THE call by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary for new drastic measures to combat possible terrorist attacks are timely and unfortunately more than welcome. I do not agree with the knee-jerk reaction of organisations such as Liberty (to which I subscribe).
Not only do we have a serious problem inside the country we have one from without that requires great skill in fighting, given limited resources and language problems with Arabic and other languages such as Japanese.
In Japan glorification of the Second World War may be on the rise, together with associated sympathy for anti-American struggles and the terrorism of Al Qaeda seen as the heroic equivalent of suicide pilots, now the subject of a reverential Japanese film.
With their desire to learn English, students from such countries are keen to visit England and until now our arms have been open and our colleges welcoming. Recent trials though have shown the potential for abuse of English hospitality.
It even shows English people settling by the drove in Andalucia and forgetting when they visit the Alhambra in Granada Osama bin Laden has said that part of Spain belongs to the Moor and their descendants expelled in 1492.
Just as the English in the 1930s ignored the logic and reasons behind the Hitlerian drive for a Greater Germany so today in ignorance of world history since 1919 and 1939 we may be committing large blunders with the future security of Great Britain.
CHRISTOPHER PERRY (by e-mail).
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