November 13, 2020 - 8:30am
Across Europe, a reckoning with Islamism and jihadist terror is unfolding before our eyes. No longer is this an issue simply of security, instead it is an existential question of values and sovereignty. This week Sweden’s Interior Minister added his voice to the new chorus of tougher language:
There has been a shift away from individualising the problem — the idea that radicalisation happens when mysterious online recruiters reach into bedrooms to groom unsuspecting victims with hypnotic propaganda — and towards the ideological milieus where terrorists are socialised and competing values are inculcated. Damberg continued: “one cannot only look at the concrete terrorist threat, one must also look at the environments in which radicalisation takes place.”
Thanks to Western media coverage and the cynicism of foreign leaders jostling for influence in the Muslim world, Emmanuel Macron’s campaign against Islamism has drawn the most attention — intensified by the appalling Nice attack and the gruesome murder of Samuel Paty that preceded it. But the mood and the mechanisms for countering terrorism have been shifting across Europe for some time. Macron has talked of tackling ‘Islamist separatism’ for years, while in the words of Muslim Brotherhood expert Lorenzo Vidino:
Britain should not necessarily (and likely cannot) enact the same measures that some European countries are introducing, but we risk falling badly behind, at least in our perception of the threat.
While Europe is confronting Islamism with increasing boldness, we remain squeamish about even saying the term, and while ‘separatism’ may be more of a problem in France, the same environments and entrenched ideological milieus have produced carnage on our streets. Manchester bomber Salman Abedi was not radicalised alone in his bedroom by online propaganda, he was the product of radical networks that put their roots down in the city almost three decades ago.
The patterns are all around us — the 2.5 mile radius of Manchester around Abedi’s home produced 16 convicted or dead terrorists, while one university cohort produced 7 ISIS fighters — yet the political, ideological and environmental elements of the problem are often overlooked or actively downplayed.
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Middle class liberals don’t have the guts to confront islamism. Most liberals couldn’t eject a housespider.
If you want a prediction, and I don’t mean a recommendation, just what I think will happen, it is that much tougher people than you will come along to try and deal with it. These people will hold you in as much contempt as islamists do.
My thanks to liberals everywhere, for turning my approaching old age into crapsville, instead of the period of quiet contemplation that I was hoping for.
hear hear Sums up most,Also the demented ”Low Carbon” economy The Great Reset ,will make paupers of 6/8 billion People..
Luckily, the “global elite” will emerge more prosperous than ever.
how long before ‘sovereignty’ is redefined as racism or xenophobia? It’s nice that some places are adopting the better late than never approach is recognizing the reality before them, but it is still astonishing at how limited that group is in number. Seems some of the Eastern Euros had the right idea in not playing along with importing people hostile to their culture in the first place.
It is a dilemma, balancing the rights of people to free expression and association against safety. Other terrorist groups, in particular the KKK in the US, have been completely neutralized by infiltrating their ranks and prosecuting violent actors. In order to accomplish this we need people brave and dedicated enough to be agents within the terrorist organizations.
You can’t have blue eyes and fair hair though.
It’s not a dilemma at all. When people commit crimes, appropriate response is necessary or society breaks down. What the perpetrators look like is irrelevant. I doubt the same hesitation would be evident if the criminals was a group of white guys.
Sounds like it’s time to go after ANTIFA-USA as well…..they too must be ‘neutralized’. Already too much violence and anarchy.
The KKK is not “completely neutralized”.
“White supremacists present the gravest terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Trump Administration’s Department of Homeland Security.
“Two later draft versions of the same document ” all of which were reviewed by POLITICO ” describe the threat from white supremacists in slightly different language. But all three drafts describe the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat facing the U.S., listed above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups.”
POLITICO 09/04/2020 05:45 PM EDT
Well ironically, as concerning the article title, this is already the case in Sweden, a typical example are the reactions to the Sweden Democrats (SD) party who focus a lot on the issue of Swedish sovereignty and all that that implies. The headline should not be construed as indicating any great initiative by the Swedish government in terms of restricting the negative aspects of islamism although they are making some attempts to limit these, eg. independent schools practising religion bordering on indoctrination and witholding passports of young muslim girls in some cases for fear of trips abroad for forced marriages or mutilation of sexual organs. Due to Sweden’s success in attracting large groups of asylum seekers from the middle east and east Africa coupled with a liberal and lax legal system the country has become a magnet for fundamentalists, radicals and tourists to Syria. The socialist government has ambitions to do more to address the situation but have their hands tied by dependence on support of liberal parties V (post-communist left), C (Centre left) and MP (Greens).
