What should we do about Islamic State: a view from Beirut, Malta’s neutrality, and the effects of a protracted war

'See the people, not the monsters'

Teodor Reljic speaks to Beirut-based journalist ANA MARIA LUCA

No sooner had the Paris attacks of 13 November rocked the news headlines, than a sizeable number of indignant voices complained that similar – and recent – attacks away from European soil failed to generate the same amount of attention, both from traditional and social media. 

In fact, an attack by the same group of Islamic extremists who coordinated the deadly attack on Paris also took place in Beirut just a day prior, as two suicide bombers detonated explosives in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, killing between 37 and 43 people. 

As has been pointed out since, the media did in fact cover this event – along with many others like it – but it would be a stretch to assume that they got equivalent play in the popular sphere as the Paris attacks did. 

Is this a question of skewed perspectives, or just a matter of proximity – geographical or otherwise? In comments to MaltaToday, Beirut-based journalist Ana Maria Luca said that it’s a mixture of both. But it’s also much more, and it’s precisely because the situation is so delicate and complex that we need to pay so much attention. 

“I feel it’s a bit complacent to say that, ‘we were covering it, you just didn’t read it’,” Maria Luca, who writes for NOW English, said. “I’m sure there are outlets that cover the Middle East and Africa, but they are very few. The mainstream channels don’t highlight them enough. It is also a question of what you report and how much interest your editors have in your stories. If they think in terms of proximity, then the cause is lost.”

Maria Luca insists that a massive paradigm shift needs to happen in order for the media to start responding to these varied contemporary realities in a ‘healthier’ fashion. For one – and back to the issue of proximity – we need to understand that nowadays, ‘proximity’ does not just equal geographical nearness. 

“I think it’s a matter of perceived cultural distance. It happened before: the reaction of the EU leaders and the EU people towards the Ukraine crisis and, respectively, the Syrian crisis. The distance from Brussels to Kiev or to Damascus is quite similar. But Ukraine is culturally closer.”

Maria Luca believes that lending more credence to this cultural distance is precisely what fans the flames of the nascent far right in Europe. And in a similar way, failure to take on a broader perspective helps to reinforce certain damaging stereotypes. An issue which also – indirectly – made waves in Malta is a case in point. 

“Initially, after the Egyptian and Syrian passports were found in Paris there was a huge anti-immigration hysteria across Western mainstream media. I can say people in Beirut were quite baffled, because they know how easy it is to get a fake Syrian passport. But no one really listens to them. It is frustrating.”

Maria Luca believes that the way forward would be for the media to do more in-depth reportage and not just “dry news” in the case of these events, because more often than not Islamic extremism arises from specific cultural contexts whose roots we would be better off for understanding, “because this is where the answers are”. 

While claiming that Islamic extremism isn’t the dominant ideology of the Middle East, Maria Luca warns that it’s gaining ground – “not because of its principles but because it gives disenfranchised people a platform to feel empowered, where they can assert their identity and where they feel they have the solidarity of others like them. 

“Some organizations capitalize on that. These are the stories we should tell the world; we need to look at the real why and the real how. And we need to show the people more than we show the monsters.”

This edges it all closer to her primary point: that the media needs to work harder to get at, and show the real human core behind these stories. This also means reporting on the healing process some of these communities go through. 

“I think we should write more about people, tell their stories more, go in-depth. That’s how you shake stereotypes and you bring people closer. There is also a lack of restorative narrative in journalism today. Journalists rarely follow up on what happens after the event. There is always a story of recovery, of readjustment.”

Does neutrality stop Malta from fighting ISIS?

Article 42.7 of the EU Treaty states that if a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other states are obliged to offer “aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. This shall not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policy of certain Member States.

“Commitments and cooperation in this area shall be consistent with commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those States which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.”

Jacques Rene Zammit, a lawyer specialised in EU law, declares outright that the clause does not expressly mean a sure route to war. “It won’t mean that we will have AFM troops patrolling the Champs Elysees any time soon. The emphasis in article 42(7) is on aid and assistance and, more specifically, on the fact that the ‘security and defence policy’ of certain member states should not be prejudiced.”

This means two things, Zammit says. The first is France has to negotiate individually with any other member state “and crucially without the need to use any of the EU institutions, any temporary form of aid and assistance.”

“Each member state is responsible for determining its contribution on the basis of what they deem to be necessary, which does not necessarily mean the deployment of military assets,” he says.

Secondly, and more importantly in the eyes of many in Malta, Zammit says the fact that the security and defence policy of certain member states is clearly invoked is a direct reference to the ‘neutral’ status of states such as Ireland, Austria and Finland – to give an example of some others.

“Notwithstanding any interpretation of military intervention that might be given by states dealing under this article, this obligation stops when the security and defence policy of certain States does not allow it. The second paragraph referring to NATO commitments is a further reinforcement of this distinction.”

