We need more than bollards and bag searches to keep us safe

WINNING the war on terror? We’re not even trying, writes James Morrow. Bollards and bag searches amounts to fiddling while Rome burns.

Ariana Grande performs on stage during the One Love Manchester Benefit Concert in Manchester, following the terror attack which killed 22 of her fans. (Pic: Kevin Mazur/Getty)

A FEW dispatches, if you don’t mind, from the West’s war on terrorism.

Two weeks ago in Barcelona, Islamist terrorists killed more than a dozen civilians including young Sydneysider Julian Cadman in a co-ordinated attack which, were it not for the quick thinking of local cops, could have been exponentially worse.

Last week in Brussels, a man described in news report as “a 30 year old Belgian of Somali origin” was shot dead after attacking soldiers while yelling “Allahu Akbar” — God is great.

And yesterday promoters of Ariana Grande’s upcoming Australia tour announced that all bags, “even the tiniest clutch” according to one report, would be banned from venues, with fans only allowed to bring essentials like keys and money into the venue in clear plastic bag.

Ariana Grande deserves all the support in the world for going back on tour so soon after a suicide bomber targeted her young fans in Manchester, killing 22. Those who go to her shows in Australia also should be congratulated for turning out and doing everything the likes of IS and their sympathisers detest — namely, having unencumbered fun.

But the fact that security keeps being ratcheted up while the drumbeat of attacks small and large continues suggests that, a decade and a half after 9/11, we are hardly “winning the war on terrorism”.

In particular, as anyone who has noted the concrete diversity bollards going up around our CBDs or been subject to increasing delays and pat-downs at the airport will note, the whole bit about not letting them “change our way of life” is now honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

Melbourne hipsters may have decorated their new bollards, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less depressing. (Pic: Andrew Henshaw)

It is frankly amazing that this slow abrogation of our freedom has been accepted by citizens of the West amidst soothing nostrums about the relative danger of toppling fridges repeated so regularly on shows like Q&A.

While surveillance and security are all very well and good, it is astonishing that there hasn’t been more targeting of extremist mosques, and particular a banning of the foreign funding of religious institutions that provide cover for radicalisation.

In Britain, a recent report found that foreign funding for extremism comes mostly from Saudi Arabia — while the Saudis say don’t blame us, blame the Qataris, who keep the Muslim Brotherhood in business.

Surely a rational policy would be to prevent either country from funding religious activities in the West.

Similarly this is one area where the tyranny of distance has been a plus for Australia, for Europeans in particular, some sort of sanity will have to be brought to their immigration programs.

The plotters behind the Barcelona attacks were revealed to be mostly Moroccan asylum seekers, though given that Morocco is one of the most stable, liberal governments in the Arab world (it even recently saw power transferred peacefully to an opposition party) one wonders from what they could plausibly have been seeking refuge.

Nevertheless, the Spanish appear to have let them stay.

Add to this the problem of returning IS soldiers, who many European countries allow to come back and participate in various “deradicalisation” programs, and it’s not hard to see a security nightmare playing out for decades.

Winning the war on terror? We’re not even trying.

James Morrow is the opinion editor of Daily Telegraph.

Originally published as We need more than bollards and bag searches to keep us safe