19 September 2008 • 16:31
Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, Fight Club, has several different explanations of how to make napalm at home.
Today, a Muslim British teenager was sentenced for two years for downloading and possessing information of a similar kind two or three years ago. I bought Fight Club from Waterstone’s a year or so ago, completely openly. I’ve not heard of any mass book burnings to take my copy down to recently. What’s going on? I just don’t understand.
It’s no wonder that British Muslims feel victimised. According to the rationale supporting this conviction, surely everyone who owns a copy of Palahniuk’s novel – or even perhaps a copy of the popular Brad Pitt and Ed Norton movie – should be locked up for the safety of the public.
Am I missing something here?
Filed under: cops, racism , muslims, police, UK, youth
This week Jacqui Smith, home secretary, announced provisions for three hundred new ‘anti-terrorist’ cops to investigate terrorist plots and counter radicalisation in the Muslim community.
I don’t think that it is really cool for the main liason between the ’state’ and muslim communities to be the police: that’s a sure fire recipe for alienation.
Rather than helping to reduce radicalisation amongst muslim minorities, the home secretary’s plans can only encourage it. More than any other group in UK society, our muslims are currently the target of vilification and criminalisation on a massive scale. Creating a specific police unit to deal with the muslim ‘problem’ risks giving legitimisation to the behaviour of a radical, criminal minority; it sets them up as a recognised group in opposition to the state, much like the IRA. The government does itself no favours by marking muslim minorities out as anti-establishment.
No-one likes the pigs, really. Especially people who already disproportionally find themselves at the sharp end of the ‘justice’ system. Radical muslim groups are already beginning to acheive a certain level of romantic appeal amongst wider disaffected sections of society. Witness the high proportion of converts among those implicated in terror plots. These converts frequently seem to be young black men who, already alienated from mainstream society, find solace and community in the revolutionary rhetoric of muslim radical groups.
Rather than using the coercive tools of the state to combat radicalisation, the community at large needs to work provide other options for disaffected members of society to make something of themselves.
Filed under: Uncategorized , islam, muslims, police, terrorism, UK
