Europe should steer clear of another war on terror

WITH the November 13 Paris terror attacks dominating international headlines, a question that comes up is whether these attacks, and others that will follow – in Europe, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Nigeria or elsewhere – can influence a country ’ s development trajectory or democratic path.

In September 1999 four apartment buildings were bombed in Russia. One large bomb was fortunately detected by vigilant citizens of Ryazan and timeously dismantled.

Chechen Islamic rebels were immediately fingered and the second Chechen war started the following day with Russian air raids on Grozny.

Many articles, several books, suspicious deaths of dissidents in London and several slain Russian journalists later, it now seems clear that the Russian state was behind these bombings that killed over 300 of its own citizens.

This “false flag ” operation was reportedly intended to safeguard the political cronies that then president Boris Yeltsin had assembled around him during Russia ’ s first – and probably last – attempt at democracy post-Mikael Gorbachev. It was also to ensure the ascendance to power of Russia ’ s current President Vladimir Putin.

Russia today resembles an autocratic kleptocracy with an assertive regional policy of spreading illiberalism (anti-democracy), albeit with a veneer of democracy by means of “elections ”. I need not refer to the recent bomb attacks in Turkey in the run-up to elections that saw Recep Tayyip Erdoggan ’ s AKP suddenly win a parliamentary majority after doing badly in the same elections just months before.

After the 2001 Twin Tower terror attacks the US government under George W Bush eroded and curtailed civil liberties in that country, not only of foreign nationals but of US citizens too. The 2001 Patriot Act serves as a good example.

The two wars the US launched in the aftermath of those attacks – Iraq and Afghanistan – have done little to lessen the threat of international terrorism and in fact have bred a whole new era of Jihadists with a commitment to a doctrine of fundamentalism even al-Qaeda shies away from.

Radical Islam, spearheaded by the now muchfeared Islamic State (IS), was born and has spread its geographic footprint from the Middle East to Africa and beyond, as a result of the US-led destruction of the Iraqi state and its halfhearted attempts at regimechange in Syria.

IS now not only threatens development in Iraq, but in all countries it operates in. It threatens violence on democracies not only in the West, as we can see from Boko Haram ’ s operations in Nigeria, and its commitment to the creation of a caliphate like IS.

IS threatens Tunisia ’ s transition to sustainable democracy. The like-minded al-Shabaab has perpetrated terror in Kenya while barring Somalia from muchneeded progress towards creating a viable state.

Post 9/11, Europe saw the erosion of freedoms as a response to the increased threat of al-Qaeda terrorism against Western democracies. This fed the racist underbelly of many a European nation and led to the emergence and exponential growth of new political movements in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and other EU members, all with an antiIslamic, nationalist and racist agenda.

What now for France and the rest of Europe?

One can only hope that the recent attacks do not further grow the Front National, a socially conservative, nationalist, right-wing-to-far-right political party in France.

One can only hope that a new consensus and European collaboration is achieved that crosses party lines and petty party interests to overcome the challenges France and the rest of Europe now face.

One can only hope that France and Europe find new political leadership that seeks to build on the principles the European Union was founded upon.

France and Europe will do well to guard against hawkish elements and warmongering, if only to avert inspiring more Jihadists; if only to avoid the mistakes the US has made in its waragainst-terror.

Olmo von Meijenfeldt is executive director of Democracy Works Foundation

“One can only

hope for a new consensus