[list_indonesia] [ppiindia] Terrorism and civil rights New Feature
- From: "Ambon" <sea@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 07:46:48 +0100
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Terrorism and civil rights New Feature
By Anthony Giddens International Herald Tribune
Friday, March 4, 2005
These are excerpts from two of the speeches delivered in the House of Lords of
the British Parliament in the current debate on the proposed "Prevention of
Terrorism Bill," which empowers the government to impose various restrictions
on individuals suspected of terrorist activities. The full debate can be found
at www.parliament.uk/hansard/hansard2.cfm.
.
***
.
My Lords, as someone who has studied terrorism intensively over the past few
years, I should like to say something about what I take to be the backdrop to
this debate.
.
In my view discussion of terrorism in this country, and, indeed, in some
European countries, has been undermined by a failure to draw a distinction
between two types of terrorism. The first type of terrorism - for want of a
better word - I call "old-style" terrorism.
.
Old-style terrorism is the kind of terrorism that we have been familiar with
for many years in this country. It is the terrorism of the IRA, the Basque
separatists, the separatists in Sri Lanka, Kashmir and many other countries
around the world. Old-style terrorism is fundamentally local in character. It
is concerned with nationalism and establishing a state in nations that do not
have a state.
.
I would submit that new-style terrorism is absolutely different from this
previous form. New-style terrorism is a creation of globalization. It is an
expression of the massive acceleration of the interdependence of the world in
which we now live.
.
There are four differences between new and old-style terrorism that are crucial
to discussion of the Bill. The first is in respect of its aims. New-style
terrorism has aims that are geopolitical. Al Qaeda seeks to achieve nothing
short of the rolling back of modernity and the reconstruction of world society.
Such demands are not negotiable in the way that old-style terrorism was.
.
The second difference is in organizational capacity. 9/11 would have been
inconceivable without the use of modern technologies: mobile phones, the
Internet, computers and so forth. That gives a completely different scope to
new-style terrorism in the world today.
.
The third difference, as noble Lords said earlier, is ruthlessness. Bin Laden
has said that he wants to kill millions of Americans. There is no limit to the
destructive intent of new-style terrorism, very much in contradiction to the
forms of terrorism that we have known before.
.
The fourth difference is weaponry. We live in a world where, through the
Internet, access to destructive weaponry is readily available to anyone who
takes the time to learn the procedures involved.
.
..
Noble Lords will remember that, a few years ago, one of the leaders of the IRA
said to the security services, "You might be right 99 per cent of the time, but
if you are wrong 1 per cent of the time, we will wreak havoc in your cities."
That threat is now much more severe, given the nature of the weaponry that can
be deployed.
.
Against the background of what are massively elevated risks from those that we
faced in the past, even 10 years ago, I do not see how anyone can cogently
argue that those risks can be handled by orthodox judicial process. Of course
we want to bring terrorists to trial whenever we can and, whenever we can,
convict them, but as the Bill states, there are bound to be areas where we
cannot directly prosecute but where there is clear and present danger and where
that danger, in some circumstances, may be extreme and devastating.
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