When terror strikes far too close to home
SPEAKING on RTE Radio One’s Sunday With Miriam, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone blamed the previous night’s terrorist attack in the city on “a small group of angry men”, adding that terrorism in Europe was increasingly the act of “lonely and dysfunctional individuals” with “a complete misreading of what the Prophet Muhammad laid down”.
Suspicions that this narrative was driven by a desire to avoid more worrying security questions were further raised by the next day’s Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, which concentrated on celebrating London’s “defiant spirit of solidarity and strength”.
The revelation that one of the London attackers had lived in Dublin re-focused attention on how many extremists are being radicalised right now in Ireland.
Pat Kenny on Tuesday reflected that shift by quizzing Newstalk’s foreign affairs correspondent Shona Murray about Irish preparedness. She gave a thorough, if sobering, assessment, quoting a former member of Al-Qaeda who said: “The age of innocence has gone. Ireland offers Isis ample opportunities… it's a soft target .”
Later, Pat turned to reporter Robert Fisk asking him, in a mixed metaphor, whether Britain was “reaping the whirlwind of the seeds it has sown in the Middle East”.
“Quite right, yes,” agreed Fisk, unsurprisingly. “At the end of the day it’s about foreign policy. If the British go on cavorting and frolicking with these Gulf Arab states… this tragedy will not end.”
He then went on to give a potted history of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabist brand of Islam, which he blamed for fuelling terrorism, adding that violence would go on until the “Saudis can be induced to break free” of it.
However, Fisk insisted that “they cannot, because it’s part of the making of their state, going right back to the 18th century”.
There may be a persuasive moral argument that we should have nothing to do with sinister, corrupt, oil-rich states, but surely the real meaning of Fisk’s words is that our influence is ultimately minimal?
On Tuesday’s Drivetime on RTE Radio One, Dr Orla Lynch, lecturer in criminology at UCC, warned against the “sensationalism” of the Irish media in its coverage of terrorists, which, she said, was “effectively doing their job for them”. “The danger,” she felt, “lies in our over-reaction, through, for example, draconian legislation or politicised responses.” She then cited the throwing of a rock at a mosque in Galway the night before.
This incident was actually the first item of discussion on that day's Last Word on Today FM; but isn't that just another form of sensationalism, taking an isolated act of bigotry and vandalism and giving it a disproportionately prominent platform?
Dr Lynch went on to argue that 'multiple pieces of legislation really hasn't protected the UK in any great way, so that’s not a role that we need to go down here”.
There are many who would say that those measures have had a huge effect in keeping Britain safer than it might otherwise have been in recent times. That these attacks remain mercifully sporadic is hardly an accident or coincidence. LISTEN BACK Visit the RTE Player at rte.ie/player and todayfm.com/listen-back