What are Extremism and Terrorism?
Was it useful to label Extinction Rebellion as a terrorist organisation? How is terrorism different from extremism?
Things mentioned in this podcast:
- Extinction Rebellion are included in a list of extremist groups
- Global Terrorism Database
- Proscribed terrorist groups list
- Terrorism Act 2006
- UK Counter-Extremism Strategy
For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Peter Coghill and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing Extinction Rebellion. Peter, go for us, what do we want to talk about with Extinction Rebellion?
Speaker B:So recently Extinction Rebellion appeared on a publication by the Counter-Terrorism Policing Southeast who are a counter-terrorism organisation affiliated with very southeastern police organisations which suggests it's not, so it's not, they weren't, they didn't appear, just for the avoidance of doubt, they didn't appear on the official list of banned or terrorist organisations that is controlled by the Home Office and other central government, they appeared on a sort of local publication and the main controllers of the official terrorism list, they distance themselves from this etc. But obviously this attracted a lot of criticism, particularly notably from Keir Starmer and other sort of top politicians that this is a slightly ridiculous thing to happen because their manifesto is that they are completely non-violent etc, albeit disruptive, they're non-violent and indeed they really do not sort of qualify as a terrorism organisation based on the official criteria that the Home Office Prevent Programme uses. So the question really is, well okay, why did this happen, was that a useful thing to do and in more general terms, what is terrorism, what is extremism and
Speaker A:are they useful as labels? Yeah okay, and that's what I want to go, I'm sure we're going to break this down is with prevent, how do they define terrorism, but you mentioned the first thing there, how did that happen, do we really want to go into that or do we just want to go straight onto the,
Speaker B:you know, what is a terrorist thing? I don't feel I'm qualified to go into that, I don't know why they'd put them there other than this was a part of a wider publication describing things that people should look out for amongst people's behaviour that might be indicative of
Speaker C:certain ideologies and things. So someone starts talking about wanting to plant a tree or something as an indicator that they could be radicalised by Extinction Rebellion.
Speaker A:Just say, Peter, I'll keep my eye on Nick, okay, just in case he's a terrorist, and Nick,
Speaker C:you and I, we can all watch out for each other, we can have an eye on vigilance. Yeah and you
Speaker B:two can keep an eye out on me. Well yeah, I mean we'd yes, but it's like something I'd like to go into at some point, maybe now, is to what degree is, do we have a sort of social responsibility beyond like preventing harm through violent action etc, but to what extent do we have a social responsibility to prevent people from subscribing to ideologies that cause them to be particularly close-minded or resistant to rational scrutiny and sort of introspection?
Speaker A:Well I think, let's hop straight to that because it's a difficult one to discuss if we're sort of, you know, three middle-class white males, sort of middle, you know, it's a tricky one because they tend not to be the people who become terrorists. I'm sure that's not quite the right way to put it but I don't feel any responsibility because it just seems really unlikely to me.
Speaker B:I know but perhaps though, a thought experiment, you would, if you had a neighbour who suddenly became very, very... Their behaviour's only changed. Well their behaviour's only changed but they started believing absolutely in Scientology or some other slightly questionable belief and they started, you know, they started indoctrinating their children and they closed themselves off from society and they were suffering sort of not only materially and sort of, you know, socially but also perhaps sort of mentally and you would feel some sort of responsibility. I would, I would. You know, perhaps helping them challenge their beliefs in a way and sort of helping them try to consider other things.
Speaker C: Counter-Extremism Strategy in: Speaker B:So like Rees-Mogg does.
Speaker C: there's in the Terrorism Act: Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, it poses some interesting questions because it makes you think of some of those, for example, you know, the horrible, tragic mass shootings that you get in the US, for example. Some of those just seem to be, let's say, like Columbine, arguably the most famous of them, seems to be fairly kind of without any kind of reason. Whereas there are some attacking a mosque, for example, which seems like it would fit into that definition. So that's one side of it. But also, what about state-sponsored terrorism? So it's not actually the state, but supporting, you know, Hezbollah, for example, who I presume are classed as a terrorist group. I don't know about them.
Speaker C:I mean, yeah, there's plenty of examples of state sponsorship of quite high-profile terrorist groups. Peter, want to jump in here with anything? No, not really. I do have some data on different terrorist groups and their motivations, which I think could might shed some light on what we're kind of dealing with. Yeah, okay. So I looked at the Global Terrorism Database, the aforementioned GTD, one of the best databases in the world, look it up. And looked at, over the last 20 years, all the terrorist attacks in the UK versus all the ones in the US, and tried to look at who were the most prolific terrorists and who were the deadliest terrorists. So in the UK, do you want to have a stab at who the most prolific category of terrorists are?
