Terror and Consent

4 September 2008

I rose relatively early today--I believe that it was a little after eight o' clock. I didn't go to breakfast, but Dwight and I had planned on visiting a T.K. Maxx--the British version of "T.J. Maxx"--in Kennington, because we are both in desperate need of clean underpants and arranging to use the laundry machines at the Arran House is a nuisance. We didn't have anything scheduled till one o' clock in the afternoon, but many people in the group wanted to go to Buckingham Palace and watch the Changing of the Guard. Unfortunately, our journey to the South Bank didn't lead to clean underwear since we couldn't ascertain how to reach T.K. Maxx from the Underground station. We asked for assistance from a few passersby, but in most cases, they looked at us strangely before giving us directions that were so vague as to be entirely useless. The only exception to this rule didn't even to bother to acknowledge Dwight. She simply lowered her head and continued to walk away.

When we returned to the Hotel, there wasn't much to do other than first hear how Ben managed to shatter the screen on his laptop and then diving into a small collection of excerpts and webpages, which Professor Rudalevige wanted us to read before we met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's advisor on Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism this afternoon. For the most part, the reading wasn't too overpowering; it was mostly informational, providing us a background in the state of terrorism law in the UK and the Brown government's ongoing efforts to extend the period during which British police may hold a suspected terrorist without filing charges. The most intimidating material was from Philip Bobbitt's recent book Terror and Consent (2008). Now to the greater mass of humanity, the name "Philip Bobbitt" doesn't mean much, and his fondness for jargon related to the law or national security issues, as well as the nuances of his ideas, can make him pretty opaque. Fortunately, having read Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles last summer, I had a handle to which I could grasp for dear life. All and all, I rather enjoyed the readings from Bobbitt, partially because it was interesting to see him further develop ideas he first expressed in The Shield of Achilles; I also savoured the fact that in many ways, Bobbitt is an old-fashioned, almost Whiggish, kind of historian who sees the flow of human history as a single prolonged story leading naturally to the present.

That is not to say that I didn't object to some of Bobbitt's contentions. In particular, I had certain misgivings about his claims that terrorism has not always been with us and that twenty-first century terrorism is somehow very different from what we've seen in the past (Bobbitt 5-7). First, in distinguishing contemporary terrorism from past forms, Bobbitt fails to account for the realities that we see in many instances across the globe. It is certainly true that the activities of Al-Qaeda and similar organisations are new to the world, not the least because they have been prompted by the teachings of Ibn Tamiyya, a radical cleric from the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries; however, the same cannot be said for the activities of such organisations as Hamas or Hezbollah. Regardless of one's opinions on the matter, I don't think that anyone would deny that for the Palestinians, terrorism has become a weapon in their struggle with Israel, a means for "wrest[ing] political control from the strong" (Bobbitt 5). We may object to the wisdom or the morality of their decision to resort to violence, but we can't deny that the Palestinians have done so out of a sense of frustration and powerlessness.

Second, Bobbitt's implication that the so-called War against Terror will one day arrive at some final conclusion is correct insofar as it relates to Al-Qaeda and other such organisations; but what of groups, such as the Palestinians, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), or ETA, that have resorted to terrorism in order to accomplish their political ends? Will they suddenly think it's pointless to continue simply because Osama Bin Ladin failed to drive the West out of Saudi Arabia? I don't believe so, because while I do agree that terrorism, as it is practiced by present-day groups like Islamic Jihad or Al-Qaeda, is about the use of violence for its own sake, the idea of terrorism still refers to a body of practices to which any person, group, or political entity may resort in pursuit of their political objectives. Put more directly, the word "terrorism" has a double meaning--it refers to both an ideology and a body of practices. Based on my admittedly inexhaustive reading of Terror and Consent, Bobbitt misses that.

Around one-thirty, we boarded a coach outside of the Arran House and headed toward the Cabinet Offices on Whitehall. The meeting with Mr. Hannigan went very well. I dozed a little during the initial presentation he and his assistants delivered, but when it was time for us to present questions, I was awake and ready-to-go. Our group acquitted itself fairly well, though I did detect a measure of myopia on both sides; on their side, they couldn't seem to see outside of their rarefied world of security alerts, control orders, torture, and wiretaps; on ours, we couldn't resist the opportunity to draw comparisons between internal security arrangements in the United States and the UK. Most people in our group--I suspect--found ours wanting, mostly because of the fact that President Bush was responsible for their introduction. Personally, I found the widespread use of surveillance cameras, control orders, and the possibility of detention to be simply horrifying. George Bush be damned.

Throughout our meeting with Mr. Hannigan, a favourite quotation of mine played again and again in my head. "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom," to quote William Pitt the Younger. "It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." I have written already about the (occasionally tense) combination of old and new that I have observed in the architecture of London; today, I saw how that phenomenon also encompassed the populace and their response to problems of national security, social justice, and personal freedom. The British people, once not very long ago, would not have permitted the government to maintain a complex of CCTV cameras so extensive that out of twelve hours an average Londoner spends on the streets, eight are observed by the authorities. Certainly, I can understand the British people's current support for the government's security arrangements in light first of the Irish troubles and now of the challenge posed by Islamic terrorism. But I simply pray that I do not live to see the day when the United States embraces such measures.

On a lighter note, after our meeting concluded around four o' clock, Dan, Duncan, Rob, and I returned to the Arran House for a while. I talked with Eiswerth through the wonder of Facebook chat before joining the others for dinner at The Fitzrovia, which is a pleasant little pub on Goodge Street. The meal was one of the finest I have had since I arrived here--lamb roast, Yorkshire pudding, boiled potatoes, mixed vegetables, gravy, and a pint of Bombardier. And perhaps more importantly for me, it was reasonably inexpensive; together, the beer and the food cost a little under ten pounds! We also had the opportunity to see the bartender, a somewhat flirtatious, petite brunette, toss out a person who, I suppose, refused to pay the full price of his bill. He was angrily declaring that he had paid a "pund for uht" and that the pub's prices "wer f--kin' b------t," even as the bartender escorted him through the front door. It was cool.

Afterwards, we attended a concert of Elgar and Tchiakovsky at the Royal Albert Hall. The music was exceptional, but I must confess that while I was impressed by the elegance and the power of Elgar's and Tchiakovsky's imaginations, I prefer Mussorgsky. Just my opinion. But if I must listen to a piece by a Russian composer, I would have it be "Night on Bare Mountain" or "Sketches from the Promenade." Returning to the Arran House a little after nine o' clock, I completed my journal entries for the preceding day and dabbled at some cards with a few people in the lobby before retiring to bed.