Problem with homegrown British Muslims

[DarthSydodyas]

Fighting for a belief is a wrong 'un?

People do similar things for their country, their political beliefs, their beliefs...

 

[TeeJay]

Fighting for a belief is a wrong 'un?

People do similar things for their country, their political beliefs, their beliefs...

You missed the bit about sky pixies.

Some beliefs are admirable and worth fighting for - others are vile, disgusting and pointless.

Your logic seems to be:

If Person A is wrong'un because he fights for wrong'un beliefs then fighting for any belief makes anyone a wrong'un.

Sorry but this doesn't make any kind of sense at all. Maybe you can explain your logic?

 

[DarthSydodyas]

Some beliefs are admirable and worth fighting for - others are vile, disgusting and pointless.

Which ones are and who exactly decides otherwise?

Everyone has their own ideas of what is right or wrong.

 

[Diamond]

You haven't said these words but...

You just seemed to make a vague implication...

Except you didn't actually articulate all this...

Strikes 1, 2 and 3.

Is this how your capacity for debate works?

Do you simply just mis-represent other people until you have constructed the positions that you want to oppose?

Why bother?

Why not just engage with the points that other people are actually making rather than railing against imagined implications and phantom arguments?

 

[nino_savatte]

Well hotshot if you paid attention to the thread you will ascertain I have never visited the UK. So its quite likely low.

In which case, you really have no room for comment; and given the gaps in your knowledge of the rest of the world outside your borders, you really should try and travel more or do some reading.

 

[nino_savatte]

Who is the "wrong crowd'?

Are you being deliberately thick?

FFS, how can anyone take this fucker seriously, if he asks such a stupid question? I mean, what does he think the "wrong crowd" is?

 

[Sweaty Betty]

My take on it is, he is trying to suggest, what makes you think the wronguns arent really right, therefore valid in his opinion...

Im probably totally wrong....

 

[nino_savatte]

My take on it is, he is trying to suggest, what makes you think the wronguns arent really right, therefore valid in his opinion...

Im probably totally wrong....

You don't know mears.

 

[TeeJay]

Why not just engage with the points that other people are actually making rather than railing against imagined implications and phantom arguments?

You have just quoted snippets of a discussion I was having with JC2 (and which he has already answered for himself), taken out all the content and meaning and now you have the utter cheek to demand that I "engage with the points that other people are ... making".

What points was I making to JC2?

>> Oh, that's right - you edited them out.

How have you engaged with these points?

>> Oh dear, you seem to have nothing to say about them at all.

You want me to engage with this pointless and content-free bleating of yours? Here you go:

>> Go and fuck yourself you stupid cunt.

That's as much as you are going to get from me, as you are not worth any more time or effort. Feel free to go and find a "point" that I can "engage with" and I will have another go, but come at me with that dribbling crap and you will just get abuse back.

 

[Diamond]

>> Go and fuck yourself you stupid cunt.

So that's how your capacity for debate works.

How about this.

If you think my posts are so stupid and you think I am such a cunt, why don't you just ignore whatever I write and settle into your own quixotic fantasy land, tilting at windmills evermore.

Oh wait a second...that's what you're already doing.

 

[friedaweed]

Well hotshot if you paid attention to the thread you will ascertain I have never visited the UK. So its quite likely low.

Yup trigger i just wanted to hear it from the horses ass

 

[TeeJay]

So that's how your capacity for debate works.

How about this.

If you think my posts are so stupid and you think I am such a cunt, why don't you just ignore whatever I write and settle into your own quixotic fantasy land, tilting at windmills evermore.

Oh wait a second...that's what you're already doing.

Actually I am not ignoring you - I have read this post and will read your next one. So how about you make an on-topic point that I can engage with.

You know, something relating to British Muslims being radicalised and the reasons behind it?

Do you think the UK has a specific problem that other countries don't face and if so, why is this?

