From Istanbul to Oslo to Mumbai

Mark Twain said history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. It may just be me, but I’m starting to hear a similar beat going around the world. It’s about a breakdown of trust between people and their leaders, an escape from censure by those in charge and the threat to lives and livelihood.

The rhythm was pronounced today, July 23, as we walked down Divan Street – the congested main road in the old town section of Istanbul. People started to gape at TV monitors. There’d been an explosion and a shooting in Oslo, Norway. You didn’t have to know Turkish, the captions and images told the story. It began to filter out that some 80-90 people may have died. You’d think of the explosives in the London subway bombings in 2005, but no, this was different. It seemed to be a lone gunman. Then a picture of a handsome blond Nordic face was on the screen. The killer had surrendered. Then you learned that he’d killed dozens of kids at a camp, on an island, by shooting at them. Once the enormity of the massacre registered, you asked: How could one person shoot 90 people without being stopped? What kind of weapons did he have – high end assault rifles? How many? How often did he reload? How?!

Hours later, you find out the killer had from 40 to 90 minutes to fire away unrestrained even though a SWAT team from Oslo had been called out for help. The team leader said his men couldn’t find a helicopter or a boat to get to the island. What? One of the richest, most ordered nations on earth couldn’t muster a boat or helicopter for a SWAT team to stop a mass murderer? If it hadn’t been tragic it would have been farcical, like a Central Intelligence Agency team forgetting to charge their cell phone batteries.

Then I thought of India where the police response time in the 2008 terrorist siege that killed 133 people was also dismal and inept. Then there was the second triple bombing attack just this month on July 14 that according to reports wasn’t handled much better. Why are these people in charge, you ask?

There’s a feeling around the world that the powers paid to protect are failing. They are going through an elaborate pantomime, sucking up more money for equipment and training that can’t deliver results. Instead, each time there’s a failure, there is a response to lay on more forces and technology, always in retrospect. The shoe bomber got us to take off our shoes. The liquid gel bomber made us throw away our toothpaste and juice bottles. The underwear bomber got the U.S. to install hundreds of full body scanners at in airports, either that or feel up private parts, and sometimes both. The U.S Homeland Security efforts are frustrating but so far have stopped a calamity. So maybe this is a right way to get results. But lose one plane, and the questions will be about what are we paying for, who writes these rules, who gave these political bureaucratic cabals the right to take over our lives, in the interest of what kind of safety?

There is a backlash building here too. And because it’s against government and the elites that guide them it will be called in the press as “a right wing backlash” led by Tea Party wackos. The people who will tell that to the reporters will be of course government officials under threat. It would be more accurate to say, “A nation of angry independent voters”.

Will any leaders take account of their failures? The head of Norway’s security should be fired or resign. At this writing, that does not seem to have happened. The two top officials at Scotland Yard did resign for corruption on their watch. The British tabloid press paid Scotland Yard officials for tips and Scotland Yard hired reporters from News of the World, the Rupert Murdoch paper that was paying them. The corruption was on their watch. They had to quit.

It’s always difficult to know what will trigger a broad public revulsion and how it will engulf defensive leaders. But you have the feeling by watching Oslo that the drumbeat for a global backlash is building. Something has to touch it off. Pictures of the street vendor in Tunisia, who lit himself on fire, because the government wouldn’t let him use his cart, triggered the Arab Spring once those photos went viral on the internet. A rage against leaders had been building for decades in the Middle East. Then there was a spark.

In the U.S. it’s the economic elites who have failed. The whole economics profession failed to foresee the subprime crisis, observes Gary Gordon of Yale University, an economist involved in the crisis as an adviser to American International Group. Yet no one, from the Wall Street bankers who peddled their self destructive securities around the world, to central bankers like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke who said markets would be self correcting – therefore no regulation was needed – have been held accountable. If this was America’s Scotland Yard, they should have all resigned. Instead, Bernanke had conceded to genteel quarterly press conferences to explain his Federal Reserve policies. The reporters are hand-picked.

Polls in America show the most respected institution as the U.S. military. The military has countless flaws like all institutions. But it takes orders from civilian leaders. When it fails, the leaders from generals on down, are either put on administrative leave or resign.

Is the rhythm of the street heading in that direction?

Bob Dowling is an independent international journalist and editorial advisor to Gateway House.

This blog was exclusively written for Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations. You can read more exclusive content here.

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Photo courtesy: Luca Venturi Oslo/ Flickr