Here we go again

French Prime Minister Valls declared war Saturday:

It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity.

I guess that was inevitable, but it brings back un-fond memories of George W. Bush declaring war on terror. At least this time the enemy is well-framed:  Bush’s war on a means was a lot worse idea than war on the people who use it and the ideas that support it.

But Valls’ is still a bad frame, because declaring “war” makes military and paramilitary means the prime weapons. They are unquestionably necessary, but just as unquestionably insufficient, to deal with the problem. The stand-offs in Paris with three hostage-takers required the French security forces to use their impressive military capabilities. Police vigilance was vital to protecting today’s massive demonstration in Place de la Republique. But countering violent radicalism over the next months and years will entail far more than effectiveness on the part of security forces.

The murders of the Charlie Hebdo staff, several police and four hostages at a Kosher deli were horrendous. But they are still a small percentage of the almost 700 murders per year in France (which has a murder rate one-fourth that of the US). Yes, the numbers are important because of the political purpose and what the incidents may portend for the future. But a crackdown “against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom and solidarity” is far more likely to elicit a violent reaction than to calm the situation.

If you doubt the relevance of this point, read Jonathan Turley’s description in this morning’s Washington Post of the French government crackdown on free speech in recent years. He argues:

Indeed, if the French want to memorialize those killed at Charlie Hebdo, they could start by rescinding their laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation. These laws have been used to harass the satirical newspaper and threaten its staff for years. Speech has been conditioned on being used “responsibly” in France, suggesting that it is more of a privilege than a right for those who hold controversial views.

Ironically, Charlie Hebdo was founded in response to a government ban on a predecessor. It is also ironic that today’s demonstration included the presence of such stalwart defenders of freedom of speech as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Queen Rania, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s the kind of audience a war on Islamic extremism gets you. It should make us all wonder whether we’ve got the signals right.

Protecting Western societies from violent Islamic extremism is a worthy cause. But it should not be conceived as war. Quite to the contrary. The essential tools are those of peacebuilding: a culture of lawfulness, inclusive governance that ensures wide and non-discriminatory distribution of economic benefits, protection of human rights, integration, good understanding and dialogue among diverse social groups, security forces committed to protection of citizens, and citizens committed to maintaining a society they perceive as just and free. There may still be terrorist incidents in such a society, but they will be far less frequent than in one that discriminates against those who wear the hijab and populates vast suburbs with unemployed Muslim youth.

I imagine that the French security services are among the most capable in the world. But they missed the radicalization of the perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher deli murders. Someone in Al Qaeda, or Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, managed to reach deep into French society to find and mobilize extremists. Even in the most alert and just of societies, that could happen. But I don’t know anyone who would suggest that most Muslim youth in France feels it has a fair stake in the success of the country. Making that a reality will be far more important, and far harder, than the war on Islamic extremism.