We don’t have long to deal with this. Many have predicted that we shall be an Islamic country by 2050. The birth statistics alone project this. Politicians appear afraid of Islam although happy to castigate harmless christians.
Votes Jeremy corbyn Keir Starmer in london Ed Daveys Candidates in Bradford ( Numbers outnumber jewish votes by 8;1).Any opposition is called ”Islamophobes” Strutgeon Wants to Arrest people having political disagreements in their OWN house!!
No one mentions “dawa” the imperative placed on Believers to convert the Infidel to Islam. The conversion process must continue until no more Infidels exist. Once has to presume that the liberal intelligentsia are OK with this.
I think you’ll find they aren’t actually an intelligentsia worthy of the name.
The recent events in Sweden, France and Austria are entirely predictable. Only a liberal could believe otherwise – and their policies will result in more deaths on the streets of Europe. Do they care? No: they do not.
We need a rejection of multiculturalism and an insistence on full integration. We are an anglo saxon Christian nation, English speaking. One of our steps should be to insist on English only in all documents and proceedings including courts.
We are a post Christian nation today.
“The patterns are all around us ” the 2.5 mile radius of Manchester around Abedi’s home produced 16 convicted or dead terrorists”
Tommy Robinson made this very point
And ended up in jail without even a proper trial. The regime in Westminster has a lot of blame on its heads.
There is an obvious parallel between the idea of de-radicalisation and criminal rehabilitation. The advocates of both concepts continually underestimate their subjects and overestimate the efficacy of their own essentially therapeutic methods. The London Bridge attack of November 2019 should have illustrated that (if you don’t resort to the old “isolated case” refuge) but the advocates of de-radiclisation persist in defending their project.
Why do rehabilitators assume that criminals just need a chance to become “useful and productive members of society”? Has nobody told them that crime pays well? You are your own boss and the hours are flexible. Of course you have to keep an eye out for the Rozzers but risks of getting caught and penalties if you do are diminishing by the day ““ not so much an occupational hazard as an inconvenience.
The advocates of both de-radicalisation and criminal rehabilitation suffer from the pacifist delusion ““ ie. the determination to believe that there is no need to fight “because there is a better way”. Is it not time to confront the repeated failures of that better way?
Most Muslims want a decent life in a safe environment. There are a few who want to blow things up. How do we sort that out? Accepting the good means accepting the bad, too. Is that the price Western generosity must pay? Is that the stigma decent Muslims must live with?
Answers:
a) You can’t (yet).
b) Western generosity is a lie, we were never asked.
c) Cry me a river. When ones co-religionists kept doing this crap again, and again, and again, one must start to think – “Hamza mate, are we the baddies?”
Sir, you overlook a large elephant. Anyone who tries to tell them the truth gets hated on, whereas all over the bbc etc there are the Kumbaya “Professor” Mona Siddiqi telling us how marvellously peaceful this personality cult is. Just imagine two classes in a school. The one tells the children that Islam is really nice. The other….
True. But if your group is generating so much harm, when do you start distancing? I think there are many ex Muslims that are invisible in our society and they are almost impossible to see. I think nobody minds those. The problem is that many Muslims cluster in a few places and do not want to assimilate. This does makes these groups responsible for their bad apples.
We sort it out by TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ISLAM. And before that we have to get fascist politicians (such as now dominate Parliament) out of the way so they no longer criminalise people for TELLING THE TRUTH. The truth is that Islam is not “the religion of peace”, but very much the personality cult of a warmonger. Though in the context that most “Muslims” are either deeply ignorant of the truth of Islam, or else just pretending to be believers.
We need a charter of Free Speech, that no-one must ever be persecuted for just saying what they believe. Yes Keir Starmer, I’m talking about your endorsement of fascism this week.
“one cannot only look at the concrete terrorist threat, one must also
look at the environments in which radicalisation takes place.”
