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Fear the new normal in Europe?
Highlights
What India has been experiencing for years and America did on 9/11 in 2001 and Africa more recently, has now trapped Europe in a big way. Simultaneous attacks on multiple targets by gunmen and suicide bombers working in unison: a nightmare scenario for any authority came true last Friday.
The Friday attack crosses the Rubicon, so to speak, of Europe. A tough security-centred response is likely to now have full public support.
Is this a new chapter of the much-talked, much-feared “clash of civilisation”? Putting it differently, is this a clash of civilisations, or a clash of a couple of thousands jihadis with a great city. The answer is not easy and would depend upon which side of the Suez Canal one is located
What India has been experiencing for years and America did on 9/11 in 2001 and Africa more recently, has now trapped Europe in a big way. Simultaneous attacks on multiple targets by gunmen and suicide bombers working in unison: a nightmare scenario for any authority came true last Friday.
The tragedy is that they were predicted by France's anti-terror agencies. Security officials and experts had for long predicted that an unprecedented attack was in the offing, and would be nigh impossible to thwart.
It was very much a “Mumbai-like attack”. The term “Mumbai-like” has become an integral part of the global security lexicon since the November 2008 attack by Pakistan-based Laskhar-e-Toyaba (LET).
It was “Mumbai-style” in that the attackers chose innocent Friday evening revelers at several locations across one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world. Like the “Idea of India”, the “Idea of Paris” was challenged, for the second time this year.
The big difference, however, is that the Mumbai attacks were carried out without provocation as part of the attrition by militant groups in our neighbourhood. By comparison, the attackers since identified as belonging to the Islamic State (IS), were retaliating to the French military involvement against them in Syria and that they wanted to punish the city that is home to the Charlie Hebdo, the publication that has from time to time lampooned Prophet Muhammad.
There are differing views on whether the predominantly Christian West should caricature the Messenger of Islam in the name of freedom of expression. The multiple attacks in Paris mark the return of terror to the city, only 10 months after the Charlie Hebdo shootings that left 17 people dead.
The issue is becoming more complicated as Europe does not know how to handle the influx of thousands of refugees, most of them Muslims, from troubled West Asia, dividing its society and threatening to upset its population balance, its economy and security. Many fear that IS and its affiliates fighting in many trouble-spots across the world are infiltrating into Europe as refugees.
More Charlie Hebdo is likely to attract retaliation, just the way Russian help to Syria’s Bashar Al Assad is drawing retaliation. That retaliation is not some disorganised response by scattered disgruntled groups. If it was Al Qaida at the turn of the century that caused 9/11, the new force, more deadly and more organised than Al Qaida could ever be, is the Islamic State.
The IS has billions in funds, mounds of arms and ammunition, thousands of volunteers from across the world and control of huge territory the size of Great Britain. The risk is greatest from groups of young men who return hardened from conflicts, maybe in Syria, maybe Libya or Yemen, then obtain weapons in France and go over into action.
French President Francois Hollande has declared “a war” and promised ‘merciless’ tackling of the IS. Within two days of the Paris attacks, the French Air Force bombed IS positions in Syria. This is essential for domestic consumption and to remind the world community that it remains a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
At home, Hollande would need to probe the attack thoroughly. Investigations will centre on whether the perpetrators were, like the French-Algerian Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo shootings, inspired or supported by jihadist groups. Experts have said that, if indications that the IS or its affiliates were responsible for the downing of a Russian A321 Airbus over the Sinai desert last month are proven correct, it may have marked a major shift in strategy for the group, to demonstrate its international reach beyond the lawless regions of Iraq and Syria where it has its strongholds.
France’s very own 26/11, since the tactics have been used before, in Mumbai and elsewhere, raises the larger question. How did the attackers come to Europe? Were the attackers French citizens? If so, how they were radicalised, armed and organised - was it in France, in Syria, and by whom? Why weren't they detected? Is France, after two major attacks this year, uniquely vulnerable or does the carnage in Paris mean all of Europe faces new threats to its public places and events?
Much like Mumbai on 26/11, the terrorists in Paris have attacked the heart of what it is to be a Parisian. Attacking cafes in a city of cafes, blowing up of the Bataclan Theatre in a city that is symptomatic of culture and bomb blasts that shook the Stade de France, the stadium where the French football team was playing a friendly game with Germany. Tragically, France won that match even as it went into a mix of fear, mourning and outrage.
For long the epicenter of European culture since the Renaissance, France has for years been at the center of what many see as a clash of civilizations in Europe. Having received thousands of Muslim migrants from North Africa that it once colonised, it has become increasingly less tolerant of their women donning hejab as part of their identify.
Now, all political correctness and restraint will be off, and not just in France. As with the United States after 9/11, we are likely to see an all-out offensive on extremism. But the real issue in France and much of Europe is of home-grown terror. As many as 1500 French citizens are believed to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight as mujahideen for ISIS and many have returned. Britain and Germany are also a worried lot on that score.
The Friday attack crosses the Rubicon, so to speak, of Europe. A tough security-centred response is likely to now have full public support. Is this a new chapter of the much-talked, much-feared “clash of civilisation”? Putting it differently, is this a clash of civilisations, or a clash of a couple of thousands jihadis with a great city. The answer is not easy and would depend upon which side of the Suez Canal one is located.
The problem — as was seen in Mumbai, former Yugoslavia, or in Lebanon — is that it only takes a few men with guns to make a place unlivable. It happened at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, on the London Metro, at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, at shopping mall in Nairobi, at theatre in Moscow and many other places.
Now, fear and danger might become the new normal in Europe. That fear is spreading across the world.It sounds easy to say it than do it, but the only way to fight this fear is to shed it through a collective resolve.Up to a point, New York showed it when 9/11 occurred. And now Paris showed it. And this is instructive, especially, for us Indians.
As the Paris unfolded on the French television network, there was not a single site of dead bodies, or gory blood-splattered faces. Panic there was, and pain. But the focus was not on weeping and breast-beating.
No TV reporter went to a victim in pain to ask “how do you feel…?”
And yes, no opposition leader was allowed to vent his frustration on TV, whining and weeping and complaining against the government – without doing anything himself or herself.
By:Mahendra Ved
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