Article: Muslims tackle looters and bigots

Aug 15, 2011 | External News

There is a lively debate taking place in the UK media between left and rightwing commentators as to the causes of the English riots, in which hundreds of shops and businesses have been looted. However, both sides agree that the looting has been inexcusable. I hope both sides will also agree with me that Muslims have played an important role in helping to tackle the looting and preserve public safety. This would be an especially important acknowledgment if it came from those Islamophobic commentators who consistently denigrate Muslims.

“When accused of terrorism we are Muslims, when killed by looters, we become Asian”, a Muslim student explained to me. He was commenting on the media reportingof the death of three young Muslims in Birmingham on Tuesday night. Like many other Muslims, they were bravely defending shops and communities as rioters went on a violent rampage of looting.

In recent days Muslim Londoners, Muslims from Birmingham, and Muslims in towns and cities around England have been at the forefront of protecting small businesses and vulnerable communities from looting. Having worked closely with Muslim Londoners, first as a police officer and more recently as a researcher, for the last ten years this commendable bravery comes as no surprise to me. But their example of outstanding civic duty in support of neighbours is worth highlighting – especially when sections of the UK media are so quick to print negative headlines about Muslims on the flimsiest of pretexts.

Pro-active response

On Monday evening when London suffered its worst looting in living memory I watched as a well marshaled team of volunteers wearing green fluorescent security vests marked ‘East London Mosque‘ took to the streets of Tower Hamlets to help protect shops and communities from gangs of looters. This was the most visible manifestation of their pro-active response to fast moving and well co-ordinated teams of looters. Less visible was the superb work of Muslim youth workers from Islamic Forum Europewho used the same communication tools as the looters to outwit and pre-empt them on the streets.

While senior Westminster politicians started to pack and rush back to London from foreign holidays I watched Lutfur Rahman, the Muslim mayor of Tower Hamlets, offering calm leadership and support in the street as gangs of looters were intercepted and prevented from stealing goods in his presence.

Most important to emphasise is the extent to which everyone in Tower Hamlets was a beneficiary of streetwise, smart Muslims acting swiftly to protect shops, businesses and communities against looters. It is often wrongly alleged that Muslims lack any sense of civic duty towards non-Muslims and especially towards the LGBTcommunity. I wish peddlers of that negative anti-Muslim message had been present to see how all citizens in Tower Hamlets were beneficiaries of Muslim civic spirit and bravery on Monday night.

I am not sure if the Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan was robbed of his bike by looters in Tower Hamlets or in another part of London as he cycled home from Hackney to Greenwich on Monday night, but even his incessant negative reporting of Muslims associated with the East London Mosque would not have excluded him from their neighbourly support had they been in the immediate vicinity to help him.

Gilligan reports that police were unable to offer him any advice other than to go home when he finally received an answer to his 999 call as a victim of a violent street robbery. London policing on Monday night was stretched as never before and Gilligan was one amongst hundreds of victims who had to fend for themselves as looters ran amok around the capital city. In these unique circumstances the street skills of Muslim youth workers, who are routinely helping police to tackle violent gang crime and anti-social behaviour in Tower Hamlets, Walthamstow, Brixton and in other deprived neighbourhoods, were a key ingredient in filling the vacuum created by insufficient police numbers.

I first saw East London Mosque and Islamic Forum Europe street skills in action in 2005 when they robustly dispatched extremists from Al Muhajiroun who were in Whitechapel attempting to recruit youngsters into their hate filled group. I saw the same skills in action in the same year when volunteers from the Muslim Association of Britain and Muslim Welfare House ousted violent supporters of Abu Hamza from the Finsbury Park Mosque. More recently, Muslim bravery has been seen in Brixton when extremists spouting the latest manifestation of Al Muhajroun hatred were sent packing out of town. In all these instances, and so many more, the brave Muslims involved have received no praise for their outstanding bravery and good citizenship, and instead faced a never ending barrage of denigration from journalists such as Gilligan, Melanie Phillips, Martin Bright…. sorry I won’t go on, it’s a long list!

Sadly, many of the brave Muslims helping to keep their cities safe have not only grown used to denigration from media pundits but also faced cuts in government funding for their youth outreach work with violent gangs. This is not as a result of widespread economic cuts caused by the recession, but because the government adopts the media view that they are ‘extremist‘. Street in Brixton is a case in point. Yesterday Dr Abdul Haqq Baker director of Street was forced to close a Street youth centre in Brixton as his reduced team of youth of workers struggled to keep pace with the task of tackling gang violence and its role in rioting and looting.

Confronting extremism

Significantly, the same potent mixture of Muslim street skills and bravery was evident last summer when the Islamophobic English Defence League (EDL) began to prepare for a violent demonstration in Whitechapel. On that occasion police commended the skills of Muslim youth workers who helped reduce tension and manage anger towards the EDL.

Two weeks ago, under the banner United East End neighbours of all faiths and none gathered at the London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel to express solidarity with their Muslim neighbours who are the target of another provocative English Defence League demonstration planned for 3 September. It is no co-incidence that Anders Breivik found common cause with the EDL.

