Excuses, Excuses
I was disappointed in this comment piece by a former Labour Minister, Shahid Malik, which appeared in The Times the other day.
Because it is plainly ridiculous to describe young Muslims who go off to support the Islamic State (IS) as 'victims' when they are, in fact, helping to sustain a murderous gang of fascists who use their religious beliefs to justify the most appalling acts against fellow human beings.
Now I'm sure that the young men and women who joined up with Charles Manson's Helter Skelter group were bedazzled and to a degree 'brainwashed' by their charismatic leader, but they also exercised free will in deciding to follow his murderous plans which included the cold-blooded killing of a heavily pregnant woman (Sharon Tate) and her unborn baby.
So these young Muslims are not victims in the proper sense of the word and to continually make excuses for their poor judgment is to make excuses for what they are really doing over in Syria and Iraq.
Imams still have their heads in the sand
By Shahid Malik - The Times
Young Muslims groomed to join Isis are as much victims as their parents. Our insular mosques are letting them down
I was in Dewsbury this week, supporting two families for whom the nightmare increasingly dreaded by Muslim parents has become a reality. They fear they have lost their children to the jihadi extremists of Islamic State.
It is not the first time that bad news has visited the West Yorkshire town. Once regarded as an unassuming backwater, Dewsbury received the biggest British National Party vote in the country on the day I became its Labour MP in 2005.
Within months came the July 7 terrorist attack on London and the awful news that the lead bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was a Dewsbury resident. This week, the negative headlines returned.
It has been a harrowing few days for the traumatised relatives of Talha Asmal and Hassan Munshi, 17-year-old local lads who left home and family to fly to Turkey. They are now believed to have crossed the border into Syria.
I sat with families who are attempting to come to terms with a devastating predicament. They fear they may never see their beloved boys again but are being sustained by the very Islamic faith whose twisted perversion seems to have lured their sons away.
Both boys’ parents are extremely well-respected, hard-working and community-spirited. As soon as suspicions arose they alerted police, praying that their fears were unfounded. Tragically, it appears they were not.
The boys were not taking a secret vacation in Majorca. It seems likely that they are in war-torn Syria. If they do join the likes of Isis, their prospects of ever returning home are grim. Their parents are crushed by the thought that they may never see their sons again. They are convinced that their children were groomed. I believe these boys are first and foremost victims, as are their parents.
If we fail to understand and accept this, society is going to lose what is becoming a life-and-death face-off with extremism.
From members of the families, I also heard genuine anger. They feel let down because they think that mosques in Britain could and should do so much more to engage with vulnerable Muslim teenagers. It’s a view I share.
I appreciate there’s a “mosques need to do more” fatigue, but not only do I believe that they can do better. I firmly believe they must.
Mosques cannot be held responsible for extremism but they have a responsibility to teach and guide impressionable youngsters about the un-Islamic barbarism of Isis. Parents would be forgiven for believing that our mosques send out powerful, unequivocal messages about this, but the truth is that far too many don’t.
I applaud the many mosques in this country that have taken a central role in community life. They organise social events, invite non-Muslims, lecture in English on topical issues, employ UK-trained imams who stress the duty owed by Muslims to Britain, the country in which they were born or have chosen to live.
Sadly, those engaged in such excellent practice are the exception. The challenge for our Muslim communities is to turn excellent practice into common practice. Mosques that exist in a narrow, insular world are not fit for purpose. Far too often, imams choose not to deal with vital issues. They avoid them because they are “too difficult” or controversial, or the imam is ill-equipped to tackle them.
In some cases, our religious leaders subscribe to a doctrine that actually prevents them from speaking about any worldly matters within the mosque.
There’s a harsh reality that needs to be confronted. Until such mosque leaders take their heads out of the sand, they are condemning us to fight to save our children with one arm tied behind our backs. The outcome is all too predictable — more kids dying in far-flung, war-torn hellholes thousands of miles from those who truly love them.
We must expose the perverted idealism that sees western freedoms as shackles and drives young people to seek out Isis and the bloody graveyard that is Syria.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that British foreign policy, whether in Syria, Palestine or Iraq, plays no role in this debate. There is a sense of injustice and Isis plays upon it, but it is unforgivable to use such concerns to justify terrorism.
We urgently need to understand what is radicalising these teenagers, how they are groomed, online and offline, what safeguards are required and how to break down the eco-system that facilitates this deadly metamorphosis from innocent child to overseas extremist. There has rightly been much focus in recent years on the insidious crime of child sexual exploitation. It’s time for society to pay equal attention to another form of grooming in which the victims are vulnerable young Muslim boys and girls, brainwashed and exploited by gangs of jihadist extremists.
