15th February 2010
Difficult Decisions, but has the Government Decided Rightly?
Mark Hanson
The furore over the release of previously redacted paragraphs of MI5 documents in the Binyam Mohamed case raises some serious questions over the Government’s decision making process.
The Government chose to fight a lengthy and costly legal battle over these paragraphs, seeking to keep undisclosed the strong suggestion contained in them that the British authorities were in full awareness that the use of “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment was being carried out against its citizens.
Yet the deep question over the Government’s policy goes further, to the very heart of what it means to govern.
It must of necessity be noted that in these present times, all governments are facing some very hard choices. The UK government is not unique in this. The US and other Western governments are faced with a serious terrorist threat, and countries such as Pakistan and Yemen are facing insurgents in their lands.
But there seem to be some deep flaws in the way that this present Government of the UK are making their decisions.
The outcry from government and security services over the Mohamed paragraphs seem to focus on they being a “propaganda” tool for our enemies. Maybe so, but should the British people and the world be unaware that the present government is implicated in the use of “cruel” methods of interrogation?
The Blair philosophy, that the end justifies any means, is still a horrible taint on the Labour government. The US is moving on. Obama has given a fresh face to America in the eyes of the world, if not at home, and the days of the US being a rogue superpower appear to be over. Britain, however, remains tainted.
The Government has a large dose of denial of reality and an unhealthy confidence in its own policies, resulting in draconian measures against the “enemy within”.
It is notable that this “enemy within” includes political activists and environmental protesters, who the police define as “domestic extremists”.
The government has an underlying principle which they have vowed to uphold: “State good, People Bad”, to paraphrase George Orwell’s statement in Animal Farm. This can be seen in the burgeoning State-apparatus of surveillance and databases keeping track of citizens, just in case they become criminal or terrorist at some undefined moment in the future.
The Government, Big Nanny, is keeping an eye on you. And, true to the Orwellian analogy, it is very much for our own good, so they say.
It should also be mentioned that the terrorist threat, though real and serious, is not a sudden new phenomenon that requires draconian measures to be introduced.
Although the September 11th attacks were shocking in their scale and audacity, the main differentiating aspect of them was that the US was the target. The UK, Spain and Italy have faced terrorism for many years. More people died in the Northern Ireland troubles than at the World Trade Centre.
The UK has now entered a time of transition to peace with the Republicans in NI, and new terrorists have emerged from other parts of the world. Do we then ditch the freedoms that stood us in good stead against the IRA? It seems that the answer, from the State much more than from the people, is yes we do.
