Apr 16, 2016 3 min read

One presidential candidate has promised to “carpet bomb” the Islamic State and subject American neighborhoods with large Muslim populations to intense policing and surveillance. Another has vowed to ban all foreign Muslims from entering the country entirely. Their fellow travelers regularly spout blinkered rhetoric about America being in an “existential war” with Islam, conveniently sidestepping the fact that Muslims, in fact, serve in the U.S. military and are doctors, lawyers, engineers and inhabit all walks of life.

Aside from being brazenly discriminatory, subjecting adherents of one particular faith to special scrutiny, or barring them from entering the country, would likely not pass constitutional muster and would be in direct contradiction to this country’s ideals. But it would also be profoundly counterproductive, according to an expert in peacemaking who visited Washington & Jefferson College last week.

Mary Montague, an international mediator who has stepped in to try to quell conflicts in the Balkans, Afghanistan and her home turf of Northern Ireland, pointed out in a lecture at the college Wednesday night that a heavy-handed “security response” after terrorist incidents often does little more than encourage more alienation, more anger and more recruits for terrorism. This echoes the sentiments of other experts in the field who contend that it’s active, rigorous detective work and building relationships within communities that foil terrorist plots and not heedless displays of muscle or belligerence.

An essential example Montague cited in her talk was the action of British paratroopers in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, in January 1972. In an incident dubbed “Bloody Sunday,” the paratroppers opened fire on civil-rights marchers, killing 13 and wounding 13 more. Almost 40 years later, Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, called the deaths “unjustified and unjustifiable.” It also served as a potent recruitment tool for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and what came to be known as “the Troubles” continued for another quarter-century, with an estimated 3,600 people killed in the final tally.

“Many, many people joined the IRA as a result of Bloody Sunday,” Montague told an audience of students, faculty and members of the Washington community. Embarking on a heavy-handed response, whether by the military or police, “is counterproductive to what you’re trying to do, which is change behavior patterns.”

Montague’s thoughts about terrorists thriving in an “us versus them” scenario were seconded in The Washington Post the day after her lecture by columnist Arnold R. Issacs. He noted that “treating Muslim communities as a potential enemy population simply reinforces the extremist narrative. It says exactly what the terrorists want Muslims here and around the world to believe: that America is at war with Islam, and Muslims have to strike back.”

Montague was invited to visit W&J, both in November and last week, by the college’s education department and its conflict and resolution studies program. She will be returning to campus in the fall as a scholar-in-residence. The W&J community is fortunate to have this opportunity. We all would be better off to heed the wisdom she has to offer.