By Joseph Román.
The terrorist attacks committed against Paris by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) operatives on 13 November 2015 brokered shock and disgust by heads of state and government and citizens around the world.
Terrorist attacks of any sort are always committed in the name of a political aim and intentional or not, civilians bear the brunt of and the response to that violence. Paris is still in the minds of many. Questions about why ISIS operatives cold-bloodedly slaughtered 130 people and injured 368 people remain unanswered even though explanations have been tendered.
Perhaps the attack was a response to the West’s intervention against ISIS’s barbarism in the Levant. Perhaps Paris was a sort of one-upmanship between ISIS and al-Qaeda in the battle of being the voice of Islamists. Whatever the case may be, as of this writing, French authorities are still sorting through the motives behind November 13. If anything can be gleaned from the attacks on Paris, though, countries need to rethink national security by shifting their focus onto securing cities. After all, is there a better place to maximize death, destruction, and fear than terrorizing a busy city centre?
Borders have been and continue to be the preoccupation of states. Monitoring and controlling borders and the people who seek to pass through them are undeniably essential for national security. Yet, as important as border security may be, it becomes irrelevant when the threats to citizens originate in local neighbourhoods. While calls for beefing up national intelligence services in the wake of a terrorist attack are not unexpected, national governments would be better served by providing local police forces with the necessary human and material resources to build relationships with residents in high-risk communities.
Relationship building is less about monitoring local populations and more about local police forces having an awareness of the dynamics and personalities of neighbourhoods by building a rapport with residents in order to acutely recognize when something is amiss. There are clear benefits for securing cities in this manner. The criminalization of entire populations can be avoided when local police officers obtain everyday knowledge through conversations with local residents and observing the daily rhythms of neighbourhoods. Moreover, cities will not have to be fated to becoming citadels as a “just in case” response to terrorism. Indeed, turning a city into a fortress in the name of security kills public space far more efficiently and effectively than any terrorist attack. The ways in which Los Angeles has planned its urban spaces with general crime in mind certainly confirms this. So, even as Parisians gleefully demonstrated their resilience and commitment to going about their daily life to spite Islamists, the likelihood of this happening in a beautifully mundane way diminishes once fear becomes the foundation for city planning.
Needless to say, securing cities in the way that has been suggested will not be foolproof. Radicalization will happen no matter what, but there is nothing inevitable per se about the scale of the attacks that occurred on November 13. Undoubtedly, local actions must be connected to national efforts for a more robust response to increasingly localized forms terrorism. Yet, as long as attention is paid to neighbourhoods only when the worst possible scenario materializes, governments will be running on a treadmill to address national security.
Joseph Román, obtained his PhD from Carleton University’s Department of Political Science in 2011. He currently teaches at the University of Ottawa’s School of Political Studies and his primary research interests revolve around urban politics and international relations.
