Three Problems to Cope in the Fight Against Terrorism

At this point, at this stage of the war that terrorism is leading against us, Europe has three problems ahead of it, the last two, mainly, too difficult to solve. First, in theory (but only in theory) it's simpler, it's about foreign fighters, those who, even in the possession of a European citizenship, return to Europe after fighting in the Islamic state. The second with a much more difficult choice ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Finally, the third problem concerns what prices -- political and social -- we must pay to gain the operational co-operation of European Muslim communities with the aim of identifying, cutting off the pursuit of jihadists.

The first issue should not be difficult to find. It's about placing people at the European level -- translated into national legitimacy -- the rate proclaimed by returning war criminals from Islamic State -- who have committed crimes against humanity and who can still commit a course to arrest and be sentenced to long prison terms.

Otherwise, they would then be able to dance young men, guilty of atrocities, trained in the use of weapons and hardened warriors. There is no violation of liberal principles (it's just a pre-defence act) if they are in conditions not to do harm. It is absurd that these decisions have not yet been made.

Much more complicated is the second problem. It's about freedom/security confusion. It's about the issue, so hard to deal with in liberal democracies, powers of the state of emergency. Many who risk the lives of Europeans are not foreign fighters are people who have recently radicalized (as Guido Olympia wrote in Corriere). The issue, in its dramaticity, is simple: Either they stop before they strike or have to submit to the fact that many vulnerable people will die.

But if they are required to stop before they act, when they are still content with the display of jihadist ideas and the association of other radicalised people like them, then we need to understand how this can be compatible with protecting freedom of speech or expression. Restricting with expulsion (the once-used measure by European governments, even ours), is not enough. If part is composed of European citizens, for whom that measure cannot be implemented. Whether you drive them out remains a boom ready to explode elsewhere. I expel him from France or Italy, and he finds a way to kill (or recruit those who will kill) in Germany or Spain. Then what?

Clearly, it belongs to Europe (in the sense of the European Union) to show those who oppose the benefit that it is worth something even in the area of security. To avoid the possibility that the norms inclined to block jihadists while still posing a possible threat, cross the path, through which time can be passed in a position to strike everyone, clear agreements are needed in Europe, clear, well - established decisions. But something has to be done. Whoever says no, who says that it does not take ad hoc measures to confront Islamic terrorism (and that we should just submit to coexistence with it) recalls Ennio Flayanos' wonderful expression on revolutionaries building barricades with the furniture of others. They play on opportunities: they consider it a little bit possible that future victims of the assassinations are themselves, relatives or friends. The Liberals have always known to distinguish situations in which security is relatively guaranteed by situations when it isn't, and have always realized that in the second case, if it comes to sacrificing certain freedoms, it's better to become de jure, after a beating of public opinion, than actually, in silence, secretly, under the pressure of the need.

The third problem concerns future relations with European Muslim communities. Governments need to hold talks (glorily doing it) with those communities. It's about clarifying the content of inevitable political exchanges (to require their co-operation with European security devices in return for what?) It's disturbing not to speak out.

It must be decided what is treatable and what is not, what retaliations are acceptable and which are unacceptable. It's also about not legalizing the most extreme components of those communities. Often in Europe, it becomes a terrible mistake to call the “moderate” integrationists who don't kill. They don't kill but they are, culturally, family relatives of those who do. It's about choosing co-partners carefully so that the price paid in exchange for an aid to terrorism, not too high, not be one that takes Europe away from itself, from its history, from its principles. The sooner we start talking, the better. /Cerriere della Sera/

He wrote it: Eugen Merlica

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