Islamist “entryism” — the term originally described tactics adopted by Leon Trotsky to take over a rival Communist organization in France in the early 1930s — continues to be a problem within British universities and schools. Twenty years ago, I played my part as an Islamist entryist at college....Here's Nawaz's book: "Radical: My Journey Out of Islamist Extremism."
I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college.
March 3, 2015
"Many were shocked that the apparent executioner in videos made by the Islamic State, or ISIS, was an educated, middle-class metropolitan."
"In fact, academic institutions in Britain have been infiltrated for years by dangerous theocratic fantasists. I should know: I was one of them," writes Maajid Nawaz, in a NYT op-ed.
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51 comments:
No one paying attention was shocked. It's been clear for many years that "root causes" are irrelevant to radicalism. In fact, bored children of means have been an especially ripe field in the US for violent leftist groups.
Come to think of it, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn were pretty privileged and metropolitan too.
The "shock" felt by "many" is a sad indication of just how broadly Marxist theories about social conflict and change have been disseminated among our educated castes. They simply take it for granted that economic disparities are the "root causes" of violence. SPOILER: they aren't!
Marie Harf says even an educated, middle-class metropolitan needs a job.
In America, instead of ISIS, colleges are a breeding ground of progressive democrats. Not as martial as a terrorist group, but just as destructive to the fabric of democracy.
Bobber Fleck said...
Marie Harf says even an EMPLOYED educated, middle-class metropolitan radical muzzie needs a job.
FIFY
"(Out educated castes) simply take it for granted that economic disparities are the 'root causes' of violence. SPOILER: they aren't!"
And you know that economic disparities are not among the causes of violence...how?
No one says there is one root cause for violence. Rather, there are a multitude of conditions that can lead to violent social behaviors, and not all violent actors have the same reasons motivating them. I remember reading decades ago that violence tends to erupt when previously repressed groups within a society begin to see improvements in their conditions of life, and, being both excited at the prospect of greater freedom and opportunity, and dissatisfied and impatient at the rate of change in their conditions, some among them will act to "improve" things more swiftly, or to attack those they see as impeding the improvements they desire.
But this is just one condition that can lead to violent group behavior. There are others. We can assume violence will grow greater as access to drinkable water and arable land--and food--become less available. Our resource wars won't just be about oil anymore.
In the 30s, British universities were the hotbed of committed Communists. Traitors like Kim Philby, etc., who in the 40s/50s/60s put international communism - actually the Soviet Union - ahead of their country came out of this group.
Same stuff, new decade. Just the players and the ideology have changed.
"And you know that economic disparities are not among the causes of violence...how?"
I asked Bill Ayres. Diane Oughton was not available to comment. Just look at the record. The Great Depression should have been one big crime wave; but it wasn't.
Most of the leaders among Muslim terrorists are educated and upper middle class.
Robert Cook said...
"(Out educated castes) simply take it for granted that economic disparities are the 'root causes' of violence. SPOILER: they aren't!"
And you know that economic disparities are not among the causes of violence...how?
Ummm...historical experience? That fact that the "disparity" complaint was invented out of whole cloth by liberals just a few years ago and they have yet to attach any real world examples to their theory. Let's not forget who bears the burden of proof, shall we?
No one says there is one root cause for violence.
Not even the person you quoted. Read much?
Uh...Tim...referring to one passage discussing one of the causes of social violence should not--and would not--be read as comprehensive and final by anyone with any sense.
Notice Robert Cook's focus on the scarcity of natural resources within the materialist doctrine, the impending catastrophe (climate is but one manifestation) and his highlight of the 'violence inherent in the system.'
He's transnational, universalist, cultured and KNOWS what's really going on. The scales have fallen from his eyes.
You, however, are blinkered by what your corporate masters keep feeding you, carried off on waves of nationalism, the no-longer needed religious belief, living a dream.
Violence doesn't come about because of human nature and individual choice, but as a result of the rotten capitalist system Cook and his comrades intend to overthrow.
Only then will we all be free and will the right people be in charge (Cook) to mold the stuff of human nature and deliver constant progress.
