A time for vigilance, and platitudes

As you take in the spectacle that is unfolding outside the Brampton courthouse, bear in mind that what you are watching is only a dry run.

We are of course only at the bail hearing stage; the trial proper will not be for some time. But even the trial to come is but the dress rehearsal for another trial, some inevitable day, when the charges will not concern a conspiracy to murder scores of innocent people, but the act itself -- when the proceedings will take place, not in the shadow of an atrocity that might have taken place but was happily averted, but in the bloody aftermath of a very real event. If you think things are overheated now, wait until then.

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service currently has on its watchlist at least 50 other terrorist cells in Canada, similar to the one alleged in the present case: young Muslim men who subscribe to an extreme interpretation of Islam, coupled with an even more extreme agenda of apocalyptic mayhem. For every cell the security forces know about, they estimate there are another 10 they do not know about.

Everyone is talking about how this case is a “wake-up call.” But if we are led to believe that, because this particular (alleged) attack was thwarted, the danger is past -- or that it is possible to prevent all future attacks -- we are little further ahead. The chances that the authorities can detect every last one of these plots in time to defuse them are remote. We can “harden the targets,” we can lengthen the odds, but the likelihood approaches certainty that some time, somewhere, one of them will break through.

What then? Rather ask: What now? We are about to undergo one of the greatest tests our society has yet had to endure -- that is, whether we can remain a coherent society, different social groups sheltering under the same broad set of beliefs, in the face of an existential threat originating from within one particular group.

In this regard, let me put in a good word for hypocrisy, euphemism and political correctness. The police and political leaders are under fire in certain quarters for issuing a series of pious platitudes after the recent arrests: that what was needed now was to reach out to the Muslim community, that the risk was great of a “backlash” against ordinary Muslims, even that religion had, in the words of the Toronto police chief, “nothing to do” with it.

True, most of this was nonsense. If, indeed, the accused in the present case -- 12 men and five boys, mostly young, mostly Canadian-born, all of them Muslim -- were plotting what the Crown alleges, religion had everything to do with it. It may be a perversion of the true Islam, it may have ideological overtones, but in every similar case around the world it has been true that those involved believed themselves to be acting in Islam’s name.

Most people have no difficulty whatever distinguishing between the handful of violent extremists and the broad mass of peaceful, law-abiding Muslims -- the chances of a “backlash” are in fact slight. At the same time, that an Islamist blood-cult seems to be abroad, and that a distressing number of young Muslim men seem drawn to it, ought to be cause for concern within the faith -- as indeed many Muslim leaders have been saying.

If logic prevailed, most people would probably agree with these statements. But logic does not always prevail, particularly in times of stress. If it is important to distinguish between the violent few and the law-abiding many, it is a distinction sometimes lost on Muslims themselves: if one says that “all of the terrorists were Muslims,” one is at risk of being heard to say that “all Muslims are terrorists.”

This is perfectly understandable. It can happen in any social group that, rightly or wrongly, feels itself besieged. And it is vital that those in positions of authority do everything they can to prevent that belief from taking root.

If we are to have any hope of preventing Islamic extremists from realizing their aims, it can only be with the cooperation of the surrounding community. I don’t mean for one second to suggest other Muslims are complicit in their plots. But it is also true that those in close contact with the conspirators -- neighbours, friends, family members -- will often have some knowledge that is useful to investigators, which they may or may not choose to pass along.

As a matter of civic obligation, of course they should. But people’s willingness to do the right thing is often conditional, not least where there is some risk to themselves in doing so. Let a generalized sense of alienation take hold among Muslims, let them feel that the rest of society views them with suspicion, as an inscrutable “enemy within,” and the chances of cooperation diminish. If official platitudes help to reduce that risk, let us have more of them.