Beware the traps of the Jihadists

A mass murder of schoolchildren in Peshawar, northern Pakistan, has shocked and stunned a country already too familiar with terrorist atrocities. It has sent a warning round the world that jihadism, violence falsely justified in the name of Islam, is now the greatest single threat to world peace. It came soon after a lone jihadi took, held and threatened to kill civilian hostages in central Sydney, Australia, only to be killed, along with two innocent victims, when security forces stormed the premises. Terrorist incidents like these are based on an entirely mistaken reading of human nature – the assumption that at some point the resolve of states and their peoples will be broken, and jihadi demands will be met. In fact, each atrocity makes compromise with the perpetrators of such evil less conceivable. The answer to terrorism is to refuse to be terrorised.

These terrorists do not just seek surrender. They also promote hatred. And the hatred they want to foment is between Muslims and non-Muslims, so that even moderate members of that faith find themselves driven into the extremist camp. The antidote is to recognise that at root, the conflict that jihadists are engaged in is within Islam, not between Islam and the West. Public opinion in Pakistan, in the wake of the Peshawar attacks, is no longer tempted to cut the Taliban some slack on the grounds that it is advancing ends that can be approved of, even if the means cannot. In fact, the attack may have been the product of a change of opinion within the Pakistani military and intelligence services. Pro-Taliban groups that had previously been tacitly protected have been subjected to full-frontal assault by the Pakistani army. The school that was attacked was full of the children of army personnel, so it was motivated by revenge. But far from deterring further measures against the jihadists, the prospect now is for all-out war.

What stood out from events in Sydney was the key role played by local Muslim leaders, supported by prominent churchmen, in urging calm and communal harmony. It would be disastrous to allow neighbour to be turned against neighbour because ordinary Muslims were being held guilty of jihadists’ crimes. Jihadism is closer to a death cult, a manifestation of collective psychosis. Even the term “extremist” implies they are on the same spectrum as moderate Muslims, whereas they are on a different scale altogether.

This principle should govern public policy at all levels. It could easily be counterproductive to deal with young British Muslims who return from jihadism in Syria and Iraq as if they were invariably serious criminals – one of them was recently sentenced to 12 years. This could undermine faith in the fairness of the British justice system and discourage the flow of intelligence that is vital if jihadist attacks are to be frustrated. The British authorities must be seen to stand shoulder to shoulder with moderate Muslims. Campaigns against Muslim immigrant communities elsewhere in Europe – there have been nasty incidents, for instance, in Germany – are thoroughly misconceived and dangerous. They do the jihadists’ dirty work for them.