Australian women of different faiths gathered at Sydney’s Lakemba Mosque show of community solidarity

.

Terrorist groups have one thing in common. They seek to shock, while simultaneously portraying themselves as victims via the “propaganda of the deed”

Public and government reprisals against any defined group is precisely what terrorists want. It legitimates their standing as victims.

This is at least one reason why launching military raids against Islamic State is so risky. It is also why large-scale invasions of homes  must be managed carefully to avoid creating deeper community divisions.

1960s and 1970s, Canada faced the FLQ Britain the IRA. Crackdowns on communities rarely work without serious consequences. A good example of the failure of a heavy-handed approach can be seen in how successive British governments tried to “solve” Northern Ireland’s violent 30-year conflict with military crackdowns, without addressing underlying community concerns.  Ultimately it was patient political negotiation that won the day.

Canada faced a terrorist plot similar to what has been alleged here in Australia this week in 2006.Local and federal police forces succeeded in tracking and infiltrating the group, partly thanks to cooperation from the local Islamic community. Canada has since reviewed its terrorism sentencing and brought in life sentences. In many of the recent cases of radicalized young men both in Canada and in Australia, members of the Islamic community have often helped to identify the radicals. Last year, two Canadian men were arrested for plotting to derail a passenger train travelling between Toronto and New York – and it was a tip-off from a prominent Toronto imam (Muslim community leader)

“This was a tip that came from the Muslim community because they had good relations with [the Canadian police], because they had this long-standing bridge-building long before this incident ever took place.”

It’s that close connections with any self-defined community is a key to effective policing.

At present, radical Islamic terrorists do not appear to have the capacity to develop well-organized cells in places like Australia or Canada, and will most likely dissipate as previous anarchists and ultra-Marxists did decades ago. This group if it is a group at all seem little more than disaffected with their feet in two cultures. Australians who feel included in the broader culture about them. If welcomed by both the chances of radicalization of any sort would not succeed.