15.11.2007
Thoughtcrime 2007
Should an islamist fantastist like Samina Malik be imprisoned for writing 'terrorist poetry'? Jim Moody thinks not
George Orwell's 1984 describes a future government's attempts to control people's thoughts, as well as their speech and actions; in his novel, thinking that was disapproved of by the state was labelled 'thoughtcrime'. Last week, the first woman convicted under the Terrorism Act 2000 was found guilty of just such an offence and could go to prison for it.
Samina Malik, aged 23, appears at worst to have been an islamist fantasist. Police say they found incriminating material on her computer hard drive and in the family home. It was because of her possession of this material that the jury found her guilty by a 10-1 majority. Malik was acquitted on the more serious charge alleging possession of "an article in circumstances which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that his [sic] possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism" (Terrorism Act 2000, section 57, 1).
In fact, this shop assistant was found guilty on the flimsiest of pretexts under section 58 of the same act. Specifically, she was alleged to have "collected information, namely the Al Qa'eda manual, the Terrorist's handbook, the Mujahideen poisons handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, the firearms and RPG handbook, operator's manual for a 9mm pistol, a document on obstacles, mines and demolitions, operator's manual for a light anti-tank weapon, a document entitled How to win hand to hand fighting, and a folder and contents entitled 'Samina'z StuV' likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism." And the capper was "Possession of miscellaneous jottings likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."
Apart from Malik's bored jottings on a WH Smith till roll, which were added by the police to their less than impressive pile of 'evidence', most of what was brought to court had, according to them, been taken from her home computer. Those items she was supposed to have downloaded onto her PC and which led to her prosecution are freely available texts. Indeed, some are even now being offered for sale in print form within the UK.
What is more, apart from a jihadi rant on the San Francisco-based social network, Hi5, Malik mostly kept her ideas to herself. That was not in dispute. She was not alleged to have incited anyone to do anything; neither was she accused of being in conspiracy with even one other person. As a result of her acquittal on the more serious charge, she was not even found guilty of preparing a terrorist attack herself. She was simply found guilty of possessing licitly obtained material and her own private writing, which the prosecution argued could be potentially 'useful' to someone who might be preparing an act of terrorism. Deliberately ignored by the act as it stands is the elephant in the room: that no such 'someone', no actual terrorist, need exist - and clearly did not exist in this case.
Malik's conviction comes amid government pressure on parliament to agree an extension to detention without charge, attempting once more to raise it to up to 90 days, when Britain's current 28 days is already far and away the longest in the advanced capitalist world. That includes the USA (two days) and Turkey (seven and a half days).
The hysteria that media such as the Daily Mail have tried to drum up over Malik is part and parcel of the propaganda drive that suggests the state must be given more and more powers to oversee our every move, utterance and thought. This is not about protection of the population: witness the brazen assassination of Jean Charles de Menezes. No, it is about social control over us all. Safeguarding the capitalist state is the motivation: given what might come in the future (a resurgent working class and even communist revolution), extension of the state's means of control cannot but be most useful, not to say essential.
Of course, Malik's views are foul, what with her vaunting of suicide bombers and murderous jihadi types. The doggerel she has written is, however, merely a novel take on what many an alienated adolescent (quite late adolescence in her case) fantasises about in her or his bedroom of an evening. Her ideas may have been refracted through a particular prism, and developed an islamist slant, but in essence her rants and scribblings suggest nothing so much as anger, albeit with a reactionary stench.
One of her poems, 'The living martyrs', implores: "Let us make jihad; Move to the front line; To chop, chop head of kuffar swine ..."; equally lurid was a second poem, 'How to behead', which suggested: "It's not as messy or as hard as some may think; It's all about the flow of the wrist ..." Right; as if she would know.
The court also heard that Malik had joined an organisation called Jihad Way, which, it was stated in evidence, exists to disseminate propaganda and support for al Qa'eda. Well, in that case, it does not seem to be up to the job: it is completely absent online. I must have missed the police announcement that it had destroyed this organisation. Or perhaps it only ever existed in the fevered imagination of some recently recruited MI5 spook. Even were Jihad Way to be real, however, no evidence was presented at Malik's trial that she became physically involved in Jihad Way, attended any meetings or did any more than click on some online link.
This case is being seen as a triumph for the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command (SO15). On the Met's website, Malik's clumsy efforts as the self-styled Lyrical Terrorist are gleefully blown into the crime of all crimes. "She had also applied to join extremist, subscription-only websites, and emails from her revealed that she had enquired about how to donate to the Mujahedin."
She had applied to join and enquired about how to donate. Just how damning is that? In fact, damning himself more than Malik, deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Counter Terrorism Command, is quoted as saying: "Malik held violent, extremist views which she shared with other like-minded people over the internet. She also tried to donate money to a terrorist group. She had the ideology, ability and determination to access and download material, which could have been useful to terrorists. Merely possessing this material is a serious criminal offence" (http://cms.met.police.uk/news/convictions/lyrical_terrorist_convicted). In other words, Clarke confirms that thoughts are deemed dangerous enough to be liable to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment.
No question, then, that in this, and who knows how many other investigations, a good proportion of Met officers and other police officers around the country are happy to acquire the mantle of thought police. As for the Lyrical Terrorist, she could hardly believe what was happening to her. For the online generation, taking on a new persona and developing a fertile imagination are second nature. She protested to the court: "It is only a user name. You have taken it too literally and out of context. It was only because it was a cool name. It doesn't mean I'm a terrorist."
Without doubt, the reactionary ideas that attract the likes of Samina Malik must be combated vigorously by the working class movement. But we have to be clear: the Samina Maliks of this world are far from being our main enemy. Our main enemy is the capitalist system and its state machine.
The British state's attacks inside and outside the country under the grotesque misnomer 'war on terror' is itself terroristic and engenders a terrorist response. Democratic rights of the masses suffer. Whittling away at those hard won rights is what the Terrorism Act is for, no matter what its stated aims. When merely reading (ie, downloading and thus 'possessing') and writing something the state considers unacceptable brings down such a sledgehammer response, this should give us some understanding of what its minions will try to do once we build a Communist Party worthy of the name.
Once the state starts to eat away at the democratic rights that our forerunners fought so hard to establish, you can be sure it will press further. It will be ready for us as we grow, make no mistake. These present forays of the thought police, directed currently against islamists (real or 'virtual'), are important precursors of the war that the state's forces will inevitably unleash against the mass Communist Party that must be at the forefront of a rejuvenated working class movement.
Fighting as consistent democrats for the right to free expression - even when the idea is reactionary - strengthens our own fight and advances the working class cause.