May 21, 2007
The view from the US
US homeland security chief Michael Chertoff swept into Brussels to soothe European concerns about an anti-terror agreement that gives Washington information on airline travellers. To recap: some Europeans are fuming about an American requirement for airlines to supply the US with data (passport, credit card, seating information and more) on passengers flying to the country. The debate – often portrayed here as the US trampling on fundamental rights – rumbles on. Negotiators are trying to update the data-sharing deal and Chertoff gave well-oiled answers about why it was crucial to fight terrorism. But it was his comments on the roots of terrorism that caught my attention. First, he was asked about the differences in radicalisation in the EU and the US, then he moved onto some more general observations.
Chertoff gave incisive responses, even if he answered mostly with further questions. Still, it was interesting to hear the discussion move on from the confines of the dispute over air passenger records.
Here’s a snapshot of his comments:
"Are there ways that we [in the US] have been able to assimilate and bring immigrants into the mainstream that have helped us avoid radicalisation and recruitment?
Is there a relationship between the fact that, in the US, Muslims are generally better-educated and more prosperous than the average? Is that a positive factor?
What is there in the ideology of extremism that is appealing and what does it have to say about inter-generational conflict, younger people rebelling against the old generation?
I think that there are some common challenges that we all face in the west. I think there are some unique challenges for every country because every country has a different experience with migrants and that history and those cultural experiences tend to create different sociological patterns.
We are trying to understand what is the appeal of this ideology, how do people move from becoming ideologically extreme to becoming operational and wiling to kill themselves.
One of the things that struck me was if you looked at some of the people who were convicted in London in the most recent conviction who have been charged in some of the other terrorist acts it is not just teenagers. Some of them are people who have children. Usually, individuals with children or people who are married are considered to be stable and to have outgrown the kind of rebelliousness that sometimes leads them into violent behaviour."