 

[TeeJay]

...just to add that I have re-read the thread and see that your points are that:

France's foreign policy is less antagonistic and "Authoritarianism is a strong factor in the French case"

"...there are substantial muslim communities in the US. There probably is a reason why there is little evident radicalism there and it probably has a lot to do with that particularly arrogant and repellent form of patriotism that sees schoolchildren salute the flag every morning."

"...an exceptionally strong and socially cohesive sort of nationalism in the US that prizes the nation above all else when it is perceived to come under attack..."

All I'm trying to do is explore why America, with a large Muslim population and seemingly in the frontline of Islamic disapproval, has never had homegrown suicide bombers.

I am also interested in this debate, but I disagree with your analysis:

I think that Muslims in America have a different socio-economic, relgious and ethnic profile than in the UK and for that matter so do those in France - with far more Algerians. Just as the terrorism in France has been linked to Algeria so the lack of 'home grown' terrorism in America may have to do with the specifics of the Muslim population there.

I also think that both the 'authoritarianism' of France and the 'nationalism' of America which you cite as key reasons why they have less 'home grown' Islamist terrorists in fact may well have the opposite effect from what you claim - that all other things being equal they would actually increase alineation and radicalisation not decrease it. In other words in my view these countries have less home-grown terrorism *despite* these two variables, not because of them.

To extend this anaylsis - I am saying that if the UK was more authoritarian like France and more nationalistic like America, the problems of 'home growns' would be greater, not less.

I am sorry if you think that I am not trying to engaging in debate, but I have now gone back and re-read your posts on this thread. I have tried to restate my case and hope that you do not feel that I am now misrepresenting anything you have said. I am open to correction if I have.

For what its worth, there was an article from the Economist I read a while ago which asks this very same question:

Islam, America and Europe
Why so many Muslims find it easier to be American than to feel European
(Jun 22nd 2006 The Economist)
link: http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_SDRTPQP

Unfortunately it is subscription only, so I will quote a large chunk of it:

...Whatever the defects in Muslim eyes of American foreign policy, the United States has a substantial Muslim population which on the whole seems pretty comfortable there, and has produced some of the world's best Islamic thinkers...

For the same reason as in France—the fact that the state does not like asking questions about religion—the United States has a hard time estimating the size of its Muslim population: the guesses range between 3m and 7m. But, whatever the precise number, America's Muslims neither see themselves, nor are seen by other Americans, as being radically at odds with American society. When Americans scold Europe for its “exclusionary nationalism”, it is partly because they feel that their country has more successfully embraced a variety of religions, including Islam.

Some American Muslims would quibble with that claim: polls show a rising percentage of Americans with negative views about Islam, and Muslim organisations report a rising number of incidents of harassment or discrimination. But, broadly speaking, freedom to practise and preach Islam is protected by the American system.

If America is better at absorbing its Muslims, this may to some degree be a matter of luck. The majority of Muslim Americans are either upwardly mobile migrants from southern Asia or Iran, or black American converts who lack any personal links to Islam's heartland. Many European cities, on the other hand, contain an exceptionally volatile Muslim under-class which is poor, alienated and intertwined (by family ties) with the hungriest and angriest parts of the Muslim world.

But it is not just luck. The difference between America and Europe in dealing with Islam reaches down to some basic questions of principle, such as the limits of free speech and free behaviour. America's political culture places huge importance on the right to religious difference, including the right to displays of faith which others might consider eccentric. In the words of Reza Aslan, a popular Iranian-American writer on Islam, “Americans are used to exuberant displays of religiosity.” So the daily prostrations of a devout Muslim are less shocking to an American than to a lukewarm European Christian. American society is open to religious arguments—and to new approaches to old theological questions—in a way that Europe is not.

...

Some things are off-limits even in America. In Britain, for example, members of the radical (but non-violent) Hizb ut-Tahrir movement have appeared on television to express their rejection of the principles of liberal democracy and secular justice. That is unlikely to happen in America. Nor would it be possible, in any American context, to argue for the superiority of sharia—Islamic law—over laws passed by elected law-makers.