Speaker A:Category of terrorists?
Speaker C:Yeah, think of, I mean, you have a guess and you'll be-
Speaker A:I mean, Northern Ireland, I mean, are we talking about that kind of thing?
Speaker C:Yeah, by far and away in the UK, Northern Ireland, there have been about 400 terrorist attacks by Northern Irish-related groups.
Speaker A: orry, over what period? Since: Speaker C:Yeah, and whereas the always terrifying Islamist groups have only conducted 23. And then we have some other possibly surprising things. So the far right, 28, so the far right have committed more terrorist acts than Islamists. Anarchists responsible for 19 terrorist attacks. Animal rights people, 16. So essentially, it's Northern Ireland and the rest. But when you start looking at the deadliness of these attacks, the Islamists come out way ahead because of largely 7-7. So largely because of that one attack, the Islamists on average per attack kill four people, whereas everyone else is, I mean, way below zero. So, sorry, way below one. So the far right on average kill one person for every 10 terrorist attacks. And then that goes right down to, you know, anarchists haven't killed anyone. And yeah. I would have thought Northern Ireland would be relatively low as well. Yeah, yeah, Northern Ireland terrorism kills about one person every 10 attacks. So yeah, you're looking at prolific is not the same as deadly in the context of, so you've got two ways of, you know, being scary as a terrorist group. But in total, which is, I guess what we're interested in, Islamists have killed more people, killed 100 people, whereas in Northern Ireland only about 40 in the same period. So if we'd have a look at the US now. Yeah. It's a very similar pattern. Islamists have committed 80 terrorist attacks in that 20 year period, whereas the far right have committed 142. And then again, a bunch of sort of hangers on, which are the environmentalists, 72 terrorist attacks and animal rights, anti-abortion, 33, black nationalist groups, a mere 14. But once again, when you look at deadliness, it's very different. So Islamists, September the 11th, massively ups their average. So they have a death rate of about 40 people per attack. But of course, that's almost all skewed by September the 11th. The far right actually are much deadlier in the US. They on average kill just over one person per attack. And obviously, this is small sample effects, but you'll be surprised to hear that radical incels, involuntary celibate people, they kill on average five people per attack. But that's because, and this comes back to your point, frustrated men, this comes very much back to your point of, you know, someone who's a school shooter and just wants to kill their classmates. Yeah. They're just they're just a school shooter. This is a murderer. But someone who does it and says they're doing it on behalf of incels the world over becomes a terrorist, gets into the database. And so, yeah, these are shootings by people who say, you know, they're doing it on behalf of oppressed, you know, men who have been oppressed by women.
Speaker B:Are there any flat earthers in there?
Speaker C:No, I don't. Flat earthers are not, as far as the database is concerned, particularly violent in their pursuits. Yeah. So now Peter's going to say that he, you know, he would probably, he'd probably prefer Islamists to flat earthers because he's got a real downer on those guys.
Speaker A:He does. He doesn't like them, does he? Yeah. OK, well, look, I guess in that we've delved into just the different kind of terrorists that you are, that you can have. And I mean, I guess they can be split. Yeah, we can split up thematically. And we've explored this sort of, you know, what's the difference between a lone shooter? Will that lone shooter become something else when they've got a cause? Where are we with all this? We've talked about what is an extremist? What is a terrorist? Should we be watching out for around us for terrorists? Peter?
Speaker B:We've not really, as usual, in typical Aleph Insights style, not really tackled the actual question we posted at the head of the programme. I forgot what it was. It was about Extinction Rebellion, wasn't it? Is terrorism, is extremism, are they are these useful labels? Right. So from a sort of pragmatic point of view, so we don't like them. So they're bad for business. They're bad for life and productivity in the country. So we feel we need to legislate against people doing bad things and being motivated to do bad things because they might end up doing bad things, right? So we need to give them a label. We need to give them some sort of legal label that we can say, right, you are, we think you're a terrorist. So we are going to watch you, surveil you, possibly arrest you. But from that pragmatic point of view, yes, they are useful and they're necessary. But in terms of wider things, wider society, wider life, are they detrimental? Is it a problem to label people as terrorists?
