Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 3/5/2008
Engagement with the Muslim Community and Counterterrorism: British Lessons for the West
December 2007
Abstract
Historians will undoubtedly record that the events of September 11th, 2001 were a turning point for policy makers and politicians in the United States of America. America faced a new kind of security threat, the response to which would spark a series of difficult chain-reactions and challenge core national values. More than six years on, America is still grappling with the question of how to respond, both domestically and internationally, to the terrorist threat.
The nineteen perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were not American citizens; they were foreign born and held foreign passports. To Western eyes, the threat thus came from a far away place. In every sense of the word, the terrorists were ‘alien.’ Following the initial shock of the attacks, many in the West felt driven to understand “the Muslim world” (with much of that world being in, and of, the West) and the environment believed to have produced this new, very foreign, threat.
Yet the notion that this threat was solely ‘alien’ to Western society was soon challenged. The American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was followed by still more terrorist attacks – this time in Spain and the UK. The latter attack, on the London Transport system in July 2005, sent shockwaves throughout Europe – not because of the scale of the atrocity but because of the nationalities of the perpetrators. They were British-born. For some in the West, this confirmed their worst fears: that Muslim communities within their very midst could pose a security threat. After 7/7, concerns surrounding integration and assimilation became intertwined with counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation agendas and took on urgent importance.
Six years after 9/11 and two years after 7/7, these issues remain important. Indeed, as the gravity of the situation became clear, America began to suspect that if 9/11 were to repeat itself, the scenario would involve violent radicals entering the country with Western passports.
This paper looks to provide policy recommendations for Western governments with significant Muslim populations. To provide useful counsel, these recommendations are based on a narrative of events in the UK surrounding the 7/7 bombing and its aftermath (with some reference to the wider European context).