The EDL regards the East London Mosque as the hub of the Muslim extremism it purports to oppose. Regrettably, EDL’s hate-filled analysis of Muslims is based on the work of mainstream media commentators who should now reflect on the unintended if not unforeseeable consequences of their Islamophobic discourse.

It is also worthy of comment that Muslim bravery during this outbreak of looting has taken place during Ramadan when Muslims are fasting – without food or water – from sunrise to sunset. This is a hard enough regime when relaxing, but when taking part in dangerous operations against looters, it is worthy of special reward – no doubt something their religion caters for.

Today, as Muslims in Tower Hamlets and around the country continue to work with their neighbours to repair damaged shops and to restore public safety, it is important I conclude this article by paying special tribute to Haroon Jahan, Shahzad Ali and Abdul Musavir, the three typically brave Birmingham Muslimswho were killed while defending their neighbourhood on Tuesday night. I pray their legacy will be a wider appreciation of good Muslim citizenship, a reduction of media anti-Muslim denigration, and the elimination of EDL anti-Muslim intimidation and violence.

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Article: Counter Terrorism vs Counter Subversion

Aug 2, 2011 | External News

Yesterday survivors and relatives of those who died in the 7/7 bombings announced that they were finally abandoning their legal attempt to force the government to hold a public inquiry into the attacks, acknowledging that proceedings would be likely to be unsuccessful and would inevitably cause “further unnecessary distress”.

My own interest in a public inquiry has been to examine the root causes of 7/7 and to assess the legitimacy and effectiveness of UK counter-terrorism. As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the launch of the war on terror the need for a complete overhaul of counter-terrorism is urgent. What has worked and what hasn’t. In the absence of a public inquiry we will have to make do with a public debate instead.

My modest contribution to public debate, published next month, Countering al Qaeda in London challenges much received wisdom about terrorism, counter-terrorism and public safety in Britain. I argue that the best kind of counter-terrorism remains narrowly focused on the terrorist threat and seeks to avoid stigmatising or criminalising those communities where terrorists seek recruits.

In particular I challenge the popular assumption that many politically active Muslims have either wittingly or unwittingly been part of the terrorist problem – sometimes described as a “conveyor-belt” model of radicalisation.

This pernicious account of radicalisation has been adroitly promoted by neo-conservative think-tanks on both sides of the Atlantic. Significantly, two neo-conservative think-tanks in Westminster, Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion (recently subsumed by the Henry Jackson Society) are examined in a report published today by Spinwatch.

A detailed and revealing report ‘The Cold War on British Muslims’ perfectly captures the sense in which both think-tanks have a core mission of undermining Muslim individuals and organisations deemed to be subversive by recourse to counter-subversion strategies and tactics employed during the Cold War.

Having worked closely with many of these so-called Muslim subversives for many years I am inclined to suggest that the vast majority are far less subversive to British democracy than some of the individuals funding and implementing this new Cold War strategy against them. Significantly, many of them also have far more impressive counter-terrorism credentials than their counter-subversive opponents.

“Funded by wealthy businessmen and financiers, and conservative and pro-Israel trusts and foundations”, both think-tanks are assessed in the report to be “inspired by the operations against peace activists and trade unionists during the Cold War and explicitly seek to revive this tradition of political counter-subversion”. Their targets are said to be “politically engaged Muslims, liberals and leftists, as well as liberal institutions such as schools, universities and public libraries”.

Of the two think-tanks Policy Exchange is by far the most influential, helping to shape the government’s recent shift towards counter-subversion under the guise of countering non-violent ‘extremism’.

In my book I explain how Policy Exchange has gradually won government backing for a Prevent strategy that is a counter-subversion strategy in all but name. Significantly Prevent no longer purports to be tackling ‘violent extremism’ but simply ‘extremism’. As a result several outstanding Muslim community projects that have reduced the adverse impact of al-Qaeda influence in Britain have been shelved and risk stigmatisation as ‘extremist’ or ‘subversive’ instead.

Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph columnist and former chairman of Policy Exchange, invoked the image of arch subversive Arthur Scargill when warning an audience in 2008 of a threat to democracy posed by several reasonable, mainstream Muslim organisations.

Moore outlined a counter-subversion strategy every bit as clandestine and ruthless as the alleged threat it sought to undermine. Now as then when combating communists like Scargill, embedded supporters within the enemy camp would, Moore argued, be crucial players in efforts to undermine ‘the extremists’.

Thus Moore identified Ed Husain, co-founder of the ‘counter-extremist’ Quilliam Foundation, playing a similar role to Frank Chapple, a ‘moderate’ trade union leader who was willing to tackle Scargill:

“One of the most powerful lessons from Ed Husain’s remarkable book, The Islamist, is that the people most intimidated by Islamist extremism in this country are Muslims themselves….We need to realise that every time the wider society enters into dialogue with the extremists we are not only dealing unwittingly with bad people, we are also empowering them against good people”.