Speaker C:Well, I'm going to disagree with Peter's premise here. What he said was that it was a useful distinction. And I'm going to say I don't think it is. Murderers, you know, those guys, you know, murderers. Yeah, you've heard of them. They kill around about, I think there's something of the order of 700, 800 murders a year in Britain, right, which makes them about 20 times deadlier than than terrorists. Now, if those murderers were to get together and form something called murderers for death or something, call it a group and start saying murdering people was great, right? Hey, presto, they would become a terrorist group. And, you know, if they said, right, all you've got to do to get into our gang is commit a murder and hey, presto, you're automatically part of the group. You know, they switch from being just a bunch of murderers to being labeled as a terrorist group. So what? Like, my view would be, as far as I'm concerned, it like that wouldn't be worse. Um, it wouldn't necessarily be better, but it wouldn't be worse than what the current situation. You know, I don't I don't see what it why it particularly helps, you know, saying that terrorism is worse somehow than an equivalent act committed just in isolation or without that intent to to affect other people.
Speaker B:I'm not sure that it is considered worse.
Speaker C:Well, it is a special legislation. I mean, if you're if you're a terrorist, you get worse. You get more worse.
Speaker B:You could argue that there's special legislation for murderers because we've got sort of.
Speaker C:Because if you're a murderer, you're going to get a lighter sentence than if you do something which is a terrorist act.
Speaker B:Is that the case?
Speaker C:Yeah, that's that's why they've got the separate legislation. It's not just murder, is it? If you can commit a terrorist attack, it's a whole terrorist act which makes terrorism a worse offence.
Speaker B:Is that borne out?
Speaker C:It's certainly not a lighter offence. Otherwise, we'd all be terrorists.
Speaker B:They're equivalent. They're sort of roughly equivalent.
Speaker C:Well, they're not because they're one includes the other, isn't it? I mean, if you if you if you like those those two guys who murdered that soldier, you know, they would consider terrorism and terrorists and were treated more harshly as a result than just murderers. So and what I'm saying is I don't get it. I don't I don't I just don't get why why that adding pasting on an intent to to affect some kind of social change or political change. Why? Why that makes it worse?
Speaker B:I mean, well, maybe maybe the intent is that it acts as a deterrent against that kind of thinking. So we say, well, we're going to sting you. We're going to we're going to prosecute you for a murder like charge and you're going to go away for life. And we're also going to tack on some more more punishment because you're motivated for this reason in the hope that other people who see that witness this go, OK, so I was about to become a terrorist. But actually, I'm dissuaded from thinking like that because I'll get a job in Greggs
Speaker C:instead.
Speaker B:I'll get a job in Greggs. So I'm dissuaded from I'm dissuaded from it because I know I'll be penalized to a greater extent. So it's like a war on that idea.
Speaker C:I think that sounds very plausible to me, because I think the idea being that murderers in general are deterred by quite different things. So if your motivation is social or political change. Yeah, you know, you might. Well, there are other ways of dealing with that. You know, there are maybe nonviolent methods of pursuing that. Whereas if you want to kill someone, the only way you can do that really, as far as I know, is to kill them. Yeah.
Speaker A:So exactly. So you're kind of getting to a point that I want to make is that do murderers think it's bad to murder? Do they think it's morally wrong to murder? And I suspect that after the event, the majority of murderers would say, yeah, no, it is a bad thing.
Speaker C:We wouldn't want to make it like a general rule that everyone could go around murdering each other. Yeah. Not even murderers. Not even murderers would think that.
Speaker A:Yeah, but I think you're underestimating terrorists. But hold on, let me finish. But terrorists after the event would probably still say, no, it is justified to kill someone. They might not want to call it murder, but it is justified to kill someone because of X, Y, Z injustices, whatever their causes are. That's the difference, right? And that's maybe why they're penalised more heavily.
Speaker C:So I think the death, let's sort of generally structure that. What we're saying, I think, is that with a murderer, the death is the end of the action. That's the point of the action. With a terrorist, the murder is like the cost of the action, which is actually some kind of other change that you want to affect. So, but I would suspect that most terrorists wouldn't say, well, the people who died deserve to die in some way, but more that the cost is worth the potential benefit. Now, there's a whole other question about whether terrorism works. I think in general, it basically doesn't. Like, it doesn't achieve the goals which the terrorists themselves, by and large, want to achieve. And so, but I mean, yeah, I don't think most terrorists would think that there was something good about killing people, by and large, but that it's a necessary evil. Very much like, but that's very similar to the calculations we might have made when we were thinking about bombing German cities during the war or any other, or using the atom bomb in Japan. I mean, those kinds of calculations happen. I don't see that that calculation on behalf of a terrorist would be, you know, would be not, it's not qualitatively dissimilar from the kinds of calculations people make about, you know, risks and benefits when they're doing all kinds of things.
Speaker A:Yeah. I felt that, I feel that we have sort of got further along than I thought we were in the middle of that. So, that's good. We need to wrap up fairly swiftly. Before we do, has anyone got anything they would like to add?
