This excellent op-ed by Zafar Khalid Farooq, published in the The News in Pakistan, is well worth the read.
The money shot comes at the very end and it is spot on:
Even more worryingly, a new generation is being radicalised, often with the very government funds that are supposed to be countering radicalisation. The British Government’s counter-terrorism strategy is called Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE). In the past three years, 90 million pounds have been spent on PVE. However, by focusing on ‘violent extremism’, as opposed to all extremism, the government has allowed itself to hop into bed with organisations and groups deeply opposed to liberal, democratic values. These groups have ties with the Muslim brotherhood, and our very own Jaamat-e-Islami. Perhaps by joining hands with non-violent extremist groups, the government hopes to provide a defence, a pressure valve if you like, against violent extremism among the angry Muslim youth. But by collaborating with these groups, the government is effectively supporting and funding the Islamist ideology that spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-western view.
In any liberal democracy, there are constant tensions. How can one protect the rights of the few from the tyranny of the majority? How il-liberal should the state become in order to protect the liberal values it professes to uphold? These questions always need debate and vigilance. The BBC is right to invite the BNP leader on ‘Question Time’. However abhorrent and racist his views, the electorate has given him a mandate. If the Jaamat-e-Islami were to obtain a similar mandate, they too should be invited on the show. However, allowing freedom of speech is one thing — actively funding and supporting that speech is quite another. The British government must stop all public money to Islamist groups whose views are in conflict with liberal democracy — however non-violent or representative of the community they purport to be. If a liberal, democratic government continues to fund these groups it will become the political equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas. Or should that be goats for Eid.
6 Comments
Excellent piece, so its not just ZINC that is protesting against the empowerment of Islamists then.
Didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Might have been something good or it might have been more horseshit. People need to speak in plain language or else people just can’t understand it.
“However, another explanation for their [the BNP] renewed popularity — and one that few mainstream politicians are reluctant to admit or even acknowledge in the UK for fear of being deemed insensitive to ethnic minorities, especially the Muslim community — is the rise of militant Islamism in the UK. ”
And the rise of militant Islamism among young British Muslims is attributable to?
I don’t think I need to supply the usual answer — legitimate grievances over I/P, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., but the universal answer really is that there always will be a percentage of any population who hold fascist sympathies, and are willing to follow totalitarian demagogues who promise them a peaceful utopia, which may come at considerable cost in blood.
The payments to Muslims is protection money, jizyah.
It comes with a card saying, “here take some money, don’t bomb us”
Islamist trolls to the right of me, Islamophobic trolls to the left…
Here I am stuck in the middle with you