COLIN TALBOT REMEMBERING 9/11
TWENTY YEARS ON, THE REVERBERATIONS OF THE 11 SEPTEMBER ATTACK STILL SHAPE THE WORLD. THE EXTENT OF THE THREAT IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT PROCEEDED IT THAT DAY, AND MUST BE ANALYSED AS SUCH
Do you remember where you were and what you were doing on 9/11? I remember vividly. I was in South Africa at a conference Stellenbosch University, near Cape Town. During a break I’d gone into town to have look around. As I wandered through a small shopping mall my sister unexpectantly rang from the UK. My heart sank – I’d had an unexpected call telling me about the death of my brother some years before and I feared it was something similar.
It was indeed a tragedy – but on a much bigger scale. My sister asked if I’d seen what was happening. She said two planes had flown into the twin towers in New York. After a brief discussion I looked round for a TV. I found a group of people in a bar watching the live feed from New York in quiet shock.
It was really hard to take in. The pictures looked like a scene from a disaster movie – they couldn’t be real, could they? Then there were horrific reports of people jumping from the upper floors.
And if that wasn’t horrendous enough, as we stood watching the first tower came down.
I spent the next few days endlessly discussing what had happened, how it had happened and why. On the long flight back from Cape Town to London I started an article – “Tough on Terrorism, Tough on the Causes of Terrorism” – which was later published in the US public administration magazine PA Times.
My thoughts were partly shaped by having been in post-apartheid South Africa at the time of 9/11. Both the ANC that now ruled, and their apartheid predecessors, had at various times been called “terrorists”. Yet they had compromised and miraculously achieved a peaceful transition to a multi-racial democracy.
But it seemed to me the forces behind the 9/11 attacks were nothing like the ANC, even though there were some similarities in the use of force. I came to two conclusions. First, I wrote at the time that we “must reflect on what exactly is the terrorist menace we are confronting. We need to distinguish here between two distinct types of terrorist activities and terrorist organisations”.
Terrorist organisations of the previous few decades, like the IRA, ETA (the Basque Euskadi ta Askatasuna), the Irgun, Al
Fatah, and even the ANC of South Africa, are or have been, terrorist organisations fighting for causes that democrats could legitimately support. Whether Irish unity; Basque independence; founding Israel or replacing it with Palestine – a case could be made for the aims, if not the means. No liberal, conservative or social democrat could possibly support the aims of Al-Qaeda.
Recently, Tony Blair has added what I think is an important point about the aims of groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS and others. Their ideology is so incompatible with ideas of human rights and liberal democratic values that it is legitimate to compare their threat with communism (and I would add, fascism).
The second difference was more subtle – it was about methods. All these organisations were prepared, like Al-Qaeda, to use illegitimate violence to achieve their aims. But the scope of their violence – although often breaking what would be regarded as the usual “rules of war” – was always in some ways limited.
Al-Qaeda, with it’s global ambitions, saw no such limitations – it was clearly intent of inflicting the biggest possible atrocities it could find a way to enact. The destruction of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon and whatever the third target was for Flight 93 (which was brought down before reaching its target) showed the scale of Al-Qaeda’s depravity. No other “terrorist” organisation in modern history had done anything like this (even though many of them could have).
I thought, and still think, these are important distinctions. First, because the aims of many “terrorist” groups are at least semi-legitimate there is scope for negotiation and possible peace settlements – as in South Africa or Northern Ireland. Second, because the terrorist methods (and global ambitions) of Islamist fundamentalist groups make them such a huge threat.
This defines the nature of the struggle. It is existential – this Islamist fundamentalist movement will never peacefully co-exist with liberal democracy (or even secular autocracy). And they will constantly seek new ways to inflict further atrocities like 9/11.
This may not be a “forever war” but it could well go on for generations. The struggle between liberal democracy and communism has already lasted for four generations and there is no sign of it being over yet. The modern struggle with fundamentalist Islam is barely a single generation old, possibly two if you include the Iranian revolution. We may have a long way to go yet.
Colin Talbot is emeritus professor of government at the University of Manchester and a research associate at the University of Cambridge
Thirty years ago, I moved from being a chief executive in local government to run one of the government’s largest agencies. At the time, such a move was unheard of and many of my new civil service colleagues assumed that I would in due course recross the great divide. Some were disappointed that I chose to stay! Years before, when I began my career in local government, it was equally unusual to switch between county boroughs, county councils and districts. Each had their own culture and when I joined a county council from a county borough, I experienced what it must be like to be a scholarship boy at a public school.
So, why do these anecdotes matter and why has the Commission for Smart Government suggested that we should once and for all banish these bureaucratic divides by creating just one unified public service? First of all, because these artificial boundaries work to the disadvantage of citizens by reinforcing the fragmented nature of our public services. They make it less likely that services will be “joined up” in ways that make sense to real people with real life problems that don’t easily fit the rigid bureaucratic boxes we create. The boundaries mean that providers do not see themselves as part of a common purpose and consequently services are less accessible, more siloed and even, on occasions, in competition. Real people want quality services defined by their needs, not by the providers’ convenience and outdated structures.
Many will be quick to point to evidence which shows that the wall between the civil service and local government is not as impenetrable as it once was. But it does still exist and is one of the reasons why the centre is reluctant
IT IS TIME TO REMOVE IT, SAYS FORMER WHITEHALL PERM SEC LORD MICHAEL BICHARD
“Many will be quick to point to evidence which shows that the wall between the civil service and local government is not as impenetrable as it once was. But it does still exist”
Lord Bichard KCB is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and until 2021 was chair of the National Audit Office. He was formerly permanent secretary at the Department for Education and the first director of the Institute for Government. Before moving to the Department for Education, Bichard was chief executive of Brent Council and Gloucestershire County Council, then chief executive of the
Benefits Agency