EcoLogics

What is the difference between a ‘Terrorism Power’ and the Power of Terrorism?

Martin Niemöller became a famous U-boat commander in WWI. After the war, he joined the Friekorps, a group of far right-wing paramilitaries who wished to revoke the Treaty of Versailles and to stop the rise of socialism in Germany. Amongst many other actions, in 1919 members of the Friekorps engaged in the summary execution of two leading members of the left, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

In 1920, Niemöller followed his father’s footsteps and took up the study of theology. He eventually became a Lutheran pastor and a fervent Nazi sympathizer. By the early 1930s he had acquired a reputation for being one of the foremost pro-Nazi Christians in Germany. National Socialism, Niemöller felt, was fundamentally a Christian movement, and Germany needed a Christian führer.

Similar stories might be told of many religious Nazi sympathizers both within and beyond Germany. However, in the mid-1930s it became clear to Niemöller that the Nazis were willing to imprison anyone who spoke out against their policies. In Niemöller’s view, this was wrong if it meant that the Gestapo could enter a church and detain some of its members. Niemöller dared to suggest that it was even wrong to imprison Jews if they had already converted to Christianity.

Despite this anti-Semitic stance, Hitler had Niemöller arrested in 1937. He was sent for ‘re-education’ first to Sachenhausen and then to the Dachau concentration camp, where he remained until the end of the war. Apparently Goebbels was determined to execute him, but Niemöller acquired the status of an international cause cèlébre when the Bishop of Chichester took an interest in his case. The threat of adverse publicity may well have saved Niemöller’s life.

When WWII broke out in 1939, Niemöller nonetheless offered to rejoin the German army and to fight for Hitler. And indeed, after the end of the war many of Niemöller’s erstwhile defenders realized that he was hardly the anti-Nazi hero that they had assumed him to be. But Niemöller took a number of steps to atone for his Nazi complicity, which he articulated in terms of a Lutheran discourse on guilt. He became a signatory with fellow pastors of the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt (‘By us infinite wrong was brought over many peoples and countries…’), and later he also recognised that he came from what he described as an anti-Semitic ‘past’. He eventually became a leading German pacifist and anti-nuclear activist, and he even accused President Harry S. Truman of being the second worst mass-murder in the world (after Hitler himself) for having dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the course of this mea culpa, Niemöller repeatedly noted how, during the rise of Nazism, he and many others had found it convenient to look the other way. He turned this self-criticism into a short poem that went on to become something like an anthem amongst human rights activists in the U.S. and elsewhere. According to Harold Marcuse, a professor in the University of California who has researched the poem, and whose work has allowed me to write on this subject, one of the earliest versions of the poem is found in Milton Mayer’s book, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45. Marcuse quotes Mayer as saying that

‘“Pastor Niemöller spoke for thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothin[sic]; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.”’

There is still some debate as to what social groups Niemöller included in the poem. Marcuse believes that Niemöller produced different versions, some of which referred to Jews, Jehova’s Witnesses, and some also argue, Catholics. Be that as it may, Niemöller himself suggested a ‘definitive’ version in 1976:

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out (1).

* * *

On Sunday, August 12, 2007, a group of environmental protestors began to set up a ‘Camp for Climate Action’ in a field outside Heathrow Airport. The camp was set up in protest over the relentless growth of air travel across the world. Heathrow is already the world’s busiest international airport, and plans are afoot to build a third runway. This would allow the airport to boost its flights from the current limit of 480,000 per year to almost 800,000 (2). According to the protestors’ website, Heathrow ‘is already a bigger source of CO2 emissions than most countries’. Even if this is a misleading statistic, it’s difficult to disagree with the activists’ suggestion that the proposed airport expansion is ‘sheer lunacy in this time of ecological crisis’(3).

