| | The newspapers today relay the sentencing of Roshonara Choudhry for the stabbing of Stephen Timms MP and the transcript of her interview, released by the police, which reveals her apparent radicalization through listening to online lectures by Anwar Al-Awlaki.
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But the news that dominates the heinous crime committed by Choudhry is the outburst of a bunch of misfits in the courtroom while sentencing took place. The front page of the Daily Express declares ‘Muslims tell British: Go To Hell’ – as though ‘British’ and ‘Muslims’ were mutually exclusive categories. Or that the idiots who caused disruption in the courtroom yesterday were in any way representative of the views of the overwhelming majority of British Muslims. How then does the DE infer that it’s ‘Muslims’ that tell the ‘British’ to go to hell? And how many protestors were there that the DE felt it relevant to grant them front page status?
The Daily Star in its editorial today pompously argues that “These extremist idiots cannot be allowed to hijack Islam for their vicious cause.” Why then give them what they crave – attention and notoriety?
The Evening Standard editorial meanwhile takes the opportunity to plug the “moderate Quilliam Foundation” and its report “Radicalisation on British University Campuses.”
The paper’s editorial states:
“The moderate Quilliam Foundation has published a study of the problem of Islamist activism at institutions such as City University and King's College; some of its recommendations are worth considering, including scrutiny of the activities of Muslim societies and their guests and, more fundamentally, questioning the advisability of the authorities treating those societies as representative of their Muslim students.”
Institutions of higher education certainly do have a role to play in ensuring that the activities of university student societies remain within the law, whether this involves invitations to controversial speakers from Israel or the BNP to Muslim speakers, either British or foreign born. But they also have a responsibility to foster an environment of critical inquiry and as Demos argue in the report, ‘The power of unreason’, “Our education system must equip young people with the tools to discriminate credible information from its many imposters.”
It is interesting to note too the ES remark on “questioning the advisability of the authorities treating those societies as representative of their Muslim students.” The comment eerily revives some of the worst manifestations of the Prevent programme with its manipulation of civil society through the support and funding of particular kinds of Muslim groups.
Student societies like any other association, from political parties to interest groups, are not likely to be representative of all members. That’s why they are required to hold elections and nominate persons for office, so that legitimacy may be conferred on those that occupy the office and terms stated for their removal should they lose the confidence of their membership. It’s hard not to surmise from the ES remark the suggestion that Islamic societies on university campuses be singled out for different treatment and their members and leadership be handled with caution.
Choudhry’s attack on Stephen Timms was indeed an odious act and her justification, to be doing it to avenge the deaths of Iraqis that have been killed since the invasion in 2003, is reprehensible. In Surah Al-An’am verse 151, Allah instructs believers to “take not life, which Allah has made sacred, except by way of justice and law: thus does He command you, that you may learn wisdom.”
The ES editorial concludes that “In reality, families and local communities are probably better able to monitor and censure the radicalisation of young Muslims than either universities or governments. There are limits to what they, or institutions, can do but this serious problem must at least be addressed.”
It’s hard to see how universities or governments will earn the trust and co-operation of Muslims, young and old, in countering the threat of radicalization when newspapers regularly pander to the amusement and benefit of misfits like those protesting yesterday, or when Muslim university students are coloured by the actions of the lonesome figure of Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, rather than being treated as the law-abiding, faithful British Muslim citizens that they are.
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