According to an opinion poll published last week in the London Times, 53 per cent of the British population are in favour of racial or ethnic profiling. The result comes as no surprise, given the ongoing chaos at Heathrow and other British airports, with check-in times of up to five hours and thousands of bags lost or misdirected.
Wouldn't it be great if we could simply pick out the few dark-skinned faces in the queue, or those with Muslim-sounding names?
Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. Though many European jihadists are young, male and second or third generation immigrants, most members of this demographic aren't terrorists. Conversely, not all terrorists are young, male and second or third generation immigrants.
Significantly, both the group that carried out the 7 July attacks in London and the suspects currently questioned planning to bring down passenger planes over the Atlantic contained converts.
The youngest member of the 7/7 cell was Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay, whose skin colour was black. Amongst those arrested in the Heathrow investigation are three suspects who go by the names of Don Stewart-Whyte, Oliver Savant, and Brian Young, all white English.
The most striking case, however, is that of Muriel Degauque, who blew herself up in Iraq in December 2005. Not only was she a white, blonde Belgian woman, aged 38 she was also well above the typical age range for jihadist militants.
Neither Degauque nor any of the British suspects would have raised any suspicion if race, religion or ethnicity was the only criterion for singling out people as possible terrorists. Indeed, rather than making the work of the authorities more effective, such crude racial profiling is likely to undermine their efforts.
Treating every Muslim as a potential terrorist will alienate the silent Muslim majority whose cooperation is crucial in defeating extremism. According to a 2005 ICM/Guardian poll, seven out of ten British Muslims think that the ?war against terrorism? is, in reality, a ?war against Muslims?. Picking out Muslims in airport queues certainly won?t help correct that misguided perception.
Besides, history has a tendency to prove our assumptions wrong. Prior to 9/11, the perceived wisdom was that terrorists would never attack on American soil. And before 7/7, the British authorities dismissed the idea of homegrown terrorist as an urban myth. By focusing on race and ethnicity, aren't we at risk of setting ourselves up for yet another failure of imagination?
Needless to say, profiling will remain an essential component of police work. But such profiles should be based on patterns of behaviour rather than crude racial characterisations.
If someone receives large amounts of money, has repeatedly reported his passport as lost or stolen, and is known to associate with extremists, the alarm bells should ring. But just having dark skin should never be reason enough to label someone a potential terrorist. It's wrong, and it won't work.