That perspective is not contradicted by the British Airport Authority’s (BAA) own website. BAA is the privatised corporation that runs the airport. It was recently bought by Ferrovial and de-listed from the London Stock Exchange. Ferrovial is a Spanish construction giant that was founded in 1952 by Rafael del Pino. Del Pino made his fortune by doing maintenance for the Spanish state railway system (RENFE) at the time of the Generalísimo Franco (4). Today Ferrovial is led by Rafael del Pino Jr., and its ownership of BAA gives it a virtual monopoly over airports in the London area. Whoever wrote the entry on Rafael Sr. in Wikipedia describes him (‘and family’) as one of the richest men in the world (5).

A cynic might expect the owners of BAA to deny climate change. But after accepting the reality of climate change, the Ferrovial/BAA website’s Heathrow link notes that ‘The worst effects of climate change could be catastrophic for our planet and might include heat waves, floods and droughts, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, more frequent and severe storms and hurricanes, and damage to ecosystems and agriculture.’ Like the environmental activists themselves, Ferrovial/BAA also believes that climate change is not inevitable, and indeed quotes the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change as saying that ‘“There is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now.”’ Ferrovial/BAA further says that ‘The risks to our planet demand an international response, based on the best available scientific evidence. We believe there is an important debate to be had regarding climate change and our starting point is simple: aviation’s contribution is growing and we must take action now to curb emissions from flights’(6).

Those who surf the Ferrovial/BAA website might thus be forgiven for being a little confused to learn that a couple of weeks ago, the corporate giant tried unsuccessfully to get the high court to issue what might well have become the most sweeping injunction ever imposed on an environmental protest. In theory, the proposed injunction would have given police the right to arrest anyone who failed to give 24 hours’ notice of their intention to join the protest, and who used any of the following: sections of the huge M4 and M25 motorways; platforms six and seven at Paddington Station (which serve the Heathrow Express rail service); or the London Underground’s Picadilly Line. Just who this ‘anyone’ included was unclear even to the judge, who asked the infamous anti-protest lawyer, Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, to clarify who was the target of the injunction (7). At the time of the hearings, the Mayor of London said that he regarded the proposed injunction ‘unreasonable, and unnecessary. It is a serious infringement of civil liberties and an attack on the right to peaceful protest.’ In the same press release, the Greater London Authority noted that

‘This extraordinarily wide-ranging injunction, over which Transport for London was not consulted by BAA, could have a significant impact upon London Underground operations. It seeks to hold the individuals named in the injunction as representative of not only the action groups that they are said to represent, but also anyone who happens to support the groups, whether they are a member or not. […] This means that some five million people, the vast majority of whom have never taken part in any disturbance and are entirely lawful supporters of groups including the RSPB and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, the Woodland Trust, and the national trust, could be restricted by the injunction.’[8]

There is, however, something else that makes this protest, or rather the attempts to suppress it, truly extraordinary. As reported by The Guardian, the government has encouraged the police to ‘“deal robustly”’ with activists—no surprise there, ‘robust’ is of course a corporate euphemism for the ruthless imposition of a managerial course of action. What is extraordinary is that the Guardian has got access to a government document which it quotes as saying that police should make use of the ‘“terrorism powers”’, ‘“especially the use of stop and search powers under s44 Terrorism Act 2000”’(9).

As the Guardian notes, this act gives police the power to stop and search people and vehicles for anything that could be used in connection with terrorism; to search people even if they do not have evidence to suspect them; to search homes and remove protesters’ outer clothes, such as hats, shoes and coats; and to hold people for up to a month without charge.

The document’s justification for this draconian step is a verbal monument to New Labour’s blurring of what counts as a ‘Terrorism Power’, and what counts as the Power of Terrorism: the document is quoted as saying that police should use the Terrorism Powers ‘“because the presence of large numbers of protesters at or near the airport will reduce our ability to proactively counter the terrorist act [threat]”’(10).

* * *

It would of course be absurd to suggest that New Labour’s UK has become a contemporary version of the Nazi’s Germany. Even if today a parallel can be drawn between the persecution of Muslims and Jews, and even if it is true that Gordon Brown has now proposed that the period of detention without charge (the code-name for a police-state-like power of arrest without due process) should be extended from 28 to 56 days, it would be foolish indeed to draw a simple analogy between the two contexts. The UK in 2007 is not Germany in 1937.