Ideologies like socialism and similar closed systems are plenty capable of drawing in those smart enough to be so stupid...
Nowadays it's mostly pink, green, communal and easily 'anti-white,' but the DNA is all around.
Robert Cook is a rare, living specimen, plucked from the socialist seas, flopping on the deck.
He smells opportunity with the big O in office, but O keeps 'selling-out.'
Arrggggh.
It is probably easier to believe in ISIS in a society that has no other serious beliefs beyond materialism. Seeing economic disparity as the root cause of revolution and mayhem is at its base materialistic. All of us are inferior to others in one way or another. It takes more than disparity in wealth, security and power to drive revolutionary violence.
For those of you who think these disparities drive such conduct, what would sufficient equality look like? How could it be achieved without anointing some person or group to determine what is sufficiently equal? And who could ever feel equal to those who assume such power?
And you know that economic disparities are not among the causes of violence...how?
Because the reality of Islamic violence conflicts with this notion. The Islamists also tell us why they are at war with the west, but you dismiss it out of hand as it doesn't fit in your political box.
They aren't motivated by primarily by economic considerations because they aren't Marxists, Robert, and they never have been. They are anti-Western for Islamic religious and philosophical reasons, not secular progressive/left political reasons.
In fact, the leftist assertions on Islamic violence is a projection of those values onto a religious supremacist culture that seeks dominance for religious reasons and rejects secular politics, such as freedom and economic liberty, as evil.
Ms. Harf's statements as to lack of jobs being a significant cause is case in point. It is an avoidance of addressing the truth in favor of not wanting to be seen criticizing Islam, or holding it accountable.
This is the blind spot of the left, Robert. You are also case in point, because you refuse to see it as it doesn't fit in with leftist assertions of human nature.
Just because you read some left wing books that back up your claims doesn't mean a thing.
Anyone who has studied revolutions of any sort was not surprised in the slightest.
The poorest of the poor don't have time for this nonsense.
"I’m shocked, shocked to find that terrorism is going on in here!"
"Your head, sir."
Like racism, leftism has to be taught to people in order for people to hate others and turn to violence.
The dirty truth is that Community Organizers are nothing but fight promoters who stage fixed fights for profit.
Our President has us set to take a fall in a Jihad match with his beloved Iranians.
The Clintons just want money and sex from us, but Obama wants to destroy everything we have had in North America and in the rest of the world.
Entryism?
I thought only Creationists did that.
Bin Laden just needed a job.
I spent a year abroad at a university in London, and I know exactly what he is saying. I saw many bearded Muslim students who were virulently anti-American and anti-British.
The ivory towers have been a hotbed of extremism since the tenure track created fiefdoms exempt from social mores and traditions.
The infiltration is aided and abetted by anti-anti-Muslim fellow travelers.
"Only then will we all be free and will the right people be in charge (Cook) to mold the stuff of human nature and deliver constant progress."
And I guarantee, if you are not in the mood to be molded, violence will be inherent to the system.
I think Nawaz highlights how teenagery Islamism is...
I would get that a young Muslim immigrant growing up in rough neighborhoods wants security, power, and identity.
To gain security you might band together with other Muslim kids in your area, power too, through a gang, and maybe political power if you can get it one day through more adult channels. I doubt Britain has the same level of integration as New York, and the same machine politics, often corrupt but reasonably functional.
It's a lot easier to become American more deeply and quickly.
Thus, maybe the pull for identity through not just Islam, but the Islamist preachers tapping into youthful fear, pride, honor etc is an easy draw.
'Your people are dying and what are you doing, pussy? You keep saying you're a Muslim, but I don't think you know what that means, young pup'
This still doesn't change the following, as I see it:
1. Islamism needs to be defeated, often with force, now, to protect our security, and requires a long term strategy, not merely relying on force and our own fear from the threat. They've already cut pretty deep on 9/11.
2. Islam hasn't undergone an Englightenment nor Reformation, and doesn't produce Western style societies, and remains pretty tribal and kin based compared to the West. Many want to leave Islamic societies and many in the West don't know how to handle the immigration.