In a nutshell, Zammit is dispelling any fanciful notion that Malta is “at war” because France has said so by invoking article 42(7) of the TEU.

“Modern politicians of the Hollande mould have a tendency to slip quickly into the language of war once a terrorist attack takes place. This ‘tradition’ is new to this century ever since George W. Bush declared war on Al-Qaeda. Unlike the 1970s and 1980s, when a terrorist bomb attack or shooting never really translated into a casus belli, the political psyche of the post 9/11 words seems to require such heavy handed references and we are living in an age where France will now even try to provoke the UN to declare a war on a state whose existence nobody beyond the self-declared caliphate acknowledges.”

Then there is the old chestnut that is how to frame Malta’s constitutional neutrality, the expressly stated equidistance from Cold War powers USA and the Soviet Union that has never been updated since 1986.

“The significance of such clauses dwindles into nothing when one considers that they were intended to deal with a specific battle between superpowers – a battle that no longer exists – and that in any case they would be invoked in case of a war between states, and not neutrality in the face of the war on terrorism,” Zammit says.

So it is yet to be seen what Joseph Muscat will bring to the table in the fight against Islamic State, and whether – as hinted in an early statement – the Maltese government will use its constitutional neutrality to sit out on this engagement.

“I am not advocating participation by Malta in military activity. But Malta’s attitude towards security and its contribution to ensuring that the borders of the European Union are impervious to terrorists leaves much to be desired. From the Algerian visa scandal to the thousands of Libyan residence permits… all this transforms Malta into one big Trojan horse for entry into the EU. These are ample examples as to how Malta’s contribution to the war on terror could be vastly improved.”

More bombs will push alienated European muslims towards jihadism

Jurgen Balzan

The French government’s immediate reaction to the Paris carnage was both predictable and to a certain extent natural. 

“The sponsors of the attack in Paris must know that their crimes further strengthen the determination of France to fight and to destroy them. We must do more. Syria has become the largest factory of terrorists the world has ever known,” President François Hollande said while French military forces intensified strikes against ISIS in Syria. 

The need to defuse the threat posed by ISIS in the Middle East and the rest of the world is unquestionable, as is the need for greater security in Europe, but more bombs in a country devastated by a four-year civil war is hardly the answer.

The Syrian conflict has forced some 12 million people to leave their home or flee the country altogether. Hundreds of thousands are trying to reach Europe as they escape from the Syrian regime’s barrel bombs and the Islamic State’s fascist utopia. 

Throwing more bombs at Syria could have the same results as that of building higher walls around Europe and excluding whole communities on religious or ethnic basis. 

Declaring a war on ISIS is tantamount to legitimising their existence and their pretentions of being a fully-fledged state. It also galvanises their cause. 

This week, four former US air force service members wrote an open letter to US president Barack Obama warning that bombings in Iraq and Syria “fuelled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like Isis, while also serving as a fundamental recruitment tool similar to Guantanamo Bay.”

Bombs and exclusion have led some 3,000 Muslims from Europe to travel to the Middle East to participate in jihad. More bombs in the Middle East and more exclusion in Europe will only push alienated and disadvantaged Europeans towards jihadism.

Fomenting division between Muslims and non-Muslims or Westerners and non-westerners will only create new recruits for ISIS and galvanise their perverted cause. 

ISIS members have confirmed that one of the books in the organisation’s curriculum is ‘Management of Savagery’, written by an anonymous jihadi ideologue who goes by the name of Abu Bakr Naji.

In essence the book advocates the destruction of “apostate” Muslim regimes to make them fall into a state of “savagery”, allowing them to be rebuilt under an Islamic caliphate. 

Clearly, defeating ISIS on a military level will not end violent extremism but it is a necessary step in defeating jihadi terrorism. But the real alternative to waging yet another war is two-pronged. Provide greater security in Europe and support governments and forces that are genuinely opposed to the Islamic group’s ideology. 

Making Europe more secure is a priority but this should not come at the cost of privacy, inclusion and diversity. The fight against terrorism should not impinge on our freedoms and human rights. 

Beyond Europe’s borders, the biggest military victories against ISIS have been scored by Kurdish fighters. 

Yet, instead of supporting the Kurds, who remain one of the most persecuted stateless people around the globe, the US and its European allies talk about waging war while cosying up and selling weapons to the despotic regimes in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

In the convoluted power struggle in the region, ISIS suits the major players’ interests. While Russia has entered the fray to eliminate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s enemies, who have nothing to do with ISIS, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan is using the fight against the jihadists as an excuse to attack Kurdish forces.

To add insult to injury, Turkey tacitly provides political, economic, and military support to ISIS in order to defeat Assad. As does Saudi Arabia, ISIS’s spiritual mentors. 

On a political level, France and the West must seize the moment and back countries such as Tunisia, who are the prime targets in ISIS’s strategy of savagery. 

Otherwise, ISIS will become the only alternative to despotic and brutal regimes which feed the West’s insatiable appetite for dollars and oil.