"There's a Mecca that Muslims should visit, and the mecca of jihad that is London."
"Was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab radicalized in London?," by Robert Marquand and Ben Quinn in the Christian Science Monitor, December 28 (thanks to James):
For young Muslims especially, London is a city like no other. It is a mecca for jobs and education and provides freedom from the prying eyes of family back home. The grand metropolis also beckons as a bastion of religious freedom and as a refuge from corrupt home country politics....That was the world that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - the young Nigerian accused of seeking to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas -immersed himself in as a student between 2005 and 2008, when the petri dish of political Islam in London was stirring strongly.
For at least a decade sub-cultures of radical thought that promote borderless Islam and an uncompromising return to Sharia law have flourished in Great Britain's capital - despite some reportedly effective efforts to tamp down extremist views, and despite worries among moderate London Muslims about the trend.
"There are basically two meccas," argues Egyptian-born Mamoun Fandy of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "There's a Mecca that Muslims should visit, and the mecca of jihad that is London."...
The availability of every kind of message Islam has to offer is part of the London scene. Most mosques have easy byways for students to meet and learn a more intense Koranic view; groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, which seeks a return to early Islam with all Muslim states under one ruler, post members around mosques on Friday. They offer cards with phone numbers and invitations to study groups that discuss jihad. One of their common Friday hangouts is an East London mosque that Abdulmutallab allegedly attended.
"I've felt for a long time that if radical Sharia law comes to the rest of the world it will start on the streets of London," says a Pakistani expert on militant Islam who asked not to be identified. "Too many clerics today, even moderate ones, don't talk on Muslim life in a secular state. Young Muslims are smart, raised as British citizens. If they come from abroad, many have great hope and are often disillusioned. They live between worlds, in the cracks. When they go home to their families they are often more radical than their friends."...
Agence France-Presse cited family members' claims that Abdulmutallab was a quiet individual who was "radicalized" during his stint in London. The London daily Independent quoted a school friend: "He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes" and "he always would go off to pray," said Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialise much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. (...) You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."
Critics of lax border security in the UK point out that more than 42,000 British student visas were issued to Pakistani students between 2004 and 2007 but it was only in 2009 that applications have been checked against an expanded set of terrorist watch lists. A concern is that student visas are being secured to study at educational institutions which don't exist.
The Pakistani analyst, who has close ties to London mosques, argues that nearly every Pakistani radical he knows in London has gone through a "night club" phase. They try out a "clubbing life" that is ultimately unsatisfying. "They try to experience something like a dream of life in the west. About a year later they show up in the mosque, grow beards and are 'good Muslims,'" he says.
And the peaceful Muslims whose peaceful religion has putatively been hijacked have no effective rejoinder to their claim to be "good Muslims" when they turn to jihad violence and Islamic supremacism.
Many Muslims in the UK complain of the "double standards" of Western policies, particularly as regards the Middle East. British Palestinian Muslims have complained, for example, that when British Jews go to Israel and fight for the Israeli army, they come home as praiseworthy heroes; but when Palestinians go to fight or aid the local struggle, they come home and are considered terrorists.
Uh, yeah. Maybe if the British Jews had been blowing people up on buses or in restaurants, this might be different.
In July, a determination in London that Al Qaeda threats have diminished lowered the terrorist threat level from severe to substantial, and relaxed measures such as 'stop and search' powers. Britain has spent heavily on reconciliation projects - sponsoring 'moderate' preachers - aimed at stemming the influence of Islamist messages over young British Muslims. UK campuses remain in the frontline of struggle to prevent the radicalization of students although the British government continues to resist calls to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, accused of attempting to infiltrate Muslim student societies.
"I've felt for a long time that if radical Sharia law comes to the rest of the world it will start on the streets of London"
It has come to the streets of London. Encouraged by our own government. Watch out America. It only takes one change of government, a government prepared to change a country as they see fit by ignoring democracy and claiming the moral high ground. After all "it's only fair".
One has to respect the tenacity of Robert Spencer and this site for reporting the facts re Islam and Jihad.
It no longer surprises me that ordinary non-Muslim people are using words such as "Dhimmi", "Taqiyya" etc. Non-Muslims will soon be laughing at Muslims when they tell "infidels" that "Muslims are forbidden to kill the innocent".....
