There’s a column I want to write, and it goes like this:
Beneath all the froth about motivations, beneath the wild statements about heresy and depravity and rampant immigration, the English Defence League and the jihadists aren’t so very different: they are overwhelmingly socially and sexually frustrated men who, having made a mess of their own lives, have to find an enemy of another colour or creed in order to avoid facing up to their own inadequacy.
It’s a column I want to write, because I’d feel comfortable writing it. It’s easy for progressives to understand the English Defence League, because our reaction to Woolwich is identical to theirs: it offends our idea of what England is. The person who best gave voice to it was Lee Rigby’s widow, Rebecca: ‘You don’t expect it to happen when he’s in the UK.’.
We expect – and accept – that soldiers will die, often in horrible ways, but we expect it to happen somewhere else, not somewhere with a London postcode and a DLR station. Where the left differs from the far right, of course, is that our England is a real place, while theirs is a Powellite fantasy. But that commonality of impulse, that brief shared revulsion that it could happen here makes us more comfortable attacking the English Defence League than it does dissecting the life choices of two men with surnames we probably can’t pronounce and who we don’t really understand.
But it’s simply not good enough for the progressive response to Woolwich to be a retread of our old conclusions about the far right. Not because they’re wrong – the best weapon against extremism is still full employment – but because they’re easy. The English Defence League have done many things that offend my idea of England this week, they did many things that offended it last week and they’ll do yet more in the weeks to come, but here’s one thing they didn’t do: they didn’t hack someone to death in the streets of London only a few days ago. Any response to Woolwich that doesn’t grapple seriously with those two Michaels, Adebolajo and Adebowale, and why they did what they did, isn’t really a response at all.
First there has to be some examination of motive. It is obviously counterfactual to claim that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq haven’t increased the risk of jihadist terrorism in the United Kingdom, but, equally, it is obviously counterfactual to claim that giving the police the power to detain suspects for up to ninety days wouldn’t decrease that risk. I support the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan – although I didn’t at the time – and I’m still viscerally opposed to ninety-day detention, because I think that governments ought to be driven by better impulses than fear. It may be that we would be safer from terror if we passed something like the Data Communications Bill, or that the English Defence League will wither and die once they see Labour’s immigration cap in action, but these remain bad ideas and bad policies.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t blind ourselves to the real consequences of policies we think are right, and we shouldn’t pretend that the incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan haven’t made British people less safe. Equally, though, we shouldn’t allow an argument about Iraq – again, like that column I mooted at the beginning, a discussion we’re comfortable having – to prevent us having a serious conversation about the motive that bound together Adebolajo and Adebowale.
For anyone who has spent any time at all at the London Met, or City University, or the University of East London, then the fact there is far-right Islamic activity on campuses in inner London is as surprising as Sunday following Saturday, and yet, the University of Greenwich is only now beginning to investigate whether or not there might be radical extremism within that institution. That betrays a wider failing: of our collective unwillingness to even talk about the problem of radical Islamism, because it makes us feel uncomfortable. The legacy of Woolwich shouldn’t be isolationism abroad or authoritarianism at home: it has to be a willingness to have uncomfortable conversations.
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Stephen Bush writes a weekly column for Progress, the Tuesday review, and tweets @stephenkb
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There is no doubt that extremist activity is with us and will probably get worse as the population rises.
But how is extremism defined in Islam? Beheading the Unbeliever or the Jew is standard for the devout in the Koran, where there are countless instructions on the most effective way of achieving that and carrying out various other death sentences.
Western muslims seem to satisfy themselves with the thought that it’s all a kind of cosy metaphor, or that Muhammad was joking. Most non-western muslims, as evidenced by a trail of horror across the world, don’t. To them, it’s clearly a religious imperative.
We need answers…not platitudes about ‘community adhesion’,
I am curious to know how the writer arrives at the conclusion that the members of the EDL are “sexually and socially frustrated.” Has he carried out some psychological research?
It could be argued that most in British society are sexually and socially frustrated in one way or another, due to economic/social circumstances and religious/cultural norms and mores. For men, this is exacerbated by Western, female “fashion.” However, as one gets older and, if arrived at social contentment through socially mobility, the drives become less.
My main concern about the media frenzy around the Woolwich killing is that such an isolated incident results in yet more knee jerk legislation with further loss of our Civil Liberties. New Labour politicians out of media pressure, naivety and panic laid the foundations for a British Police State with, for example, the anti-terror laws. We are now one of the most controlled and watched societies in the world. Those of us who lived through the IRA terrorism of the 70s and 80s were not bound by such contemporary draconian laws we have today.
Putting the Woolwich murder into context, there are many violent incidents on British streets
each day, sometimes resulting in death, due to gangland feuds, random “stranger” killings, domestic disputes and so on. The Woolwich killing is no more than yet another reason (perhaps religious or self-glorification) for one taking the life of another. In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, there are thousands of deaths each year, sometimes hundreds each day. One needs to keep a sense of proportion. Apart from perhaps the 7/7 terrorist act, the IRA carried out terrorist acts far outstripping anything we have seen in Britain since 9/11. But then, it is in the interests of the police forces, MI5/6 and the “security industry” to stoke up public fear to legitimise draconian laws and increased Public spending on their vested interests.
Old Grassroots Geezer
6 years ago whiles studying at the University of Westminster I was surprised and chilled to witness the enthusiasm a number of students huddled together over a Library computer had about a nationwide and worldwide Jihad they seemed to be fantasizing about, it sounded like the most exciting thing they felt could and should happen.
Judging by the frequency and what seemed like the affectionate use of the term Jihad used by many Turkish gamers I interacted with when I played WoW, an MMORPG a few years back, extremist ideology is rampant in Europe amongst under 35s and it would appear growing, certainly much moreso than when I was a teenager just over 10 years ago
I’m not sure how much any policy made here or anyway can affect what goes on Turkey with regard to this, I’m not sure if policy is even in the best way to deal with this cankerworm of Islamic extremism spreading, and being pushed not just in Islamic majority communities, but also it would appear, in Universities here in Britain.
But it is something to be concerned about, and it is affecting and radicalising young men, particularly those in disaffected, impoverished and isolated communities, However indoctrination has been stepped up to schools and universities for a long time now. It would seem myopic to dismiss is as mere random or “one off” occurrences.
It would seem that it is only here in the west that we regard Islam as a religion, where in most of the wide world where it predominates, it is far more than that. Operating much more as a governmental system, with religious aspects, in the same way you would view communism for example. However, because there is a god character playing a central role in the Koran, it is wrongly lumped into the religious category, because a secular world view automatically classes anything with “god” in it as a religion, even when every indication is it is much more than that.
The whole debate needs to be re-examined. Whiles freedom of worship is a key tenant of our society, what’s been pushed and promoted in much of radicalizing Islam is much more than that. Perhaps too much as been allowed under “religious” freedom. While it is not religious freedom that should be re-examined, it is the consideration that Islam is indeed a religion when it clearly is not by our definition in our laws and in our society of what a religion is. Don’t fall into the trap that because a supernatural being is promoted or worshipped that it is just the same as Christianity, or Hinduism or Buddhism and other religions.
We can be so naiive.