But the right to say almost anything on most other subjects is deeply entrenched in America. This means that, whatever weapons the parties in America's religious arguments try to use, they do not usually include attempts to deny the other side's right to speak.

The result is that there is more space for hard religious argument. No law restrains that quite large body of American thought which is critical not just of extreme readings of Islam but of Islam itself—arguing that the warrior ethos of the faith's earlier centuries was one of its essential features, not just a regrettable excess. But the American system also guarantees the rights of those who argue for the opposite view: that Islam is basically a peaceful, universalist faith which restricts rather than enjoins the use of violence.

This does not mean that America has a monopoly of wisdom in distinguishing peaceful Muslim citizens from the other sort. During the 1990s, a Washington-based group called the American Muslim Council and its leader, Abdurahman Alamoudi, were hailed by the American government as valuable people to talk to. In 2004, Mr Alamoudi was given a 23-year jail term on terrorism-related charges.

But one merit of the American system is that, even when hard questions arise about the trade-off betweeen freedom of speech and security, there is a robust legal culture which enables people to fight back if their rights are infringed. Last year some American Muslims who had been detained in New York state on returning from a conference in Canada promptly filed a lawsuit against the federal authorities—and they were helped to do so by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The idea that freedom is the cornerstone of politics is one reason why people like Mr Ellian, that Iranian who fled to Leiden, look hopefully towards America. His argument goes as follows. Islam's sacred texts can be read either in a spirit of militant intolerance or in a spirit of altruism—and the latter can prevail only in conditions of hard, open-ended debate in which nobody holds back for fear of giving offence. America's free-speech culture may have a better chance of fostering such a debate than European political correctness...

 

[david dissadent]

I have to reiterate there have been a number of alleged home grown terrorists in the US. Including the fragging incident at the start of the latest Gulf war, John Lee Malvo and Jose Padilla. I think the difference is the resources al Que'da have thrown at these rather than the desire of individuals is the distinguishing factor, not the integration level of the populations.

I haven't seen anything to counter that yet.

 

[hipipol]

Radicalised Kashmiri youth in the UK

The majority of Muslims in the UK are of Kashmiri or Bangladeshi descent.
Kasmir has been a point of arguement between Pakistan and India since Patition, for which the UK is held primarily responsible.
In Bradford, Leeds, Preston, Manchester, etc the majority are from a small area in what is known in Pakistan as Azad (Free) Kashmir, with a smaller admixture from Bangladesh, almost all of who are from Sylhet, a small border state where low level skirmishing has been going on since East Pakistan became Bangladesh.(Prior to that there have centuries of fighting betwwen Muslims moving north for farmland and the indigenous Khasi, Manipuri and Garos tribes - regharded by the bangla Govt as "Primitive and backward" - oh my!
Essentially you have a population of peoples who have left lands in conflict, where opinion was already polarised and radicalised attaching itself to the gereater "Conflict of Civilisations" bollocks. Also the majority were poor and uneducated, perhaps subsistance farmers, from remote and utterly rural areas who were decanted into shit housing estates, the ones the local Brits wouldn't touch - so there are class factors at work - most of the food and work rioting of the 19thC were the second generation of deisplaced farm workers driven from their land by the industrial revolution. This is a very similar situation as the marity of these immigrants came to work in factories, primarily textile in the North
Only Pakistans put religion first more consistalty than this country in the Islam or country first rating in that recent global poll of Muslim indentity, which, as the majority of Mullahs at Mosques in this country were drawn from Pakistan until recently, is hardly surprising.
(It may also be worth noting that it is Saudi money that is building all the new Madrasas in both Pakistan and Bangladesh)
As Pakistan itself saw the strength of the ISI grow when the CIa helped it set up "resistance" in Afghanistan - specifically religiously based, a deliberate ploy at the time - it tranferred those skills to the training of Lashkar-Y-Tayba et al who then started geurilla action against India in Kashmir -including the ethnic cleansing of at least 1 million Kashmiri Pandits.
These are peoples with a long histroy of militant activity
It is hardly surprising they are radicalised

 

[mears]

Yup trigger i just wanted to hear it from the horses ass

People around here love to talk about Chavez and Venezuela but have never visited the country. People are obsessed with George W. Bush while never visiting Texas.

