glorifying the radicals

Glorifying the Radicals
July 18, 2005

Last Friday, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke outlined government plans to ban even indirect statements of support for terror and violence. One can of course wonder whether this might unduly limit freedom of speech. But without a doubt, this legal initiative is the result of the moral failure of British and European institutions, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to act as gatekeepers and reject extreme positions as acceptable political arguments in Western democratic societies.

Instead of shunning Islamic radicals, many in the mainstream media and political establishment present them as moderates and repeat their justifications for terrorism. The London attacks produced only a brief moment of polite restraint. By Wednesday, less than a week after the July 7 bombings in London that claimed 55 lives, the Guardian apparently had no second thoughts about publishing an article by Dilpazier Aslam, one of its trainee journalists. In it, Mr. Aslam argued that the British have no right to be shocked by the attacks since that would, "suggest that the bombings happened through no responsibility of our own."

He was referring to Iraq of course. Before joining the Guardian, Mr. Aslam, who calls himself "a Yorkshire lad, born and bred," had been working for the London-based Web site Khilafa.com. There he coauthored an article telling Muslims why they should excel in sciences: "We will have to run an Islamic state which must lead the world, economically, militarily and politically."

Last Thursday, the BBC invited Azam Tamimi of the Muslim Association of Britain to present a film about what he considers to be the reasons for the terrorist attacks. In the film, Mr. Tamimi interviews young British Muslims ostensibly angry about Iraq and Palestine and concludes that the way to prevent this "killing of the innocents for the sins of the guilty," is to change Britain's foreign policy.

During the subsequent panel discussion, Mr. Tamimi, a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, repeated his previous glorifications of Palestinian suicide bombers, but insisted that supporting such attacks could not possibly encourage British Muslims to do the same in the U.K. The BBC presenter, Gevin Esler, only feebly challenged Mr. Tamimi's support for murdering Jews in Israel. Instead, he gave the last word on this matter to Asghar Bukhari, chief executive of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, who promptly backed Mr. Tamimi without reservations. "I couldn't agree more," he said.

Even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who impressed the world with his near-Churchillian defiance and who now wants to curtail indirect incitement, fell into the root-cause trap when he suggested shortly after the attacks that the Middle East conflict was one of the reasons for terrorism.

The obvious moral fallacy is trying to explain, let alone justify, terrorism with foreign policy grievances some Muslims may have. Even this "anger" that so-called Muslim representatives like to talk about isn't spontaneous outrage that this community feels for the suffering of their co-religionists wherever they may be. Instead, it's highly selective. Consider the lack of outrage among such spokespersons over the genocide in Sudan, where already up to 300,000 Muslims have been slaughtered by a radical Islamic regime, or the thousands of innocent Iraqis, including two dozen children last week, who have been killed by Baathists and Islamic terrorists.

Rather, this "anger" is carefully fomented, nurtured and channeled exclusively towards those conflicts where Muslims fight non-Muslims. So simply to point at this supposed fury and demand policy changes is not only morally reprehensible but also disingenuous. This anger at the West that many Muslim leaders encourage is a political tool of radical Islam rather than one of its alleged causes.
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Much is being said these days that the Muslim communities in Britain, Europe and elsewhere must do more to ostracize radicals in their midst. In a survey of five Muslim countries by the Pew Research Center, support for Osama bin Laden and suicide bombings has declined but is still intolerably high. Opinion ranges from 18% of those sampled in Morocco to 88% in Jordan who say that violence against civilian targets is justified in at least some circumstances. Another study last year found that 13% of British Muslims support terror attacks against the U.S.

Such polls are tricky, since the circumstances in which they are asked, and the wording, can flip the results. But they give Europe's political organizers of Muslims a sense of self-justification. The community contributed in great numbers to the millions of people who demonstrated against the Iraq war throughout Europe.

It would be gratifying to see more responsible leadership. Muslim clerics in Britain would improve their image if they emulated their Spanish colleagues who issued a fatwa against al Qaeda after the bombings in Madrid. No better moment than now for truly moderate Muslims who eschew violence without qualification to claim a leadership role from the extremists. A good start would be for them to question the widely held canard among their co-religionists that Muslims are the victims of a Western conspiracy.

But the outlook is not promising. As long as the collusion between leftist journalists and politicians and the more radical Muslim leaders continues, the moderates will have a hard time getting heard.