Countering Twenty-First Century Terrorism
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Published date | 01 December 2015 |
| DOI | 10.1111/2041-9066.12110 |
| Author | Richard English |
| Subject Matter | Article |
22 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2015
Countering
Twenty-First
Century Terrorism
It is time that politicians recognised that minimising the threat from groups such as Islamic State and the
new IRA is far more realistic than pretending terrorism can be completely defeated, writes Richard English.
In 2003, Labour Party MP John
McDonnell, told a gathering to
London to commemorate Provisional
IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, that
republican terrorists should be ‘honoured’ for
their role in the ‘armed struggle’. McDonnell’s
comments re-emerged recently, in
the wake of his recent appointment as
Shadow Chancellor by Jeremy Corbyn. The
controversy stirred by his remarks reminds
us of the importance, and also the delicacy,
of political discussion of terrorism and
responses to it. While individual terrorist
organisations and campaigns will tend to
zzle out, terrorism as a method of political
struggle will outlive us all. But have we
actually learned from the long history of
terrorism and counter-terrorism? Are we
able to address this blood-stained mode of
political action in the 21st century? Or are
we still struggling to nd solutions to the
ever-present threat of terrorism?
Here, I want to argue that we have yet
to recognise as fully as we should, three
central realities of the problem of terrorism
in contemporary society: acknowledging
the relationship between terrorist violence
and state actions; the need to keep the
terrorist threat in proportion and to
respond appropriately; and the importance
of being realistic about what can be done
to counter terrorism.
Image: © Press Association.
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