Its not a big deal. It is a way of ignoring the problem however.

 

[mears]

I have to reiterate there have been a number of alleged home grown terrorists in the US. Including the fragging incident at the start of the latest Gulf war, John Lee Malvo and Jose Padilla. I think the difference is the resources al Que'da have thrown at these rather than the desire of individuals is the distinguishing factor, not the integration level of the populations.

I haven't seen anything to counter that yet.

So start a thread on it. What does it have to do with radical Pakistani in Britian?

 

[mears]

What about this comment from John Stevens, former commissioner of the Metropolitan Police:

"When will the Muslim community in this country accept an absolute, undeniable, total truth: that Islamic terrorism is their problem?"

"stop the denial, endless fudging and constant wailing that somehow it is everyone else's problem and, if Islamic terrorism exists at all, they are somehow the main victims".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/face-up-to-your-problem-muslims-told/2006/08/13/1155407675136.html

Or maybe its not their fault. Maybe its an appropriate resonse to perceived injustice throughout the world. Maybe South Americans, Africans and angry Asians should also make a protest by seeking to kill people going to work on trains, or people taking a vacation to NYC via heathrow.

 

[Fruitloop]

hipipol seems to have answered the question quite succinctly, and it floated past you like a fart in the breeze.

 

[Diamond]

*Quote added for clarity*

So how about you make an on-topic point that I can engage with.

Thank you for that and before taking you up on your invitation I thought I’d just explain why I found your first few responses so objectionable. In essence I think you assumed me to be the kind of individual who was advocating some kind of authoritarian (re: France example) patriotism (re: American example) as a solution to the radicalisation of British Muslims who are predominately Pakistani.

On the contrary I was trying to contrast America and France’s experiences with Britain’s in an attempt to explore the roots of radicalism, or more correctly why those roots have not taken hold across the pond or south of the channel.

Above all else I found the condescension in your tone and assumptions in your response to be arrogant and myopic and I felt you were consistently misunderstanding me in a disingenuous manner through misrepresentation of my arguments.

But before returning to the essence of the thread, I think it’s best for me just to lay out some of my premises.

Firstly, I think that the British Pakistani community is a worthwhile subject because there is evidence to suggest that through socio-economic, socio-religious and political factors the British Pakistani community remains a distinct and coherent, if not necessarily segregated, sub-community within the wider British nation which occupies distinct and coherent geographical, cultural and economic spaces. To sum up, the British Pakistani community is a significant and distinct sub-section of British society.

Furthermore I think it is worthwhile to talk of radicalised British Pakistani Muslims, as opposed to radicalised British Muslims, because the evidence points to the British Pakistani community being the predominate recruiting ground for radicals. Other Muslim groups (for instance South Asian Muslims from East Africa) do not seem to prove such fertile ground. That does not however mean that I believe that the British Pakistani community as a whole is intrinsically radical or prone to homicidal mania, just that there are conditions within it that predispose young British Pakistani Muslims to radicalisation.

Now that’s done it’s time to get on with the show.

One of the major factors in the prevalence of British Pakistani Muslim radicalisation must be Pakistan itself.

Pakistan provides fertile ground for many extreme Muslim organisations, not least the Muslim Brotherhood. Whether it be territory to conduct training, access to explosives and weapons or simply preachers ready to indoctrinate, the nature of Pakistan’s current situation is very useful for the would-be terrorist recruiter.

It seems pretty straightforward to conclude that radicalised British Muslims who are of Pakistani descent will find it easier than most to convert extreme grievances into homicidal designs.

But that is not sufficient.

It does not explain the pull factor towards extremism in the old country.

