to ask the MN hive mind what might make Islamist attacks less common?

[randomname27]

There are thousands of intelligent people on Mumsnet. MI5 don't recruit here for nothing. I need your help.

I know that if there were easy answers, they'd have been come up with already.

1. I need to know more about the Saudi Arabia connection. Why do we keep selling them arms? Is there a direct connection between our political relationship with that regime, and the Islamists running round killing random people? Would it make any difference if we extracted ourselves from being friendly with the Saudis? (I've picked up that the Saudi regime are "baddies" but am ready to be robustly corrected).

2. Is there anything we can do in terms of licensing mosques, imams, imam training, so that Islamists just can't come and preach/ teach here? Are the Islamists already the equivalent of some dodgy heretical vaguely-related-to-Christian sect that would be shut down pronto if the mainstream Muslims had the power to do so (I guess, like a really theologically-out-there CofE vicar could be defrocked)?

3. Is there anything that can be done about what happens when people voice concerns to the police (like with the Manchester loser), that will impede those on their way to Islamism without being a civil liberties shit storm? Like, if someone's mosque AND their family AND their employers AND their friends, or some combination of those different groups, have all expressed concerns, then it's time for some serious brainwashing until they become buddhists (I'm joking. I have no idea what should be done. That's why I've asked AIBU for help).

(MN regular, penis beaker, korean granny, blah blah, name changed because I don't normally do politics on here and would rather keep it separate from my normal bleatings)

"In all of this we seem to forget that we have more than most other places experience is fighting religious framed terrorism. We should be having a good cool look at what we did wrong and right there."

Yes, woollyminded, and in real life I've known Norn Irelanders complain that their experience is not being sufficiently valued when mainlanders talk about community cohesion, or reconciliation. As though the mainlanders are in denial about what happened in NI, or embarrassed that there could be any similarities.

I'm not sure internment is a solution now but one of the reasons it didn't work during the troubles is on the link.

" All of those arrested were Irish nationalists, the vast majority of them Catholic. Due to faulty intelligence, many had no links with the IRA. Ulster loyalist paramilitaries were also carrying out acts of violence, which were mainly directed against Catholics and Irish nationalists, but no loyalists were included in the sweep".

I read it on a thread here after Manchester

It's not nice

But they should be told instead of virgins meeting them at the point of their death, we will be feeding their remains to the pigs.

Would that matter to them? Probably not

Internment does not work.
It just creates multigenerational resentment
read George Takei (Sulu from original Star Trek) posts on the issue

Internment is sticking gaffer tape on the door after the horse left the country

change needs to start with the children of the Ismalic groups

• making them integrate
• making them get jobs
• making them let their wives and daughters work and learn

Education & opportunity is key but how do we tackle the 3000 people that are potentially dangerous?

we can try and work on change but this is a word of mouth - preacher type disease, so how do we stop those infected now from infecting others?

How can we make them integrate? We know that often they don't want too. Many people have spoken of segregation at school....children make friends but those friends are not allowed to socialise with them, after a certain point....

France doesn't have any state faith schools. Didn't help them.

Bangladesh, Lebanon and Afghanistan don't even recognize Israel. Turkey and Egypt are hardly supportive. Didn't help them.

And let's not forget: the people most at risk of Islamic extremist terror are muslims themselves.

Would be nice if this were just about faith schools and foreign policy

x post user.

Yes for the future we must start in school.

Perking - the discussion is definitely very Anglo-centric which I find very frustrating. While devolved government to the nations and regions has been broadly A Good Thing I think I see more and more all sorts of discourse limited to an English perspective. Which is odd because ordinary English people suffered a great deal during the Troubles and that collective memory seems suddenly lost. Plus there's rakes of us Nornies here!

But back to the point. We have a living a breathing case study right here, in our own country. How our actions can support and breed terrorists, religious bigots, tribal identities, how what seems obvious solutions (internment, collective punishment, militarising the police) in the first glance can make it worse. But, and this is the most frustrating thing by far we do actually have some experience of putting a lid on it.

Thing is that broadly the things that have appeared to work in Northern Ireland seem very unpalatable to politicians (and voters?) here - talking, getting help from respected foreigners, investment into troubling communities, funding youth and community workers/projects, supporting genuine engagement from grassroots groups and community leaders outside the formal establishment.

Userloser, replace "Ulster loyalist paramilitaries" with "violent far-rightwingers and dim low-life thugs, of various degrees of organisation", and you're ready to roll with that exact scenario.

We've had multiple cases of women being physically attacked for their clothing, and an MP murdered. Do you think the people openly approving and calling for such violence will be interned as well? Or do you think that, as in NI, they'll be thought of as "not really a problem" by the powers that be - a judgement not shared by the people on the receiving end of the attacks?

@woollyminded yes, there is a huge amount to be learned from Northern Ireland here. thank you.

I've been thinking of it as a very very different thing (because there were clear political goals on both sides in the Troubles, but there doesn't seem to be one to get a grip on when an Islamist goes out to murder a bunch of people) but of course there must be things that can be learned in terms of integration.

Do you have suggestions that are obvious to you, but that English people probably wouldn't think of (and I guess that for people 35 or under, they weren't even really aware of the Troubles, so there's knowledge to get passed on to the young 'uns here)?

And again and again the utterly ignored issue of male violence. I have tried recently to have this conversation in RL only to be utterly stonewalled by "not all men" " those figures can't be right" etc etc.

@woollyminded - sorry - cross posted! :)

My neighbour is Polish, and she thinks Britain should stop interfering in middle eastern country's wars/problems etc. I said 'but what about when there are children dying in those countries' and she said 'but now your children are being killed in Manchester, for example....'.

Trouble is, we've interfered already. So I think that the only people who can stop this now are Muslim leaders. Someone needs to save Islam from these terrorists, and the only people that can do that are Muslims themselves. There needs to be a really strong Muslim leader - trouble is, they are afraid of being targetted themselves if they speak out too strongly against this terrorism.

Perking - sorry I don't understand what you mean?

Birdsdestiny - uh-hu. Nodding with you.

@Perking - yes, I'm willing to drop the special pleading for Christianity. I'm too immersed (as a cultural historian) in its place in western Europe, but I can see that it's derailing here :)

I could totally get behind applying the kinds of community-linking stuff that happened in Northern Ireland. how long did it take between that starting, and the Good Friday agreement? Or was it bubbling along gently for 20-30 years? (Not that that matters - just wondering how long that sort of thing tends to take to come to fruition of some sort)

Oh sorry Userloser, I don't understand what you don't understand?

I was taking your post of Sun 04-Jun-17 19:06:29 which quoted a bit about Ulster loyalist paramilitaries. Does that make sense?

I'm agreeing with @Birdsdestiny about male violence.

While I think NI experience certainly could have a bearing on issues here I personally also think they are different beasts. The IRA were more political. Are we going to negotiate & have peace with ISIS? How?

Sweden did suffer the same kind of attacks? I don't know if this has been answered already but Sweden sells a lot of arms to countries around the world.

Germany has not been involved militarily in any Muslim country but it still got attacked last Christmas
Germany sells weapons to Saudi Arabia too.

Agree re male violence.

How about if someone who witnessed the Manchester bomber punching a girl for wearing a short skirt had reported him to the police? How about any man convicted for violence is placed on a compulsory intervention programme?

@randomname27 You've hit the nail on the head there. This has been a long time brewing and it will be a slow journey back. I think 20 odd years of work may be about right, but to start the journey we need to take the first small steps. And apart from this fantastic discussion you have facilitated I see that people seem more willing just to repeat the same old mistakes we made in the 70s and 80s.