Ripley's Believe Or Not" is different than Muhammad's "Believe It Or Else."
http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/File:Islam-comic-book-cover.jpg
The Pakistani analyst, who has close ties to London mosques, argues that nearly every Pakistani radical he knows in London has gone through a "night club" phase. They try out a "clubbing life" that is ultimately unsatisfying.
Getting knocked back by Sharon or Tracy must be what causes the radicalization.
He was just disillusioned because he couldn't find even one "clubbing" virgin, let alone 72.
London? Oh, you mean, Londonistan.
One has to respect the tenacity of Robert Spencer and this site for reporting the facts re Islam and Jihad.
It no longer surprises me that ordinary non-Muslim people are using words such as "Dhimmi", "Taqiyya" etc. Non-Muslims will soon be laughing at Muslims when they tell "infidels" that "Muslims are forbidden to kill the innocent".....
Ripley's Believe Or Not" is different than Muhammad's "Believe It Or Else."
http://www.wikiislam.com/wiki/File:Islam-comic-book-cover.jpg
A review of three useful articles:
"The sound of pennies dropping"
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/24946
From the article:
"I've felt for a long time that if radical Sharia law comes to the rest of the world it will start on the streets of London,"...
The 'streets of London' are clearly not what they were when *this* was written:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctb-SrwL884
Who among us has the parodic skill to take this classic ballad and rewrite it to tell - in bleak and bitter style - the story of the transformation of London into 'Londonistan'?
The so called 'educated' Muslim is arguably the most likely candidate for embracing the ultra orthodoxy of Jihad against the West. This is because he finds himself completely outclassed, bewildered and hopeless, when he comes in direct contact with the West. Since he finds himself unable to cope with the profound inferiority this engenders in himself,he turns to brainlessness (Fundamentalism) as his expression of identity and being. He is helped in this by the vast, reassuring and ever present network of the rabid Uleima (Clerics) and an approving Ummah (Global nation of Islam).
He is helped along the way by the distorted view of events and history, denialism, projection and other psychological coping mechanisms that have characterised Islam throughout history,which help him justify gratuitous violence and crime against other human beings.
I'm completely disgusted and appalled that London, which in times gone by was the capital of the free world, is now viewed by Islamofascists as some kind of 'second Mecca'. It's bad enough that there was even a first Mecca!
...said Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola. "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialise much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. (...) You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."
To the contrary, Fabrizio, that makes perfect sense:
The Unabomber: had a decent job until a woman dumped him and then he went off to his compound in Montana.
The 9-11 pilots: the only one with a girlfriend is the one who almost backed out of the plot to the point where Mo Atta had to recruit a potential replacement, plus there was the hanging out in strip clubs.
Fort Hood shooter: Frustrated by not being able to find a suitable woman who would devoutly wear hijab and such, and frequented a strip club.
Numerous guys who've shot up high schools or colleges: no chicks.
Hitler: according to Soviet autopsy, was born with only one testicle.
In fairness, I've included some non-muslim jerks, and there are also examples of married men doing suicide bombings. However, if sexually frustrated young men grow up under religious doctrines and cultural traditions that increase sexual repression to ridiculous extremes (e.g. burqas, arranged marriages) and then a jihadist imam tells them that they can have ridiculous amounts of sex with 72 hotties by detonating themselves in a crowd of people they've never met before, they're going to be more likely to listen than if they were having human interactions.
"Many Muslims in the UK complain of the "double standards" of Western policies, particularly as regards the Middle East. British Palestinian Muslims have complained, for example, that when British Jews go to Israel and fight for the Israeli army, they come home as praiseworthy heroes; but when Palestinians go to fight or aid the local struggle, they come home and are considered terrorists."
'British Jews' do not 'fight for the Israeli army'. Israeli soldiers need to be ISRAELI citizens, not just Jews. This passage simply shows that most Muslims think that everyone else (including the Israelis) thinks in the same medieval way as they do.
In London, and other cities with a substantial Muslim population, Hizb ut-Tahrir are allowed the freedom to literally set out their stall on the sidewalk, and if they want, to hold public meetings.
No doubt Muslim affairs consultants advised timorous government officials that prohibit their activities would drive disaffected young Muslims into the waiting hands of the Islamists; as if Hitzb ut-Tahrir themselves were not extremists.
The Delta flight jihadist lived within walking distance of viper nests of hate and intrigue. It is not for nothing that Muslims say that Britain is the most Islamic country in non Islamic world. And believe it or not,sometimes the black war flag of jihad can be seen being borne aloft by a prophet Muhammed look alike.