Many would say that the motivations of those who committed these acts grew out of class based socio-economic conditions, but I would say that is too simplistic. In fact I would go further and say that there does not seem to be much evidence that British Pakistani Muslim extremists emerge from the much-posited British Pakistani underclass. The evidence suggests that middle-class British Pakistani Muslims as well as working-class British Pakistani Muslims feature heavily in the ranks of the extremists.

Beyond that I find it difficult to swallow the proposition that a religio-political brand of indigenous extremism has much to do with the subtleties of the British class system. The avowed motivations of those involved speak more to a globalised understanding of their struggle which evokes the umma rather than the underclass.

Finally back to the original contrast with America. The point I was trying to make was that Muslims in America seem to feel more included. There is little of the alienation that exists in Britain despite the vagaries of America foreign policy.

IMO a large deal of that inclusiveness flows from the way that America deals with its immigrants, and part and parcel of that process of Americanisation is the indoctrination of a fiercely proud patriotism. Now, I’m not saying that that is where Britain has gone wrong, or that we should seek to copy America’s system and suddenly have everyone flying Union Jacks from their houses.

But I do think that it’s evident that sections of British Pakistani youth are shunning the country of their birth and that this represents a serious failure in the British nation and more specifically within the leadership of the British Muslim, and particularly British Muslim Pakistani community.

We shouldn’t be focusing on British foreign policy in explaining this. I think we all agree that British foreign policy is bankrupt, but to focus on it as a determining cause is to imply that mass murder and terrorism is a legitimate, even unavoidable, response.

Instead we should be looking at why a distinct community within the British nation seems to be having such a difficult time in reigning in such murderous sentiments amongst its younger members.

And, for me, arguments that state that British Pakistanis are essentially radical and warrior-like are facile, patronising and ludicrous.

I think one of the more central and simple problems might be that there doesn’t seem to be any real leadership for the British Muslim community, let alone the British Pakistani Muslim community. That alone can be evinced by the discordant reaction among prominent British Muslims to last week’s open letter.

My current thoughts are still too unformed to really share coherently but I'm now starting to think along more abstract lines. I mean this in terms of a unique combination of factors that make extreme Islam appear to be a rewarding path to follow even in the academy where extremist religion is usually slain rather than fostered.

 

[Blackmushroom]

Any British Muslims viewing this thread that can give us a view on what the situation is in their community?

 

[TeeJay]

When the term "community" is used I often wonder how many people really do fit neatly into one. There are so many overlapping groups of people and you can end up associating with lots of different people over the course of even one day and many of these groups will simply be based on geography rather than religion or "race".

To turn things around - if someone asked me what I felt about white power terrorists (eg the nailbomber) based on the fact that I was a "member of the white community" I'd be a bit mystified as to what exactly I had in common with them or what kind of special insight I had into why they were so hate-filled and murderous. Even if I had some kind of concept about "being British" myself, it would be hard to imagine how this ends up being taken as far and to the extreme that the nailbomber took it, and I'd be a bit depressed if my "non-white" friends expected me to be able to explain what was in the neo-nazis minds because I was also "white".

Therefore of course I am interested ihn what brotish Muslims would make of this thread, but I am kind of uncomfortable in labelling someone as and expecting them to give an answer because they are "from the same community as the terrorists".

 

[ZAMB]

Yes, but American hispanics are not trying to blow up airplanes because of the Cuban embargo.

Well, what do you think of the Israelis bombing Christians in Lebanon? Where's the reasoning behind that? They deliberately bombed christian towns and neighbourhoods. And where was that great christian GWB's anger at them for wiping out his fellow christians and driving them from their homes - he never even mentioned it!!? He even supplied the bombs.

Evil exists everywhere - it isn't unique to certain sectors of the population. You certainly have had plenty of homegrown US terrorists like the KKK, the Unabomber etc.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Well, what do you think of the Israelis bombing Christians in Lebanon? Where's the reasoning behind that? They deliberately bombed christian towns and neighbourhoods. And where was that great christian GWB's anger at them for wiping out his fellow christians and driving them from their homes - he never even mentioned it!!? He even supplied the bombs.

