Paris has been attacked. Many innocent people murdered. France is at war – or so says Francois Hollande.
Who is France at war with? ISIS (ISIL/Daesh)? Syria? Jihadi terrorists? It’s own population?
Europe suffered during WWII, but it became a bright beacon of freedom when it produced the European Convention on Human Rights. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association a right to privacy and freedom from discrimination. Europe developed further, into a Union of countries bringing greater social cohesion and cooperation with neighbouring countries.
Then there was Schengen and a core component of the European Union ‘freedom of movement’. Essentially, once you’re within the Union borders you can move around from country to country very easily. What is seemingly overlooked is that the expansion of the Union has brought its borders closer to nations more sympathetic to the cause of the creation of an Islamic caliphate. It wasn’t too long ago that the EU and Turkey were negotiating for Turkey to join the Union, but since then Turkey has elected a government that is certainly more Islamic and the secularism that the country fostered is diminishing.
Imagine if Turkey had become a member of the EU. The migrant crisis would have a more urgency and ISIS would literally be on the doorstep. NATO and its allies and the European Union would be committed to war against ISIS. But this didn’t happen. Instead ISIS has brought the war to mainland Europe and it has France in its sites, but it won’t stop there.
The EU is a magnet for migrants and refugees and each citizen should be proud of this as it shows that Europe is a success; culturally, economically and the individual freedoms it affords everyone within it. However, it is now a victim of its own success.
The freedoms that are enshrined in EU law have now become its Achilles heal and this had led respective governments to be too ‘hands off’ when dealing with minorities in minority communities who’s beliefs are in fatal opposition to our own. Yet these minorities grow with the incoming refugee population.
The law needs to catch up and wide ambit that it currently affords to hostile individuals needs to be reigned in. Where there is suspicion can we afford ‘free movement’, the rights to associate with others and brainwash them, should the right to practice a perverted form of Islam be permitted?
Greater controls are required to prevent the return of Jihadis to the EU and when not born within the EU their citizenship should be revoked and returned to the country of birth. A collective EU effort should be made to generate memoranda of understanding that the receiving country will not execute any of the returnees before this can happen, but if there is a will this can happen.
This of course raises the question, what do we do with the ‘home grown’ terrorists, those born in the Union, in France, in Belgium? The rule of law and freedom must prevail, but the EU and respective governments must do more to challenge it and prevent it.
Freedoms should be for those who espouse and demand freedom, not for those who’s every breath is determined to destroy our way of life. Right now laws in Europe enable Islamic terrorism and new legislation is required to prevent it.
facta non verba 