INCREASING jail terms for terrorists, as proposed by the Prime Minister, could have the effect of “enhancing rebel chic”, the perceived Islamist “glamour” that attracts discontented youth, according to a leading academic.
Dr Tim Wilson, director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, was commenting on the changing face of terrorism, as evidenced by the two attacks in London and the suicide bombing in Manchester last month.
He told The National the atrocities had shown “very considerable variation” in terms of the choice of target and how they were carried out.
“Only the Manchester attack showed any technical prowess. The other attacks look rather opportun- istic and improvised using an emergent template of a vehicle assault followed by a knife rampage,” he said.
“Such atrocities are low-tech in execution, but they rely upon state-of-the-art communications to generate a wider resonance.
“There is an inverse relationship bet-ween means and effects here. Thus, a tactically-crude attack can be launched in the knowledge a crowded street will be full of camera footage – dramatic images are guaranteed.”
However, Wilson said all three attacks shared one common feature – the five attackers had apparently gone out with a death wish and no intention of returning.
“Even though only the Manchester attacker, Salman Abedi, actually blew his own physical frame into fragments, it is hard to believe the other four attackers did not expect to be gunned down – as they all promptly were,” he said.
“Here Prime Minister May’s proposal of longer custodial sentences for those who flirt with joining such missions seem unlikely to have much deterrent effect.
“If anything, it might risk enhancing ‘rebel chic’: the perceived Islamist glamour that pulls in discontented youth and gives them a cause and meaning to their lives – or, indeed, their carefully staged deaths.”
Wilson said we should have some sympathy for all those from May downwards, who had the “unenviable” task of protecting a society whose expectations of total protection and safety were so extraordinarily high” – in particular, the police at the sharp end: “Just over 100 years ago – in the Sydney Street siege of 1911 – the rules of engagement for the Metropolitan Police were so strict that they had to knock on the door of the anarchist hide-out and get themselves shot before they were allowed to fire back,” Wilson said.
“Now they are expected to gun down suspected bombers accurately and within minutes. In 2017 they have done so flawlessly: in 2005, with the tragic killing of Jean Charles de Menezes they did not.
“That must weigh on the minds of senior commanders such as [Metropolitan Police Commissioner] Cressida Dick.”
Such attacks typically come in spasms and then fade away, Wilson went on, and despite the devastating and permanent effects of such horrors, societies are complex and resilient entities, whose continued existence is not fundamentally threatened by them.
Wilson said the spectacle of 50,000 people turning up for Sunday’s One Love Concert in Manchester was “an enormously resonant one”, especially given the possibility of another attack.
“And against the generally toxic post-Brexit backdrop, the gestures of support from other European capitals are all the more poignant,” Wilson added.
“Synecdoche can make for powerful symbolic signalling – the Eiffel Tower dims its lights in solidarity with London; the Brandenburg Gate carries the projection of a giant Union Jack, and so on.
“Yet such gestures also perhaps inadvertently risk not only reinforcing these icons as terrorist targets in their own right, but also entrenching the suggestion that crudely-staged atrocities of tiny numbers of malcontents are somehow powerful existential assaults on whole cities, and indeed, nations.
“In the wake of the social media revolution, it is clearly impossible to return to the strategy of denying terrorists ‘the oxygen of publicity’. But we should certainly be wary, however unintentionally, of reinforcing their deluded world views and narratives.”
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