a fairly lame principle at that. I see no reason why an immigrant should be less able to stand up and speak his mind about any flaws he sees in the coutry than I am. So what if his ideas are stupid? So are most other people’s. There is no rule in our jumbled constitution that says you should be polite about the country. Quite the opposite, in fact — it is the right and duty of every Englishman to complain most vehemently that everything is going straight to hell and that it was far better in the old days, dammit. At least these guys have some kind of affirmative belief, unlike UKIP, the goddamn asinine nihilists.
At the end of the day, unless it is actually an incitement to violence (and therefore against laws already on the books), anyone on these shores can say whatever they like. That’s part of the principle which makes us strong, and it extends to everyone. We should not discriminate because some of the impolite people were not originally born here, that’s not what we’re about, and that’s not what we should do. When it comes to the principles on which we run our society, the freedom to complain should always trump our necessity for politeness.
There are fascists and Marxists and gay-bashers and Robert Kilroy-Silk already on this island. Goddamn people, we gave you Christopher Hitchens! In a sane world, these Crazy-Islamic voices would be buried in the nonsense we generate in our own fertile fields of crap. Deporting people even though they haven’t actually broken any laws, just because they’re saying nasty things, is such a grotesque overreaction that it’s not even funny. The fact that it’s not even increasing our security, and may in fact be decreasing it, is just the icing on the cake.
“we gave you Christopher Hitchens!”
You can have him back now.
Seriously, what is it with all these pro-war opinion writers thinking that I and others like me want us to lose the war?? Does he provide even a shred of evidence, a single actual cite? No. Take him, please. 😉
awesome rant, McDuff (except for calling my principle “lame” that is), but you argued against yourself a bit here, I think:
In a sane world, these Crazy-Islamic voices would be buried in the nonsense we generate in our own fertile fields of crap.
It’s not just any voices…it’s primarily the voices of religious leaders…spiritual authorities. That’s a very special case IMO.
I lived in London for three years, so I know a little of how things work there. I sat in an Irish pub not far from Holloway Road one time and watched as the locals looked at their feet but still said nothing (or worse yet, contributed) as a hat was passed for “the lads” back home. Now clearly the Irish are subjected to unpleasantries in London, but they are far, far more integrated into English society than any Muslim is. But if the Irish couldn’t stand up to the terrorists in their new land, I’m not sure how much more “sane” the world’s gonna have to get before Muslims in Britain are gonna feel secure enough to rise above their fear and challenge the Imams. Imagine if that hat had been passed at Mass, rather than in a pub…that’s an awful power the religious leader has to sway people.
I know that borders on apologist to many people…”For god’s sake, man, you know right from wrong, why are you bending over backwards to excuse those cowards?” Mostly because I left that Irish pub and said nothing to the authorities myself. I knew what “the lads” did to folks…I liked my kneecaps…I moved in Irish circles…I couldn’t hide from them…and besides, it’s not like they were saying this money was buying bomb materials (and I was only 22 and as green as the homeland itself…I’d respond differently today, I like to think).
Point being, it’s asking an awful lot of the daily Tube commuters to wait until the Muslim communities evolve and feel empowered enough to stand up to local Imams who preach hate. Those freaks should be preaching patience and calmness. Blair has to do something, no?
For the record, I’d have supported deporting Ian Paisley to Tasmania in the day as well.
Now if only we here in the States could deport Fred Phelps. Trouble is, who would take him?
Tasmania??
(It’s worth a shot.)
It’s not just any voices…it’s primarily the voices of religious leaders…spiritual authorities. That’s a very special case IMO.
And IMO it’s not. As a Tube commuter myself on occasion, although thankfully not a daily one (not because of fear of terror, but because of fear of armpit sweat), certain things are obvious to me:
1) anybody with the skill and judgement of a small gerbil can bomb the tube. It’s fantastically easy to do;
2) of the many millions who have ridden it over the past however many years, eight people have tried to bomb it.
Given that it’s so easy, the only obvious conclusion we can draw is that only the most infinitesimal fraction of the population actually wants to bomb it. All the Imams in the world, preaching all the hate in the world, can’t apparently present me with more risk to my own personal safety than my own bathtub. That kind of risk just isn’t worth running scared from.
I know that on both sides of the Atlantic we are elevating these bearded nonces to positions of importance, because we’re suffering from our species’ disposition to be crap at assessing risks, and because we can be Outraged at what They are saying about Us, and we always get a sick kick out of that. This decade, They are Muslims. Throughout the last century the laundry list of They changed almost every five years, and next decade it will most likely be another set of faces, but our Outrage will remain the same. It doesn’t mean anything.