I laughed – I really did. It was clearly spoken as a sort of profound insight that really went outside the box. I mean, obviously we know that Islamists beam mind-control rays into poor innocent men, who coincidently always seem to have names like Abdul and Mohammad.
Charleston South Carolina shooter Dylan Storm Roof was not radicalised alone in his bedroom by online propaganda, he was the product of radical networks that put their roots down in the city a century ago.
Dylann Storm Roof is an American white supremacist and mass murderer convicted for perpetrating the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015, in the U.S. state of South Carolina. During a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Roof killed nine people, all African Americans, including senior pastor and state senator Clementa C.Wikipedia
Born: Dylann Storm Roof, April 3, 1994, Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.
Perpetrator of the Charleston AME church shooting
Criminal charges: Federal (33 counts), Hate crime act resulting in death (9 counts), Hate crime act involving an attempt to kill (3 counts), Obstruction of exercise of religion resulting in death (9 counts), Obstruction of exercise of religion involving an attempt to kill and use of a dangerous weapon (3 counts), Use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence (9 counts) South Carolina State (13 counts), Murder (9 counts), Attempted murder (3 counts), Possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.
What point are you making here? That Islamic terrorism, which is what this article is concerned with, is not too bad in comparison with right wing terrorism? I think both need to be repressed. The right wing version is at least home grown, rather than having been (and continuing to be..) imported from conservative and unreformed countries and cultures entirely different to, and historically often in conflict with the Christian (and later Western) World.
I believe your question is disingenuous at best.
Trumpholes and assorted RWNJs excuse, rationalize and deny that white supremacists are an existential threat to the US’s democratic republic and our Constitution.
“White supremacists present the gravest terror threat to the United States, according to a draft report from the Trump Administration’s Department of Homeland Security.
“Two later draft versions of the same document ” all of which were reviewed by POLITICO ” describe the threat from white supremacists in slightly different language. But all three drafts describe the threat from white supremacists as the deadliest domestic terror threat facing the U.S., listed above the immediate danger from foreign terrorist groups.”
POLITICO 09/04/2020 05:45 PM EDT
I have no idea what RWNJs are. I hold the KKK with contempt but I wonder why you keep changing the subject…. The topic is the European response to Islamist violence and ideology.
The cultural hegemony of the US seems entirely unbowed, however dysfunctional their politics at present!
KKK is a US phenomenon, the current Islamist terror mainly in Europe. And yes I know more Muslims are killed by Islamists by far worldwide than Europeans, but that is for those national governments primarily to address. This is a UK site so of course will tend to focus on issues of more relevance to Britain and Europe.
We don’t have to choose sides between Islamist and right wing extremists….
STEVE BANNON’S NEW WORLD ORDER BEGINS WITH A ROAD SHOW
The ultimate goal? Returning Europe to the halcyon days of 1913, when the continent was a mess of warring duchies and assorted confederations. Or so it would seem.
https://www.vanityfair.com/…
coming to a village near you.
It isn’t “Islamism”, it is Islam. Islam was founded by a warlord who tortured and assassinated people who disagreed with him. This is all very much documented in Islam’s own sacred documents. It is the reason why right now in Islam-dominated countries, children are being taught to hate the non-Muslims. “We” might not be at war with Islam, but Islam is most certainly still at war against non-Muslims, 1400 years since its Jihad armies first burst out of Arabia, 1300 years since a Jihad army was halted on its way to the monastery of Nantes, and 350 years since another Jihad army was halted in its attempt to capture Vienna in 1683.
The Islamic State made very clear in their own publication that they kill us not because Blair invaded Iraq etc, but solely because we disbelieve and disobey the Qur’an. Meanwhile five books in the “best-selling” area of Waterstones pretended to tell you about Islamic State while not including a single word of the Qur’an, which is pretty much like writing a book about ww2 with out mentioning a certain man with a moustache.
The problem of terrorism (see also latest Azerbaijan attacking Armenia,as if we’ve already forgotten the huge Jihadist genocide of Armenians) will not be ended by pretending the enemy isn’t trying to kill you. I should not have to say this but I am not saying “all Muslims are terrorists”. But note the absence of huge protests by Muslims/”Muslims” against the terrorism, but only huge protests in favour of it. WHY?