Evil exists everywhere - it isn't unique to certain sectors of the population. You certainly have had plenty of homegrown US terrorists like the KKK, the Unabomber etc.

But there's lots of muslims in the US: why aren't they blowing stuff up: that's the question.

Some might argue that the unabomber, the KKK etc are crazy or psychotic.

Are you saying that the british terrorists are the same as the KKK or the unabomber?

 

[ZAMB]

It means she is a class act for putting herself and childs life at risk.

Do you believe their attempted acts were justified?

She has yet to be charged or found guilty of anything - but I guess people in the US aren't innocent until proved guilty any more - your govt. just sends them off to a torture camp.

 

[ZAMB]

Are you saying that the british terrorists are the same as the KKK or the unabomber?

No I'm saying that they were terrorists - and that, regardless of religion, people will occasionally emerge in any society who want to make their point through terrorism. You can't just dismiss all US homegrown terrorists who don't happen to be muslims by writing them off as crazy.

 

[TeeJay]

...people will occasionally emerge in any society who want to make their point through terrorism...

Do you think that Islamist ("Al-Qaeda like") terrorism arises randomly and evenly distributed across every country that has a Muslim population?

I am trying to think of any countries with fair sized Muslim populations that haven't had some kind of problem with Islamist terrorists.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

No I'm saying that they were terrorists - and that, regardless of religion, people will occasionally emerge in any society who want to make their point through terrorism. You can't just dismiss all US homegrown terrorists who don't happen to be muslims by writing them off as crazy.

But the question here is why do some british muslims feel disaffected to the point that they're prepared to take up terrorism, while muslims in the US don't seem to have taken that step?

The natural assumption is that it's something to do with the overriding society, and not with the religion in isolation.

 

[ZAMB]

I've just been watching the American programme on Youtube - 30 days as a Muslim - and I think the answer he comes to in the end is the right one - that you can't condemn the whole community for the actions of a few.

One of the most significant parts for me was when he was trying to get people to sign the petition condemning racial profiling - and the other Americans, thinking he was a muslim, wouldn't give him the time of day, never mind their signature. Because he had already experienced this profiling, and could see for himself how bigoted it was.

 

[Diamond]

When the term "community" is used I often wonder how many people really do fit neatly into one. There are so many overlapping groups of people and you can end up associating with lots of different people over the course of even one day and many of these groups will simply be based on geography rather than religion or "race".

To turn things around - if someone asked me what I felt about white power terrorists (eg the nailbomber) based on the fact that I was a "member of the white community" I'd be a bit mystified as to what exactly I had in common with them or what kind of special insight I had into why they were so hate-filled and murderous. Even if I had some kind of concept about "being British" myself, it would be hard to imagine how this ends up being taken as far and to the extreme that the nailbomber took it, and I'd be a bit depressed if my "non-white" friends expected me to be able to explain what was in the neo-nazis minds because I was also "white".

Therefore of course I am interested ihn what brotish Muslims would make of this thread, but I am kind of uncomfortable in labelling someone as and expecting them to give an answer because they are "from the same community as the terrorists".

That's a fair point but I think there's plenty of evidence from documentary makers such as Kenan Malik and Darcus Howe to suggest that in areas of England there is a very distinct British Pakistani community.

But beyond that I think it's a bit disingenous to draw paralells between a 'white' community and the British Pakistani community. The former is just a a majority agglomeration of many millions featuring enormous diversity of religion and culture whereas the latter has strong ties that bind in terms of immigrant ancestry, religion and common culture.

Furthermore your analogy seems to be flawed. The homophobic nail bomber was pretty much a lone extremist despite all the guff about combat 18. In his case there was nowhere near the same structure of extremism and it was not as if he had been radicalised after starting out on an even keel.