3. Western Leftism leads to delusional immigration policies and terrible incentives for the immigrants themselves and can't even name the problems let alone come up with policies. It's all just victimhood, envy, utopian transnationalism etc.
How much am I missing?
Yep. Don't ever let an academic like Obama say otherwise.
Ignorance is ignorance even if spouted by an academic.
Chris N.,
For starters, you're missing that Wahhabism is Islam's Reformation.
Fernandinande, that's just genius!
Chris N.
Your blather merely amounts to arguing against baseless assumptions and baroque elaborations of same that you make about me.
"'And you know that economic disparities are not among the causes of violence...how?'
"Because the reality of Islamic violence conflicts with this notion. The Islamists also tell us why they are at war with the west, but you dismiss it out of hand as it doesn't fit in your political box."
Sgt. Ted, nowhere do I refer to the Islamic extremists or any other specific group or example of social violence. I'm speaking generally, and, as I plainly said, there are many reasons for social violence. To assert, as Dale Light did, that economic disparities aren't a root cause of violence--as in, never--is ludicrous. (Notice, I say a root cause, not the root cause.)
Robert Cook@ 6:35am/
You are describing what has been labeled "The Revolution of Rising Expectations." A book of that name describing the phenomenon by the same name was published by Laurene Connor in 1963. There is one (1) used one now avail on Amazon.
Robert Cook wrote:
"(Notice, I say a root cause, not the root cause.)"
"Root cause" is a bit generic, Robert Cook. Most things have only one root cause. Economic disparity is not a necessary but insufficient cause of "social violence", since "social violence" exists where there is no economic disparity.
A better way to describe economic disparity in regard to Islamic terrorism would be that it is an unnecessary and insufficient cause.
Paradies (2005) has defined a root cause as follows: "The most basic cause (or causes) that can reasonably be identified that management has control to fix and, when fixed, will prevent (or significantly reduce the likelihood of) the problem’s recurrence."
Fantin (2014) describes the root cause as the result of the drill down analysis required to discover which is the process that is failing, defining it as "MIN Process" (meaning a process that is Missing, Incomplete or Not followed)
"There will always be poor people" J.C.
Robert Cook said...
And you know that economic disparities are not among the causes of violence...how?
Numbers 'n' stuff.
"Even the correlation between Poverty Rate and crime—supported by the obvious truism that most street criminals are poor—is hardly enormous, falling between 0.50 and 0.70, and usually well below our racial figures.
The relative strength of these different correlations may be seen by a chart superimposing the economic and ethnic results for the last dozen years of robbery rate correlations for our major cities. Although the hard economic times since 2008 have considerably increased the influence of the poverty correlate, that factor is still considerably less significant than the racial one.
Indeed, the race/crime correlation so substantially exceeds the poverty/crime relationship that much of the latter may simply be a statistical artifact due to most urban blacks being poor.
...
For example, El Paso and Atlanta are comparable in size and have similar poverty rates, but the latter has eight times the robbery rate and over ten times the homicide rate."
Another way to say what the author said in his opinion piece is that religion gives men and women a purpose, an identity, and belief in god 's approval.
We gave up on our religion because we felt embarrassed by it, so they win the war for the hearts of teens.
"Many were shocked that the apparent executioner in videos made by the Islamic State, or ISIS, was an educated, middle-class metropolitan."
Hahahaha... many of Hitlers, Maos, Stalins,etc... henchmen WERE "educated, middle-class metropolitan."
It never ceases to amaze me how liberals don't even realize society is just millimeters from being barbarians.
And many of those barbarians are 'educated'.
traditionalguy:
Deference to an extra-universal God serves to temper individual exhibitions of narcissism and the corruption that follows.
While God has provided a religion or moral philosophy that recognizes individual dignity, it also recognizes intrinsic value. Its tenets advise people to reconcile these principles and to temper their demands for instant or immediate gratification. In return, they are promised a post-mortem judgment, and perhaps an emergent stable state.
A notable aspect of the Judeo-Christian faith is the separation of fantasy, faith, philosophy, and science, that is often missing from other faiths, where people conflate or idolize one or more of these domains.