At the end, while this may not apply to you, the reason we’re so keen on stripping immigrants of rights is because we’re a nation of racist mother hubbards who’ll do anything to blame “foreigners” for our problems. Be it the French, the Albanians, the Africans, whatever — we just don’t like foreign people. These guys are saying some crazy crap, true enough, but the actual danger to us is that somebody might be influenced and do us about the same damage as your average packet of peanuts. All it’s done is given an opening to the closet xenophobes to claim that we’d be better off without them because Look How Mean They Are To Us (boo hoo), and Blair has thrown them a bone because there are an awful lot of them, and they have votes. It’s sad and petty, but then a lot of British politics is — remember last election the Tories essentially ran on “foreign people are scary” because they knew it was a message that resonated with a big chunk of the electorate. It’s not in any sense rational, and in most cases it’s detrimental to do it, but by God for some reason we can’t get enough of this rubbish here in Blighty.
So, at the end of the day, this law makes the Imams feel good because they are getting a response from the politicians far beyond the actual risk their blathering merits, and makes the Little Englanders feel good because they can feel superior to some foreign people with foreign-looking clothes. The constituency of sensible English people, many of whom would prefer to make neither the Imams nor the Little Englanders happy, has not been consulted in the drafting of this law. The end result is that it’s a crap law, both in rationale and implementation.
Throughout the last century the laundry list of They changed almost every five years, and next decade it will most likely be another set of faces, but our Outrage will remain the same. It doesn’t mean anything.
Sure it does. Not the object of the Outrage, true, but rather the fact that it’s necessary for us to maintain our Outrage At Other People.
“What did that phrase ever mean?”
If anyone answered this for Anarch, I missed it. On the theory therefore that not everyone is familiar with the history of the phrase: it was President Harry S Truman’s phrase for the Korean War, and it attempted to distinguish the defense of South Korea against North Korean aggression as being other than a “war,” which was, of course, a rather futile effort, but did attempt to make the important political point that the goal wasn’t to proceed to a general war with either China or the Soviet Union, and neither was it to restore Chiang Kai-shek to rule of the mainland — which was a critical political point of the time.
Due to the unique circumstances of the Soviet Union’s momentary boycott, in a fit of pique, of their seat on the UN Security Council, Truman was able to secure Security Council authorization for the U.S. and other Member States to form a UN Force to aid South Korea. (The Chinese seat, of course, was then held, as it was for a few more decades, but Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China (aka “Taiwan/Formosa”), not the mainland Reds.)
This also enabled Truman to bypass obtaining a Congressional Declaration Of War, which had not yet gone out of fashion as a rule.
Incidentally, the Korean War never did end; there’s still just an Armistice.
Anyway, the phrase “police action” was intended to describe the UN Forces as acting as the world’s “police” on the international stage; a highly imperfect and flawed analogy, but one having nothing whatever in any shape means or form to do with sending actual “police.” To see everyone in the discussion suddenly discussing “police action” as referring to sending police is a completely wonderful way to confuse terms and misuse their historical use and meaning.
But maybe that’s just me. Wouldn’t be the first time.
To see everyone in the discussion suddenly discussing “police action” as referring to sending police is a completely wonderful way to confuse terms and misuse their historical use and meaning.
To be honest, I’d deliberately misused it because I’d seen a number of right-wing commenters decry non-military actions against terrorism (and Iraq, I think) as being “police actions” and I was massively amused by the irony. The more usual term, which I returned to upthread, was “law enforcement”, and substituting the one for the other provides the real question I was asking: what did “law enforcement techniques” ever mean as applied to the Thingamajigger On That-Really-Bad-Thing, and how is it distinguished from other, “post-9/11”, strategies?
To me, “police action” is a description of method, not of who’s doing it. Police work is unglamourous drudgery based on information, evidence, and laws. It’s a response to the existence of crimes, like rape and murder and child abuse and theft.
Military action, on the other hand, is glorious and reactionary, and based on misinformation, pride, fear and avarice. It’s a response to the perception of a threat as being so huge that our brains just shut down and can’t deal with it, and must respond by flailing wildly at anyone who looks threatening.
Police action says that if one person murders someone, that person should be arrested and brought to justice. It also says that if one person murders two hundred people, that person should be arrested and brought to justice. Military action says that if one person murders someone, oh my God we just gotta bomb a city!
In a police framework, one innocent shot in the head is enough to spark an enquiry. In a military framework, ten thousand people bombed because they were in the right (or wrong) city is “collateral damage”.
The other difference is that “police work” is what catches terrorists. It’s the intelligence, the groundwork, the slow and surgical approach, the attempt to find the people committing crimes and stop them, even if it’s done by people in fatigues. This whole “war” thing, though, doesn’t catch terrorists, prevent terrorism, or make us safer. So, y’know, guess which one I’m in favour of.