It has been more than 70 years since the sounds of Nazi bombs haunted the brave people of London. But the silence that followed this month’s attack on London Bridge was just as deafening.
It is critical now, just as it was then, to respond to the enemies of freedom, not just with bombs and bullets, but with a credo of civilized resolve and love for all humanity. The “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters plastered throughout London during the most trying depths of the assault on the British people can serve as our guide.
But now is the time to update that motto – and that resolve – for the digital age.
While history’s most infamous despots have generally gone to great lengths to hide the depths of their heinous crimes, this new enemy has embraced the tools of the digital age to recruit new members, spread its poisonous propaganda and, most horrifying of all, enlist modern media in the service of medieval barbarism in order to spread terror around the globe.
Thus, it is more important than ever that the civilized world embrace and employ methods of digital communication, not only to rebut the revolting ideology of ISIS and other terror groups, but also to declare in a unified voice that the future belongs to the forces of humanity rather than evil.
Predators want their prey to be immobilized by fear. Similarly, ISIS and its affiliates were quick to see the value of spreading terror in a digital world. So media that is the bloodstream of global digital culture has been enlisted as a conduit for a new Dark Ages of YouTube beheadings, mass executions and the burning alive of prisoners.
While our courageous soldiers do their jobs with unmatched bravery – combatting bullets and bombs on the battlefield – it is critical that the rest of us adapt and engage on the digital battlefield. Killing terrorists and depriving would-be terror states of geographical territory is akin to treating the symptoms of a disease. Eradicating the disease itself will require an entirely different course of treatment – fighting and winning the digital war of ideas.
Tragically, this is a battlefield on which the civilized world has been slow to focus and even slower to attack. Evil has been quick to launch an offensive in this war for ideas on the digital battlefields of a new millennium. But as in Mosul and Raqqa, the forces of good can reclaim digital geography just as our soldiers have reclaimed cities and countries.
If we are to eradicate this latest incarnation of evil, we will need both F-35 fighters and iPhones. We will need to engage our common enemy in all the domains where it lives and fights. And we need to call for more volunteers to join in retaking and occupying the digital domain, focusing especially on the inspiring ideals of freedom that can occupy hearts and minds and thereby defeat the terrorist message of hatred, violence and oppression.
The West gave the world a dream of human freedom protected by democracy and fundamental rights. That dream is still the best weapon we have in the war of ideas against the forces of darkness. This dream gave the world the courage to defeat the Third Reich and won the Cold War.
Fortunately, the Internet has created an opportunity to promote this dream through the world’s first nearly universal communications medium. The emergence of a more globally conscious and connected generation raised on the Internet has made it possible to inoculate more people than ever before with the timeless truths that are our best hope for peace and security.
As a tool for empowering the weak against the strong, digital media is humanity's best hope for winning this new war. So the time has come to embrace its full potential as a force for good. If we do this, we may awake one day and find that our dream has become a reality and the destructive ambitions of ISIS – like the Third Reich before them – have faded into history like the sounds of the Luftwaffe over London.
So to our friends in London, we know you will keep calm and carry on, and for that, you have our boundless admiration. The rest of us must now realize that we are also on the front lines in this struggle that has no boundaries in the digital age. And we will prevail in this war of ideas when we so raise our collective voice that we overwhelm and extinguish the voices of barbarism, violence and terror.
Matthew Daniels, J.D., Ph.D. is Chair of Law & Human Rights at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC, and the creator of www.universalrights.com