Moore considered it apposite to quote Edmund Burke’s description of revolutionary agitators as a “half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern [who] make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the British oak, chew the cud and are silent”.

In fact the research I present in my book suggests that Muslims targeted by Policy Exchange have more community legitimacy and support than Policy Exchange and their allies in two separate periods of London politics.

Sharing an elitist top-down vanguard approach to politics Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion share a lack of experience of real urban street life. Indeed, it is perhaps inherent to this kind of top-down political thinking that it is considered legitimate for a small, elite group of Cambridge alumni to forge a counter-subversion strategy against their less privileged political opponents.

As the Spinwatch report concludes, “the policies advocated by the Centre for Social Cohesion and Policy Exchange will have grave consequences for British politics if they are not challenged”. Lets start that debate now.

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Article: Terrorists are Sane

Jul 27, 2011 | External News

According to Geir Lippestad, his lawyer, Anders Breivik appears to be insane. If this non medical assessment proves correct then the Islamophobic and extremist nationalist Norwegian mass killer will be one of the first terrorists in the entire history of political violence who has not been psychiatrically and psychologically normal.

Interestingly, it is only in recent years that academic research has finally laid to rest the persistent and popular notion that terrorists are predisposed to insanity or psychiatric or psychological abnormality. Whatever the cause terrorists pursue and – in those cases where they survive the terrorist attacks they carry out – whenever they are examined by medical experts their sanity and normality is invariably proven.

Even Nazi war criminals were eventually shown to be psychologically healthy and normal and indistinguishable from a sample of average American civilians.

Terrorism scholar Andrew Silke has done more than most to explain that psychological abnormality or anomaly is rarely a trait in terrorists and is certainly not evidenced simply because terrorist violence ‘runs contrary to the accepted standards of society’. Instead, rigorous examinations conducted over three decades point to the fact that terrorists are perfectly rational and approach their chosen tasks in much the same way as soldiers.

I should add that all of the terrorists I have investigated or researched over the last thirty years have all been entirely sane. Indeed, some of them are now considered sufficiently stable to hold high political office.

On the face of it Breivik appears entirely rational as well. Having just ploughed through his 1500 page political ‘manifesto’ and reviewed the terrorist tactics he employed on Friday 22 July, it also strikes me that he possesses outstanding organisational and planning skills that would be highly valued in society if he put them to conventional use – most obviously in the Norwegian military.

Of course we should wait for a full medical examination of Breivik before coming to any firm conclusions about his mental health. However, I am compelled to write this article now because Lippestads’s premature pronouncement of his client’s insanity has naturally become a headline and a media mantra that is likely to set the tone for the coverage of the case for the foreseeable future.

“This whole case indicates that he’s insane,” Lippestad told a press conference but when pressed by reporters he appeared to lack any solid basis for his assessment. In fact when he described Breivik’s behaviour and his doctrine of politics and political violence it was clear that Breivik had been talking to his solicitor in the same measured tones he uses in his written ‘manifesto’. “[Breivik’s] in a war and he says that the rest of the world, particularly the Western world don’t understand his point of view but in 60 years time we all will understand it” Lippestad said.

Eventually Lippestad concludes that Breivik is insane because he ‘is not like any one of us’. But experience suggests that Breivik is ‘unlike us’ because he has resorted to terrorist violence for exactly the same kind of reasons that terrorists in all kinds of terrorist movements always have done over the last hundred years or more.

More to the point Breivik’s manifesto is of a piece with the sentiments and methods Europe’s burgeoning violent extremist nationalist network that appears to have sustained his morale during a long process of strategic and tactical terrorist planning.

Lippestad reveals an alarming lack of knowledge of terrorism and of his client’s apparent motivation when he says he simply does not understand why Breivik attacked Labour Party members and not ‘Islamics’ (presumably Muslims). As if again this was somehow evidence of insanity. Instead, by choosing to attack a government building and a Labour Party summer school, Breivik is drawing attention to what many fringe nationalists see as the political failure of mainstream and left-wing politicians to confront the Muslim threat. So-called appeasers of the “Islamification of Europe” have become as hated as Muslim activists and therefore face the same kind of attacks.

Breivik can claim to have followed a long tradition of terrorism target selection that is intended to send a strong message to politicians in an attempt to persuade them to change policy. As leading terrorism scholar Alex Schmid reminds us, terrorism is a form of communication that ‘cannot be understood only in terms of violence’. Rather, he suggests, ‘it has to be understood primarily in terms of propaganda” in order to penetrate the terrorist’s strategic purpose.

This is normal terrorist thinking. Thankfully terrorism is by definition a minority pursuit. If it ever it became commonplace Europe would be facing the kind of civil war Breivik intends he and others like him will eventually trigger.

If we make the mistake of calling terrorists mad we will be in danger of overlooking their extremist politics and their adherence to tried and tested methods of political violence. Significantly, we never make that mistake when dealing with al-Qaeda terrorists so until we get compelling evidence to the contrary let’s not do it with extremist nationalist terrorists like Breivik.

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