It’s a lethal process. We need families, communities, experts, academics and the police to work together so that we can understand how best to challenge it. I’m calling for an urgent inquiry. Our children deserve nothing less.
Shahid Malik was Labour MP for Dewsbury 2005-10 and Britain’s first Muslim minister. He is chairman of the anti-Muslim hate monitoring body, Tell Mama.
Young Muslims groomed to join Isis are as much victims as their parents. Our insular mosques are letting them down
I was in Dewsbury this week, supporting two families for whom the nightmare increasingly dreaded by Muslim parents has become a reality. They fear they have lost their children to the jihadi extremists of Islamic State.
It is not the first time that bad news has visited the West Yorkshire town. Once regarded as an unassuming backwater, Dewsbury received the biggest British National Party vote in the country on the day I became its Labour MP in 2005.
Within months came the July 7 terrorist attack on London and the awful news that the lead bomber, Mohammad Sidique Khan, was a Dewsbury resident. This week, the negative headlines returned.
It has been a harrowing few days for the traumatised relatives of Talha Asmal and Hassan Munshi, 17-year-old local lads who left home and family to fly to Turkey. They are now believed to have crossed the border into Syria.
I sat with families who are attempting to come to terms with a devastating predicament. They fear they may never see their beloved boys again but are being sustained by the very Islamic faith whose twisted perversion seems to have lured their sons away.
Both boys’ parents are extremely well-respected, hard-working and community-spirited. As soon as suspicions arose they alerted police, praying that their fears were unfounded. Tragically, it appears they were not.
The boys were not taking a secret vacation in Majorca. It seems likely that they are in war-torn Syria. If they do join the likes of Isis, their prospects of ever returning home are grim. Their parents are crushed by the thought that they may never see their sons again. They are convinced that their children were groomed. I believe these boys are first and foremost victims, as are their parents.
If we fail to understand and accept this, society is going to lose what is becoming a life-and-death face-off with extremism.
From members of the families, I also heard genuine anger. They feel let down because they think that mosques in Britain could and should do so much more to engage with vulnerable Muslim teenagers. It’s a view I share.
I appreciate there’s a “mosques need to do more” fatigue, but not only do I believe that they can do better. I firmly believe they must.
Mosques cannot be held responsible for extremism but they have a responsibility to teach and guide impressionable youngsters about the un-Islamic barbarism of Isis. Parents would be forgiven for believing that our mosques send out powerful, unequivocal messages about this, but the truth is that far too many don’t.
I applaud the many mosques in this country that have taken a central role in community life. They organise social events, invite non-Muslims, lecture in English on topical issues, employ UK-trained imams who stress the duty owed by Muslims to Britain, the country in which they were born or have chosen to live.
Sadly, those engaged in such excellent practice are the exception. The challenge for our Muslim communities is to turn excellent practice into common practice. Mosques that exist in a narrow, insular world are not fit for purpose. Far too often, imams choose not to deal with vital issues. They avoid them because they are “too difficult” or controversial, or the imam is ill-equipped to tackle them.
In some cases, our religious leaders subscribe to a doctrine that actually prevents them from speaking about any worldly matters within the mosque.
There’s a harsh reality that needs to be confronted. Until such mosque leaders take their heads out of the sand, they are condemning us to fight to save our children with one arm tied behind our backs. The outcome is all too predictable — more kids dying in far-flung, war-torn hellholes thousands of miles from those who truly love them.
We must expose the perverted idealism that sees western freedoms as shackles and drives young people to seek out Isis and the bloody graveyard that is Syria.
It would be disingenuous to pretend that British foreign policy, whether in Syria, Palestine or Iraq, plays no role in this debate. There is a sense of injustice and Isis plays upon it, but it is unforgivable to use such concerns to justify terrorism.
We urgently need to understand what is radicalising these teenagers, how they are groomed, online and offline, what safeguards are required and how to break down the eco-system that facilitates this deadly metamorphosis from innocent child to overseas extremist. There has rightly been much focus in recent years on the insidious crime of child sexual exploitation. It’s time for society to pay equal attention to another form of grooming in which the victims are vulnerable young Muslim boys and girls, brainwashed and exploited by gangs of jihadist extremists.
It’s a lethal process. We need families, communities, experts, academics and the police to work together so that we can understand how best to challenge it. I’m calling for an urgent inquiry. Our children deserve nothing less.
Shahid Malik was Labour MP for Dewsbury 2005-10 and Britain’s first Muslim minister. He is chairman of the anti-Muslim hate monitoring body, Tell Mama.
