On the same day that judgement fell in the first case to be tried after the introduction of stricter anti-terror laws, Danish Minister for Education, Bertel Haarder, announced that he wants to put 'Terrorism' on the curriculum.
"Great," thinks yours truly naively (and truly naive it is), "In these days of mass hysteria, it is so important to teach kids that this, too, has historical precedents. Let them know about the RAF (not the pilots, silly, Rote Armee Fraktion), about ETA and the IRA. Let them understand that we have been here before, that terrorism or the threat of it creates fear and prejudice. Let them discuss how important it is to keep our political freedoms and rights in the middle of all this. Teach them about the Guilford Four, the Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven and show them In The Name Of The Father so they know what can happen if we don't."
But of course, I should have known better. Bertel Haarder has never once made a sensible suggestion. My personal all-time favourite idiocy of his was when, back in the 80s, he responded to complaints that University admissions forms were so vague, unclear and complex that students and professors alike had trouble with them. His simple solution was to say that this provided a natural way of filtering out stupid candidates, which is a bit like saying that Muslims who feel offended that they have to go to church and speak to a Christian minister in order to name their child should snap out of it. Oh, hang on, he said that too. And they still have to.
So anyway, of course I was wrong about this too. Bertel does not want kids to know the history of terrorism. He wants them to know the history of Osama Bin Laden. Basically, what he wants to teach is September 11, which he makes abundantly clear here (I apologise that this is in Danish. I tried to find stuff about this in English but couldn't).
In short, he wants the kids to learn about Al-Qaeda without learning anything about the historical context of terrorism in general. An approach that would only work to create more of the prejudice that is already rife among Danes.
The judgement I mentioned at the beginning, the so-called Glostrup case, in which four youngsters were on trial for plotting a terrorist attack, amply demonstrated this prejudice. In the end, three of the four were cleared on insufficient evidence (this is in English). But this was only after the panel of judges extraordinarily intervened to quash the jury's verdict of guilty. And even though the evidence simply was not there, people I have spoken to about it are generally extremely upset about the release and very unwilling to accept that lack of evidence should mean lack of judgement. Several people have argued that in serious terror cases evidence should not be necessary but my point is, it really really should.
If sufficient evidence was not necessary, we'd have Guantanamo Bay, we'd have the Glostrup Four, and, in some twenty years or so, we'd have another film with Daniel Day-Lewis (or, God forbid it, Mads "Ming" Mikkelsen) screaming his head off. Trust me, no one wants that.
I am not saying that these men (or boys, as some of them really are) are innocent. I don't know if they are or not. But what I am saying is that if there is no evidence to sentence them then they should be freed. This is what living in a democracy means, this is what rule of law means. The law must be the same to all and you cannot judge without due trial because, cliché though it is, these are the values of a free society. We cannot start tinkering or bargaining with them. If we do not have the same standards for all who stand accused in a trial, then this country is not free and fair for all. And if it is not free and fair for all, it is not a democracy.
You might say that a few people being sacrificed for the greater good is worth it. But if you say that, be very aware that you are then taking a utilitarian stand and that what you are arguing for is something different from the democracies of, e.g., the UK or Denmark.
There will always be cases where a judgement will simply not be possible, and that's okay. Some guilty people will go without punishment. In these immensely complex cases there are bound to be errors and mistakes. This is acceptable. What is not acceptable are wilfully erroneous judgements based on avowedly insufficient evidence.
The only way to avoid this is constant attention to the proceedings of the democratic institutions and to the benefits of democratic ideals. John Stuart Mill (utilitarian though he was!) argues very strongly and convincingly for this in On Liberty. The most important point he makes is that no society is static: it is constantly renegotiated. Just think of the UK or Denmark now compared to fifty years ago. Sure, they were democracies back then too, but many things were different: rights for women, ethnic minorities or people with disabilities were different. The way we worked, the way the police force worked and the way people thought about things were different too.
Likewise, things will be very different fifty years from now, and there is no guarantee that they will have changed for the better. The only way we can make sure this happens is to constantly question and renegotiate the values that guide our laws and the way we live. And the best way to do this successfully is to have as much knowledge as possible of the historical and philosophical context of our lives.
The absolutely worst way would be to have superficial knowledge of limited parts of this context, which is what Bertel's proposal effectively amounts to. His recipe is for school children to believe that all there is to know about terrorism happened on September 11 2001 or later. It would create a bigoted, narrow-minded and misguided view of what might threaten democracy and society.
Terrorists do pose a threat. But it is mainly a threat to individual people's lives. They can kill and it is horrible. But contrary to popular opinion, they simply do not have the power to overturn political institutions. They could only do that if they managed to persuade the majority over to their side, and that doesn't look likely to happen, especially since there is no such thing as "the terrorists", but rather numerous groups who hate each other as much as they hate the mainstream - and who, by the way, are usually tiny.
Much more threatening to the actual structure of Danish society is an Education Minister who, by the way, is also the Minister for Church. Who wants all school children, Christian or not, to gather together singing hymns at the start of each day. Who totally fails to see the irony in the fact that, whilst he uses one hand to warn against religious fanaticism, he uses the other to force his religion upon others in what is supposed to be a secular society.