Learn from this video the crucial history that our severely corrupted schools are not teaching:
www youtube com/watch?v=I_To-cV94Bo
“Fighting is prescribed for you, and you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and that you love a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and you know not.” [Quran 2:216]
“Have you not seen those unto whom it was said: Withhold your hands and establish worship and pay the poor-due? But when fighting was prescribed for them, behold! a party of them fear mankind even as they fear Allah or with greater fear, and they say: Our Lord! why have you ordained fighting for us? If only you would give us respite for a while. I Say: The comfort of this world is scant; the Hereafter will be better for he who wards off evil.” [Quran 4:77]
“It is not for any Prophet to have captives until he has made a great slaughter in the land.” [8:67]
“Married women are forbidden to you except the captives your right (sword) hand possesses.” [4:24]
“O Prophet! We have made lawful to you your wives “¦ and those whom your right (sword) hand possesses of the captives of war whom Allah has assigned to you.” [33:50].
“It is not allowed you to take other women henceforth nor that you should change them for other wives even though their beauty pleased you, except for those whom your right hand possesses.” [33:52]
“Allah promises you will capture much booty.” [48:20]
“One-fifth of your spoils of war shall belong to Allah, the Apostle, the Apostle’s kinsfolk, the orphans, the destitute, and the traveler in need.” [8:41]
“And that which Allah gives as spoil unto His messenger from them, you urged not any horse or riding-camel for the sake thereof [i.e. you did no work to earn it], but Allah gives His messenger lordship over whom he will. Allah is able to do all things.”[59:6]
“The spoils of war taken from the town-dwellers and assigned by Allah to His apostle shall belong to Allah, to the Apostle and his kinsfolk, …..” [59:7]
And many verses of the same book point out that it is a clear book, clearly explained, as would be expected unless Allah had a communication disability which appears unlikely.
And yet anything remotely critical of Judaism is blocked as anti-Semitic . Holocaust denialism is a crime in many European countries. That is also intolerant. It seems that criticism can only be directed against Islam and not other religions.
I am a gay man and an atheist. I am unaware of any threat or even vigoous condemnation by Jews, even Orthodox ones, at least none which affects me in any way. It is well known that Judaism is a non-proselytising religion, and difficult in any case to convert to, unlike Christianity or Islam. And I don’t know what criticism you would like to make of Judaism, I suspect that most of us would have the most vestigial comprehension of even the main tenets of that religion.
This sounds like one of those well-meaning but misguided liberal arguments that forces the facts to ensure some sort of false equivalence. Christianity has undergone the Reformation and influence of the Enlightenment; Judaism is non-proselytising and difficult in any case to convert to. Islam remains by far the most prestigous and moral force in the Muslim world, certainly much more so than any national government or political ideology or philosophy. And I can even understand its appeal in the context of so much appalling governance in the Middle East. But this has the consequence that extreme and militant interpretations of Islam and the jihadist religious obligations of Muslims, are far more likely to garner support than for the other religions. This has been the case at least since the early 19th century with the rise of Wahabism.
Islamic fanatics don’t distinguish much between Christians, Jews, atheistics, supporters of secularism, or left or right wing political beliefs, as we’ve seem recently in France. They are very happy to carry out atrocities against all of them – in fact ‘us’. While most Muslims don’t support this, they are reluctant and perhaps scared to actively oppose extremism. However I don’t blame them as much as our own governments and institutions who all too often prove utterly pusillanimous and cowardly before this threat. They are far too concerned that the main danger is ‘Islamophobia’ rather than the rather obvious threat of people who ultimately will happilly chop cut off the heads of their enemies (again, that is us). We would’t I suppose sit back and dismiss the (small) threat of neo-fascists, on the grounds that they don’t have access to many weapons (yet) but seem to engage in exactly this sort of wishful thinking when confronted by a – by the way, self-declared – Islamist enemy.
If we cannot see Islamic extremism as a clear and present danger which needs to be radically rooted out, then much of the West’s freedoms really are doomed in the long run.
Your “Islamic fanatics don’t distinguish much between…” list omitted the largest group: other Muslims. Rather like the leftist revolutionary groups of old, the greatest enemy is within. Those that hold marginally deviant philosophies are most likely to be attacked – usually very violently.
A fair point….