Anthony Barnett (London, OK): I have a double challenge for James Forsyth of the Spectator's Coffee House blog. In a post today he says that the Prime Minister has "thankfully, abandoned the intellectual lazy assumption that poverty causes terrorism". Whatever his shortcomings, intellectual laziness has never seemed to be one of them. Just what is the evidence that Brown ever thought this? Praising a book by Alan Kreuger, James continues, "Krueger through a careful analysis of the statistics debunks the notion that poverty and terrorism go hand in hand. Indeed, it is amazing how this idea — which has no evidentiary support — has become the received wisdom".
My second challenge is, where are the examples of this "received wisdom". Where are the widely acclaimed articles that say "poverty causes terrorism", who are these popular simpletons?
The issue is an important one because terrorism is exploited to shut down attempts to understand what may be wrong with the world. The best approach was set out 2 years ago by Karin von Hippel, now in Washington, in her reply to Roger Scruton's attempt to say that we should just treat terrorism as evil. "It remains of fundamental importance that we address the “enabling environment” which provides support for terrorism". Read Roger's article too, it is a defining exchange.
