26 / Terrorists in our midst?
A friend had a scary experience. She was confronted with an Islamist taxi driver. The man just wouldn't let up - forcefully extolling the virtues of Islam, assuring my friend that he could help her to see the light and the truth, if only she allowed him to.
She was shaken by the experience, in fact she was scared and disoriented. When we talked about the incidence over brunch, we agreed that we are tolerant of all religions, beliefs and believers of all convictions - including, of course, Islam and Muslims. But she felt it was clear the man's intention was to steam-roll her with aspects of Islamism we are weary of, where - as it claims Islam is not only a religion but also a political system - it is indoctrinating, intolerant, dogmatic and above all anti-democratic. We agreed that now-a-days there is the potential that fanatical expressions of Islamism may well lead to terrorism.
My friend now asked me for advice as to what to do: Should she report the incidence, should she report the man?
I believe terrorism cannot successfully be fought with a War on Terror, i.e. more terrorism; that kind of response will grow terrorism and recruit otherwise unmotivated individuals to the causes of terrorism.
In fact I believe there are above all two approaches that will lead to a decline in terrorism: In the first place education. If people are educated well and - importantly - secularly, they will be given a future, hope and motivation to construct a career and a life for themselves and their families. There will be a much greater chance they will not throw away their lives as suicide bombers. Terrorists, as we know them, are likely to be recruited from people who were indoctrinated to preach intolerance and espouse violence.
Secondly, now-a-days we may have to acknowledge that there could be among us people with such intolerant and violent tendencies. How do we recognise and then contain them? Probably best through surveillance, before they have armed themselves and are ready to bring the jihad inspired fight to us (jihad can be interpreted as the Muslim's struggle to improve society).
There is, of course, our reluctance to trust that the authorities will do the right thing with our information - especially since the case of Mohamed Haneef, an Indian doctor who was, as we now know, wrongly accused of aiding terrorism and whose case created an unprecedented controversy in Australia. Furthermore, in our discussion we agreed that potentially someone who is pulled in for questioning, and who had been on the fringe of being radicalised, could well get motivated to join the fight then and there.
So these are the considerations my friend has to weigh up when she makes her decision to report or not report the individual. One thing is for sure, if she does nothing and in a year's time we have a terrorist attack in Sydney, where it turns out one of the terrorists was a taxi driver a year back, she is quite likely not to sleep easy for a while.
But it is important to keep a perspective on the terrorism threat in Australia. In this weekend's newspaper (Awakening to terrorism threat, by Jonathan Pearlman, SMH 8-9 August 2009), Waleed Aly, a lecturer at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre, says the problem of homegrown terrorism in Australia - while would-be-terrorists grapple with the problem that automatic weapons and bomb-making materials are hard to come by - remains relatively small.
One issue is that, "you don't generally desire to blow up a society that you think you belong to. Alienation and personal grievances are a major factor …" Which is probably a good incentive for all of us to recognise and acknowledge moderate Muslims and to include them into our community.