By Sara Elizabeth Williams

The West’s reaction to 9/11 was excessive and misguided, wrongly influenced by hubris, hysteria and ignorance. Ten years on, we are still mired in a mess largely of our own making.

Last night’s First Wednesday Special: Changing world – conflict, culture and terrorism in the 21st century, which was in association with BBC Arabic, looked at how the decade post-9/11 has reshaped our world. Chaired by presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, the discussion at the Royal Institution of Great Britain turned to the question of what we learned – and how could we have done things differently?

For all their differences of opinion, the five members of the panel – journalists Mehdi Hasan, Isabel Hilton and Michael Goldfarb, ex British diplomat and founder of Independent Diplomat Carne Ross, and co-Founder and executive director of Quilliam and Founder of Khudi, Maajid Nawaz were in agreement on the most critical point: the reaction to 9/11 was a wrong one.

The response to non-state terrorist action should no be a declaration of war against individual states, but action against the non-state organisations.

The state-directed violence employed has destabilised entire populations and brought about some of the very things it sought to eradicate. Homegrown radicalisation comes at a devastating cost, and it is one we are becoming all too familiar with in the Islamic world and in the US and Europe.

Nawaz, who was formerly on the UK national leadership for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, reminded the audience that the process of radicalisation is the result of a political awakening, not a religious experience. For this reason, the right reaction would have been to support democratisation. But this wasn’t on the policy agenda:

“For decades we have been following a policy of sponsoring dictatorships and human rights abusers, and we ended up with a choice: support dictators or terrorists. But there was a third way: we could have supported civil society.”

While terrorism undermines the rule of law, Ross and Hasan pointed out that the West’s reaction did the same: we failed ourselves and the communities we sought to reach. The price of this mistake, according to Hilton, who is editor of chinadialogue.net.

“Now we have no moral standing to talk about human rights. In the course of the war on terror, we threw away everything that was worth defending. The damage we did to ourselves was greater than that which was done to us.”

Hilton also brought up the language of fear and safety – the American rhetoric over the last ten years. This, again, was the wrong invocation: ten years on, Americans still don’t feel safe. But is the mistake reversible? Hasan, who is senior political editor at the New Statesman, described a “fear industry grown our of control”.

Another cost is financial. Being at war has become normal for Americans. This affects policy: few politicians are willing to question Homeland Security spending. But for how long? Goldfarb, who is an author, journalist, broadcaster and GlobalPost’s London correspondent, answered:

“‘The war on terror’ is the worst phrase ever concocted. It’s a forever concept that can never end.”

The panel also looked at how the West’s misreaction to 9/11 may have paved the way for China’s global advance. Hilton, an expert on the subject, pointed out that China is seeking economic power by securing food, resources and access to water while letting other states get on with the international security agenda. In another ten years, we may consider this anniversary the beginning of a second turning point in the geopolitical landscape.  One of the evening’s most-tweeted comments was made by Hilton, who noted:

“Wars have very, very long tails… they don’t end when the whistle blows.”

For those at tonight’s event, it would seem that the end of these wars will be a long time coming, indeed.

The hashtag for this event was #fcbbca

Independent film maker Louis Lewarne started the collectively written blog occupiedcairo.org during the internet blackout and continued to chronicle events in Egypt.

Louis who has been living in Cairo since 2006 and is married to blogger and activist Salma Said, will be taking part in our discussion on Thursday on Protest, technology and the end of fear.

Recalling his experiences during the revolution in Egypt, Louis says one of his most memorable moments during the protests was hearing that his wife “was safe with friends after she had escaped from the state security forces that had kidnapped her and held for hours”.

These past years I have seen the impunity with which the Egyptian government has brutalised and silenced its citizens.

When a general call to demonstrate against the regime came out I thought it only natural to go and offer my solidarity.

On the evening of 27 January, the government instructed internet providers and mobile phone companies  to cut off the service. One internet provider remained online as it was the provider for the stock exchange and I presume the government did not want to risk the consequences of cutting this. A handful of individuals subscribe to this provider, one of whom is a friend.

Landlines were still working so a few of us agreed to take turns manning a phone line and internet connection to relay information to friends as events unrolled. I used twitter and occupiedcairo.org to get as much information circulating as possible. Of course when mobiles came back online they were in constant use.

The violent revenge of the state apparatus against peaceful protestors is abhorrent

With the amount of information I processed over that period I really cannot remember one thing in particular that I read except perhaps the testimonies of those that had been arrested and tortured by the Army.

The announcement of a law banning protests and stating that it is punishable by one year’s prison or half a million Egyptian pounds is yet another reminder of the changes that need to happen.

We were all in awe of the Egyptian people that rose up to demand their rights as citizens

Their determination to persevere until their demands were met was a real inspiration. We saw them on 28 January relentlessly push against the riot police until they reached Tahrir square. Then, as things got worse and the state sent thousands of thugs to murder those in the square, we saw civilians organise themselves into a shield to protect fellow protesters. Many lost their lives doing so.

The old regime has a lot of money and experience in quashing rebellion

The energy of the street and the adrenalin that kept people there is being systematically destroyed and undermined by the remaining elements of the old regime. The real challenge is to keep that original desire to change Egypt for the better keen in people’s minds and galvanise it into a true political change. The movement is far from over.

You can book tickets for Thursday’s discussion here.

Picture credit: RamyRaoof via a creative commons licence.