And yet, Niemöller’s poem, like his life, offers not one, but three inter-related cautionary tales for those of us who do no more than read about New Labour’s efforts to undermine civil liberties.

The first one may be derived, paradoxically, from the uncertainty as to whom Niemöller included in the poem. While it is extraordinary that he left Jews out of the ‘definitive’ version, that should not obscure an equally important point: even if some people are far more likely to be persecuted by authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, it is always easy enough to include someone else—some ‘other’ group—in the list of ‘usual suspects’ if it suits the regime’s ends. In this sense the changing list of groups included in the poem is, inadvertently, very accurate.

The second point is that the poem reminds us of the temporal dimension of authoritarianism, and of course, of totalitarianism. In modern cultures, these political processes seldom if ever happen all at once, and indeed especially in the early days, each is likely to offer a seductive or indispensable ‘way forward’, especially when it seems that only other people’s civil liberties are being curtailed. Even if one is outraged by each new infringement, it is likely to be easier to remain in a state of passive outrage than to actually speak up, and speak out, against abuse.

The third cautionary tale, which is found in Niemöller’s own life, is perhaps at once the most obvious, and the most disturbing: authoritarianism or totalitarianism are not that—authoritarianism or totalitarianism—to their advocates. On the contrary, it is quite possible to vehemently oppose one or more aspects of such regimes and still remain fundamentally complicit with them.

There seems to be a lot of support in the media for the Heathrow protest. Will the protest trigger a minor revolt against the Terrorism Powers but leave intact New Labour’s power to terrorise the population by invoking an imminent (and immanent) threat of terrorism? Or on the contrary, will this year’s revelation of the ‘alternate’ uses of the Terrorism Powers be the proverbial silver lining in the enormous storm cloud that is climate change?

References

(1) This is a translation from the German. Readers interested in finding out about Niemöller may wish to consult the following websites: Professor Marcuse’s page at http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/niem.htm; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niemöller; or http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERniemoller.htm, all accessed 29 October 2009.
(2) John Vidal and Helen Pidd, ‘Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate protestors’, in Guardian Unlimited, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/aug/11/ukcrime.greenpolitics, 12 August 2007, accessed 29 October 2009.
(3) Both quotes taken from the ‘Camp for Climate Change’ website, http://www.climatecamp.org.uk, accessed August 13, 2007.
(4) See http://www.baa.com/portal/page/Corporate%5EAbout+BAA%5EWho+we+are%5EWho+owns+us%3F/3907dc4bf8721110VgnVCM10000036821c0a____/448c6a4c7f1b0010VgnVCM200000357e120a____/, and also http://www.ferrovial.com/en/index.asp?MP=14&MS=250&MN=3, both accessed August 13, 2007.
(5) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_del_Pino_%28Spaniard%29, accessed August 13, 2007.
(6) All quotes taken from BAA’s link for the Heathrow airport: http://www.baa.com/portal/page/LHR%5EAbout+BAA+Heathrow%5EClimate+change/3130875427b54110VgnVCM20000039821c0a____/448c6a4c7f1b0010VgnVCM200000357e120a____/, accessed on August 13, 2007.
(7) For an account of what one newspaper described as scenes of ‘high farce’ at the high court, see the Independent’s http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/high-court-confusion-over-exactly-who-baa-wants-to-ban-from-protesting-at-heathrow-459928.html, 2 August 2007, accessed 29 October 2009.
[8] Greater London Authority Press Release, ‘Mayor demands that BAA rethink its “draconian” injunction’, July 31, 2007, http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=13112. Accessed 29 October 2009.
(9) John Vidal and Helen Pidd, ‘Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate protestors’, in Guardian Unlimited, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/aug/11/ukcrime.greenpolitics, August 12, 2007, accessed 29 October 2009.
(10) John Vidal and Helen Pidd, ‘Police to use terror laws on Heathrow climate protestors’, in Guardian Unlimited, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/aug/11/ukcrime.greenpolitics, August 12, 2007, accessed 29 October 2009.