Nothing left to defend

In the aftermath of the London Bombings, Tony Blair advocated for "business as normal" and said that terrorism would not change the British way of life. Now, in the name of fighting terrorism, he wants to deport people who read things he doesn't like, close down mosques where people say things he doesn't like, and proscribe groups who believe things he doesn't like - regardless of whether they actually do anything or not. He also wants to deport refugees to countries where they will be tortured, and extend the police's power to detain people without charge - as if the present fourteen days was not obscenity enough. There are all sorts of things I want to say to this: that none of these measures would have helped prevent the London attacks; that they repeat the mistakes of Northern Ireland; that you do not win a war of ideas through censorship; that they play into Osama bin Laden's hands by making it more difficult for moderate Muslims to live in western societies; that this is "giving in to terrorism" in its most fundamental sense. But instead, I'll echo the Guardian's response: this "cure" is worse than the disease. The terrorists won't need to destroy western civilisation (as if they ever could), because Tony Blair will have done it for them. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience and freedom from torture are absolutely fundamental to the western way of life, and if we sacrifice them in order to fight terrorism, then we have nothing left to defend.