On August 29, 2015, a group of European Ministers in Paris agreed to increase security on key international rail routes in response to the thwarted attack on a Thalys train that took place earlier in the month. Increasing various security measures in the aftermath of such an incident is perceived, rather unquestionably, as the “right” reaction by many: The underlying sentiment being that in order for us to feel safe again, governments must vow to be more vigilant. This short piece will question the prudence of this near reflexive reaction by taking into consideration its long-term implications.

Just for the sake of comparison, the United States suffered one of the most devastating terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of the tragedy, security concerns were triumphed over and above some of our most basic liberties – at least in this author’s humble opinion – with the passing and the enforcement of the US Patriot Act. Similarly, in the aftermath of the July 7, 2005 bombings in London, England quickly became a CCTV state, in a truly Orwellian sense, where privacy was forfeited for the sake of safety and security.

I am willing to concede (and perhaps even want to believe) that government surveillance programs are very much necessary and that increased security measures, over the last few decades, have thwarted a number of “would be” tragedies that we are blissfully ignorant of. The lingering question, however, is what have we really sacrificed in the process? Aside from various inconveniences (i.e. security checks at airports, being forced to take everything from laptops to contact lens solutions out of our carry on bags, travel delays, and increased travel costs), what have we really lost as a result of the general public simply acquiescing to the idea that increased surveillance and the breach of our privacy rights are prerequisites for our safety?

In the US, to continue the comparison, the Patriot Act became the go-to legal basis for government entities to encroach upon privacy rights and the justification for wiretaps and searches to be rubber-stamped. These practices also increased instances of racial profiling by government entities, which only tightened the already tense relationship between the US government and the suspected group of citizens (read: people of certain faith, facial hair, and/or skin tone), not to mention that similar problems were reported in the UK as well. This is to suggest that while increased security measures may have created, at the very least, an illusion of security amongst the populace, in some ways, it exacerbated the problem by fertilizing the root causes for why such tragedies occur in the first place. If the EU goes ahead and increases the number of “visual passenger identity checks” (read: opportunities for racial profiling) and to “conduct more thorough investigations of personal items” even for train travel (read: opportunities for increased invasion of privacy) as the Ministers have proposed, are EU citizens simply going to acquiesce to this as well in order to regain their sense of security?

While I will explicitly avoid answering the question of what exactly the root causes of these tragedies are (leaving it to the colorful imaginations of the readers to fill in the blank), allow me to juxtapose the problem of safety and surveillance to another contentious topic of the day: the EU’s handling of the illegal immigration problem. While a small minority of the EU populace is quick to state that the EU should shut its metaphorical door on these immigrants, suggesting to erect walls (channeling their inner Donald Trump) and to increase border checks, the truth of the matter is that these suggestions have had limited impact on deterring desperate people from risking their lives to come to the EU (as evidenced by current events). The overwhelming majority of the populace, on the other hand, appears to be more compassionate, calling for the EU to be more active in search and rescue missions and suggesting for a comprehensive immigration reform that would reduce the need for immigrants to rely on exploitative smugglers to carry them across the Mediterranean Sea in the first place.

For the same reason that building walls and strengthening border controls will not keep every single immigrant out of the EU, increasing security checks and surveillance on trains will not protect us from all of the perils that may befall upon us. In light of this realization, the question worth repeating in the context of security versus liberty is, are we still willing to forfeit more of our privacy and other basic liberties to restore our collective illusion of security? I cannot help but to think that the problem of safety and the problem of immigration is closely related in the sense that yes, basic security measures and border controls are both very much necessary, but going above and beyond to argue that more and more security checks will ensure safety or that building a bigger wall would solve the problem of illegal immigration to be extremely myopic and at times, even counter-productive.

One modest suggestion would be that in the aftermath of these tragedies – whether it be a terrorist attack or the plight of immigrants that do not make it to the EU – what is necessary, at least as a starting point, is diplomacy, empathy, and compassion. In what American neoliberal, Joseph Nye, described as relying on “soft power”, rather than simply increasing security measures or building walls, we must work to understand why these events happen in the first place through cultural exchanges, reasoned discourse, and trustful collaboration. In other words, the crisis that the EU is currently facing, to paraphrase Churchill, is an opportunity in disguise for the Member States to band together and to put forth a common, European solution. Placing blind faith in increased government surveillance or walls to separate “us” from “them” may create irreparable repercussions that only exacerbate our shared problems. Unfortunately, the reality of politics will likely forbid such an idea from ever materializing, as no politician – at least that I am aware of – has won an election on the platform of “less security checks and smaller walls” and perhaps therein lies the crux of our problem …