Immanence vs. Imminence
At the beginning of last week, our Prime Minister assured us that the word “the” needed to be changed to “a” in order for police to foil a terrorist attack. It now appears to have been foiled. These appear also, however, to be the same people identified a year ago as having been videotaping landmarks and industrial sites as part of a planning operation towards maybe conducting an attack of some kind. At that time, they were merely kept under surveillance as “persons of interest,” and nothing further was done. Now, however, that they can be arrested regardless of whether “a” terrorist action occurs, instead of the one they were planning under the old wording, arrests have been made.

Yeah, I’m being a bit snarky here, but not because alleged terrorists have been arrested. No, I’m mainly interested to see what will happen in the courts. The word change in the law under which they’ll be charged seems vague to me, suggesting that the government is attempting to reduce its burden of proof to such a level that the case may end up being thrown out. I don’t suppose I’ve got any Q.C. reading this, so it may be hard to find a solid opinion, and I’ll just have to wait to see if it travels up to the High Court.

Meanwhile, over in France, rioting continues, and while it has nothing to do with what many are taking the opportunity to describe as a clash of civilizations, linking the riots to terrorist groups without any regard to the facts, there is a concern that disaffected and marginalized Muslims in the slums of Paris are prime recruiting targets for terrorist organizations (n.b., the WSJ article – and, hey, look: the Journal’s free this week; thanks, Gothamist – is addressing mainstream groups gaining influence, not terrorists, although they still don’t like it), just as outfits like Hezbollah used the failure of the PLA to transition itself into a mainstream political party to gain support among Palestinians. France’s tradition of what might be called “monoculturalism,” which has always been a hollow promise of equality among its citizens, at least for those who come from former colonies and the like, is proving the success of multiculturalism, but also the pitfalls for any society where distinctions of class or race or ethnicity or gender or . . . are allowed to excuse prejudices. Reading Gotham regarding the rise of the Irish in NYC in the 19th century, it’s clear that historically, a failure to allow integration lies at the heart of conflicts between groups, rather than any refusal to assimilate, and this is where France is having its problems now. So while it’s important to note that what’s happening in Paris and increasingly around the nation is class-based, the potential for it to become cultural is a danger that must be addressed as much as the law-and-order issues, and one that even multicultural societies would do well to act on, too.