A day after the Brussels attacks and already there are serious questions for the European authorities to answer. Of the three known attackers, all had links to the Paris attacks four months ago.
Two were on the run, and yet still managed to plan and execute this attack, while a third had his DNA found in hideouts used by the Paris attackers – but he was not identified by police until the day before the Brussels attacks. It is beginning to appear as if a series of missed opportunities and intelligence oversights led to this latest tragedy.
What European politicians and police do next matters profoundly. Divisive talk of “us” and “them” serves no-one, and only exacerbates the very problem that we are all seeking to solve.
When European politicians talk of a “war”, they are using the same rhetoric that ISIL does. That is dangerous, and will only push more Europeans to travel to Raqqa. Already, Belgians make up the largest number of European citizens there, by population.
When they accuse the community in Molenbeek of somehow “knowing” something, they are making an offensive assertion. These were men on the run, hiding their identities – why do politicians imagine their next door neighbours would somehow know the truth?
So there are serious dangers: careful language, policy and policing are needed to make the situation less dangerous.
More broadly, there is the danger that public opinion will continue to turn against the migrants fleeing Syria. This is incredibly dangerous, for two reasons. The first is that this is precisely what ISIL is hoping for. By selling the narrative that Europe is fundamentally Islamophobic, it hopes to gain more recruits and more sympathisers.
But the other danger is that where public opinion goes, politicians follow. And if there is Syria fatigue, the impulse will be to leave Syria festering, to allow ISIL its space to plot attacks and train recruits. If that happens, then another attack is all but inevitable. Inaction today will bring dire tragedy later.
