The North Wind and the Sun

Here is an unsettling fact:

[Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab] is the fourth president of a London student Islamic society to face terrorist charges in three years. One is facing a retrial on charges that he was involved in the 2006 liquid bomb plot to blow up airliners. Two others have been convicted of terrorist offences since 2007.

In light of this, compare two pieces by two Muslim commentators on solving Islamic radicalisation in UK universities.

The first by CiF’s favourite faux-liberal Muslim and former Islam Channel “pundit”, Inayat Bunglawala:

Rather than trying to demonise student Islamic societies for their supposed radicalism, our counter-terrorism efforts will surely bear greater fruit if they focused more on building genuine partnerships with local communities and gaining their trust.

The second by Rashad Ali, formerly a senior member of Hizb ut Tahrir:

Our role was to nurture those who showed an interest in jihadist movements and win them over to our beliefs. Given what was happening in the world – the war on terror, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the growing Islamaphobia across the western world – this was surprisingly easy to do. We knew that we were being watched by the security services on campus, but we were not scared of them – it did not seem real, for some reason. We felt that we could spot anyone from the security services, and frankly we were open enough about our views not to care. We were more concerned that we were being watched by foreign governments, which might punish our supporters once they had returned to their countries of origin.

The level of radicalisation that is taking place on campus needs to be acknowledged by the university authorities. Organisations such as the Federation of Student Islamic Societies still do not want to recognise that groups such as Hizb, which support suicide bombings, are extreme.

The government and the university authorities need to become more aware of the tactics being used by extreme groups and gain the confidence to use the powers they already possess to stop radical preachers from being allowed to preach and prevent radical activists from running Islamic societies. If they fail to do so, we will see more Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabs.

Rashad Ali was responsible for Hizbi activities in London university campuses. His article is an ex-insider’s firsthand account of how entryist tactics are practised in university ISOCs by groups like the Hizb. He offers hands-on advice on how the government might use its powers to clamp down on jihadi influence to avoid further terrorist incidents involving British students.

Bunglawala alludes to the “supposed radicalism” of Islamic societies, and then obfuscates the whole issue by suggesting that the only way to solve radicalisation in university ISOCs is by, wait for it, “building genuine partnerships with local communities”.

One of these commentators isn’t quite telling the truth. But, gentle reader, which one can it be?