Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamer128:
A study carried out by the Clingendael Institute for International Relations in The Hague shows that terrorists who carry out attacks in Europe do not come from Islamic countries. They have almost always lived in Europe for many years and were often born there. Analysis of 30 attacks, failed and successful, show that the jihadis seldom have international connections, with al-Qaeda or anyone else. The terrorist attacks in Europe since 2001 involved 242 radical Muslims who ended up in court.
Researcher Edwin Bakker concludes that the jihad in Europe is a religiously-inspired manifestation of youth culture. The young jihadis are driven by hatred of the West but they do not want to change the land where they live into an Islamic state. This makes it difficult to negotiate with them.
(rnw.nl)
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This isn't really a surprise when you consider the London train bombings and the recent plot to blow up airliners (which I got caught in the middle of, flying to London a few days after it was foiled).
I'm not close enough to this situation, but I know a lot of British born Pakistanis and other Muslims and their take on this is that it's what a lot of disenchanted youth do to "fit in" - they look at charismatic guys like Abu Bakir, Anjem Choudary and Omar Brooks (all "self styled" mullahs who don't really have any official training as such) sticking it up the "establishment" (in this case the British authorities or even the more moderate (and elderly) Islamic councils and they gravitate to these people, because they're seen as being cool (the "rebel with a cause syndrome").
In this case these youth think that the concept of jihad and sharia and all the rest of it are cool - it provides some order and stability in their world. They look at guys like Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah and they look at Hamas and they look at Osama Bin Laden and they gravitate towards these figures, because they feel disassociated with their own elderly religious leaders who might not be as charismatic and who might still do things "the old way" - and because these think these radical figures are cool.
We've seen this phenomenon on message boards - when a charismatic rebel-type arises and people tend to gravitate around them, because they have nobody else to gravitate to, to believe in. Cult of personality and all that.
Part of the problem I feel is because Islam is a grassroots religion with no organised clergy (ie anyone can be a mullah and profess to be an expert, and any of these mullahs can call a fatwa or call for jihad - though some may have more credibility than others), and with a lack of consistency in how the Quran is interpreted - like any ancient religious book it can be used to justify violence if you look for verses hard enough - and there is no organised moderate Muslim movement to act as a counterbalance to the radical elements.
This is why most of us look at the Muslim world and say "why aren't you doing anything? Why aren't you saying anything? Why don't you guys condemn these extremists?" For example, as a Roman Catholic I have the Pope to speak on behalf of all Catholics. Every moderate Muslim I've spoken to about al-Qaeda and the radicals has condemned these radicals as being "not Muslim" - but that's as far as they go. They don't organise into big rallies to denounce them or disassociate themselves with them, it's all done on an individual basis. There is no charismatic moderate mullah to whip up the moderate faithful against the extremists. As far as they're concerned OBL and the other extremists are "not Muslim" and hence the problem is not a Muslim problem - but it is, because they are all being tarred with the same brush. You can see this from the comments on this site alone lumping all of Islam into the same bucket.
[ 01-30-2007, 05:42 PM: Message edited by: Memnoch ]