I took an anthropology course in college in the early '90s about cults and the background of the average cult member and it's pretty much guys like this. That's true whether the cult is following the Grateful Dead around or a more harmful to others cult.
If you're still a socialist, Robert, then I presume you still adhere to a doctrine of radical revolution based upon a failed theory of history.
If you've morphed into an equality first, perhaps absolutist egalitarian, always on the lookout for inequalities to equalize, injustices to highlight to make poverty and inequality obsolete in a utopian dream....this would be unsurprising. Red and pink all over.
And this means you still seek change, and a lot of it radical, oblivious to what liberties you would rend asunder in the meantime.
Kirk:
Wahhabism is Sunni 'reformation' I suppose, but not quite the reformation we in the West would hope for.
We can assume violence will grow greater as access to drinkable water and arable land--and food--become less available. Our resource wars won't just be about oil anymore.
There is nothing in the world that can't be explained by simple application of logic to a Marxist.
Man proposes, the Universe disposes.
Paul wrote:
"Hahahaha... many of Hitlers, Maos, Stalins,etc... henchmen WERE "educated, middle-class metropolitan."
Pol Pot was a Paris educated lawyer. One wonders how many of his professors were proud of having shaped his young mind.
Of course in post-truth America it is a crime to say this.
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life," and without the knowledge of Jesus you can't know the truth. Which is like saying, if you believe in nothing you'll believe anything.
Chris N said...
Notice Robert Cook's focus on the scarcity of natural resources within the materialist doctrine, the impending catastrophe
If such were the case both Switzerland and Hong Kong should be ruling their respective hemispheres. Or at least waging war on their nieghtbors.
One of the more interesting thing about socialists is that they claim to understand how history works (it's also called "progressivism"), but they are miserable at actually predicting how history will unfold. World War One represented end-stage capitalism, then the Great Depression represented end-stage capitalism, then World War Two represented end-stage capitalism.
I read an essay by a Polish dissident that claimed the final blow to Russian socialism was Western post war prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s. The intellectual tools of Marxism (as they understood them) could offer no explanation for growing prosperity in the reactionary, capitalist world, while their own country remained poor, with a population that remained largely agricultural and poorly educated.
I am very metropolitan. The SVP of my office at called me cosmopolitan and a candidate this week told me I was charismatic.
I felt these were code words for fag and I was not happy.
I don't cum from a cosmo, metro or charismatic upbringing. More like gravel pits, cabins with outdoor toilets and kind of po.
tits.
Whether or not poverty is one of the root causes of poverty is debatable, but it is absolutely certain that violence is not the cure for poverty or whatever other problem you have.......Stalin famously said "no person, no problem". We can see how that worked out in the agricultural field and the deliberate starvation of everyone who knew how to bring in the crop. "No person, no problem, no food."
Remember when those two guys tried to drive their Jeep into the airport in Scotland. Either to blow it up or shoot it up. Well, if you remember, one of them was a trained medical doctor. Advanced education (even in the health professions) doesn't guarantee someone won't decide to kill and maim for ideology. It's ideology driving these deviants, not poverty. Anyone remember Dr. Mengele?
"I felt these were code words for fag and I was not happy."
Yes, Titus, "Cosmopolitan" and "charismatic" are, indeed, code words for fag.
If you called Scott Walker a cosmopolitan, charismatic candidate, he would punch you.
Marx and Engels were rich kids. Osama bin Ladin came from a wealthy family. These people are just Leopold and Loeb at a sociopathic level and handed the levers of power. The reality is that exercising reason and moderation when you have power and influence is not nearly as alluring to some minds as being abusive, arbitrary and intolerant.
When civilization becomes effete and incompetent, evil and weak-minded find barbarism more and more attractive.
Liberals seem to have great difficulty understanding that it is possible both to be educated and to despise liberal views.
The left wants the "root cause" to be poverty because that can be fixed with government programs handing out money. Acknowledging that a religious philosophy (other than the obvious evil of Christianity) is motivating these terrorists leaves them with no weapons to combat the problem. The left is staunchly secular and has no competing philosophy to divert these young minds away from their sad and twisted ideas. Fighting strong belief with determined disbelief is not a winning strategy.
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