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New York, December 19, 2009 – One factor that has
limited the number of terrorist attacks by Muslims on American soil has
been the generally patriotic and highly-assimilated nature of America's
Muslim community. But the New York Times reports some Muslim leaders are
becoming reluctant to cooperate with the FBI, due in part to efforts by
FBI informants to solicit young men to join terrorist sting operations
and other high-pressure tactics.
In March, a national coalition of Islamic organizations warned that it
would cease cooperating with the F.B.I. unless the agency stopped
infiltrating mosques and using “agents provocateurs to trap unsuspecting
Muslim youth.” In September, a cleric in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, sued the
government, claiming that the F.B.I. had threatened to scuttle his
application for a green card unless he agreed to spy on relatives
overseas —echoing similar claims made in recent court cases in
California, Florida and Massachusetts.
The danger with these kinds of tactics is that once alienation sets in
amongst the population authorities are trying to work with, they tend to
become self-reinforcing. Lack of cooperation justifies more
confrontational tactics and infiltration, which makes people ever more
reluctant to work with authorities. And every time a violent incident
does occur, it elicits a harsher and more discriminatory approach.
Eventually it begins to play a political role: parties can reap
political advantages from advocating "tough" policies which create
further resentment and friction with the profiled population, and that
resentment and friction in turn wins more votes for the "tough"
politicians. Countries that get caught up in that sort of ethnic
polarisation can stay there for a long time, particularly if the
minority that's being profiled is small enough that the friction isn't
terribly costly.
I've always thought these kinds of situations can probably be sketched
with a sort of Laffer curve. In principle, you're going to be able to
get the same amount of terrorist violence at two places along a curve of
repressive law enforcement: a low-repression point, where the population
is cooperative and feels included, and a high-repression point, where
the population is angry and alienated but a lot of them are in jail.
It's worth expending some effort to try and stay on the low end of that
curve.
(Photo credit: AFP)
Source: The Economist, Dec 18th 2009
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