Speaker C:I think there is a bit of an analogy which I thought of, which is, just to make things even lighter than what we're already discussing, genocide. So, I think the similar question here is, like, genocide is particularly, is considered particularly bad by the international community. I think there are kind of, you can be, if you're prosecuted for genocide, it's like much worse than just, you know, you being an average war criminal. And yet, you know, so I, but I don't really get that. I don't, I don't, I don't really understand why it's worse to kill six million people to try and wipe out whatever a race is, than it is to just kill six million people, which seems pretty bad to me in the first place. So, I think that's a, to me, that is a similar question.
Speaker A:I think it is a similar question. It goes back to this question of intention and motivation, doesn't it? Yeah.
Speaker C:And Peter's question right at the beginning of, you know, are there beliefs we just don't like? Like, we don't, we don't want, but there are certain beliefs, we're basically punishing the belief which underlies the action, as well as the action. Because I think most of the time, we don't think of beliefs as being something we particularly want to punish. But in fact, we do. We do do that.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, we do. Yeah. Peter, anything to add? Well, just that that dovetails back to this, the idea of the, in the official definition of extremism that relates to our fundamental values. And I think probably one of our fundamental values would include a sort of right to free thought and free expression. And so, the many extremist groups, they are, their ideology is anti-thought and, you know, rationalism. So, they're sort of non-rational progressives in that they have a particular mindset. And if you're, if you don't absolutely believe that, you're out. You're not in the in group.
Speaker C:I, you know, I'm not, if, when you think of the kind of rhetoric of some of the far right groups, I'd say someone like Tommy Robinson or something, you know, they're sort of, one of the things that they came to oppose is the sort of thought police, you know, is kind of political correctness, getting in the way of, you know, looking at real social problems and stuff. So, I don't know. I'm not sure I'm persuaded that sort of terrorist groups are necessarily anti-free thought.
Speaker B:I think that's a rhetorical turning the problem on its head. I think they are, I think sort of one of the fundamental facets of that kind of fascism is that it's like, it's, they're closed, but they've got a particular ideology. And they are dedicated to that. And if you're questioning it, then you're not a true believer. And that's it. They then sort of attacking the progressive left, et cetera, and the thought police. I think that's just a rhetorical argument.
Speaker A:Although it does remind me of a few years ago, there was this ultra-liberal terrorist essentially.
Speaker C:That's no way to describe Vince Cable.
Speaker A:Or Jeremy Corbyn. So, there was this ultra-liberal terrorist in the Netherlands. If you're going to get an ultra-liberal terrorist somewhere, it's going to be, you know, and, you know, he was, I think he was, I think he was anti-Islamist, you know, and I can't remember if he committed some... You don't mean Hickvilders. I could be, I don't know.
Speaker C:No, but he wasn't a... No, they can't...
Speaker A:No, no, there was seven. And it was along the lines of, you know, they're just not liberal. So, therefore he would attack them.
Speaker C:Yeah. It's a problem. This is what happens when you start to worry about beliefs as a kind of thing. You can start, then it starts to get very problematic. Yeah. I think. But yeah.
Speaker A:Well, look, I don't think we've got time to sort of add anything else. I was going to ask you a question about who's your favourite terrorist or things like that, but I don't think that's appropriate.
Speaker C:So, yeah, like... No, but if I did have favourite terrorists, it would be those sort of European left-wing groups from the 70s. The Brian Meinhof and, you know, Red Army fraction. The cool flares. They were just very cool. They had a very good look. Sunglasses, leather jackets, you know, what were those armour lights or what were those little guns they used to have? So, yeah, I mean, they were all very unpleasant. I'm not, I mean, but I would say I'm not glamorising, but I sort of am. But they, yeah, they, I mean, I'd say much, much cooler than, you know, your sort of, you know, yeah, American far right types. That's put Aleph Insights on the list, isn't it? Yeah, or the Islamist groups. I don't, I'm not a fan of the facial hair primarily. Yeah. Whereas, you know, the, yeah, your sort of Baader-Meinhof group. It's true. When you think of... The Symbionese Liberation Army. I mean, you know.
Speaker A: be, yeah, with the, with the: Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, I know what you mean. I don't know why you chose lasagna. You could probably have a wider chat. The lasagna has really, it's really fixated, quite a distinct image. There's me with a lasagna in the middle of the table, and a bunch of people in sort of brown shirts and swastika armbands sitting about looking grumpy, probably complaining because it's Italian food. Yeah. But yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker A:Absolutely. Okay. All right. We'll stop there. Yeah, I think one way or another, we sort of nailed that somehow. I'm not sure. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. We've been here with Nick Hare and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.
