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)

What foreign counties have Bangladesh, Lebanon, Bulgaria, Denmark, Belgium and Argentina been involved in?

To name but a few. All affected by extremist Islamic terror, often far far worse than what's been seen in the U.K.

On balance I agree that internment would fail, recalling the hunger strikers and dirty protests in Long Kesh prison.

Integration, education, learning the language (English, French, German or whatever the language of the main broadcast and print media), no school worship, and severe social disapproval of any overt symbols of religious adherence like the burqa, might all help a bit. But none of this addresses the intrinsic requirement for Islam to seek and destroy unbelievers; it is not a religion that intends to co-exist peacefully with any other. The Koran enshrines this doctrine and forbids innovation, so its theologians don't have much freedom to preach reconciliation and ecumenicism.

Oh and Kenya (ok, Somalia) and India (ok Pakistan) and Indonesia (well, targeting Australians) and turkey (ok, Syria) and...and...and...

They haven't all sold arms to the saudis! And they don't all have faith schools

The simple answer is that this cannot be truly stopped.

A lot of the Middle East tension stems from the creation of Israel after the Second World War. Reversing that decision is not possible, or workable, and even then too much damage has been done.

The west are attacked for getting too involved in the Middle East (9/11) and attacked for doing too little (Manchester).

We cannot sort out the Middle East as we are in conflict with different countries for different reasons. Iran has been an ally to Iraq in driving IS out, but we have a conflict on nuclear weapons.

The Manchester bomber's father came to the UK as an asylum seeker from Libya. He then took his sons back to Libya to join a disorganised and unwieldy militia in the Arab spring against Ghadaffi (spelling). His sons were roughly 18, 16 and 14 ish. So two of them were children.

He was always going to come into contact with radicals as part of this, and handing a gun to a 14 year old is ludicrous!

The UK fought against Ghadaffi, so surely that should make the them support us, we have them asylum and then assisted in getting rid of their hated dictator... but then we left (given the fury over the Iraq war, trying not to stay too long) and Libya has descended into chaos.

The Middle East is a very complicated place and there is no easy answer as to how to prevent radicalisation.

We do what we can, support muslim communities (because true muslims are against the terror attacks), try to encourage integration.

Whatever foreign policy we adopt now will not stop those who believe we should have done more/less in their home country (depending on which country and which conflict you are talking about).

I personally also think they are different beasts

I agree - I dont know why some people are desperate to equate the two. ISIS are more akin to Nazi's, totally different from NI.

The Northern Ireland comparison is very limited for the current situation.
The island was partitioned in the 20th century.
Scottish Protestants were moved there to work.
The society has a pretty stark two ways split
and was almost fully segregated from the off.

THe current Whabist Jihadist shit is funded by Saudi Arabia and is inflamed via Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libys, Iraq and syria
with a dash of Palestine for seasoning

the underlying source of the problem is not in the UK
we are a symptom not the cause

Ulster the cause and the symptoms were all in one place

Islamic Fundamentalism is a Sunni / Shia global geopolitical issue that will truly only die down when we stop buying Middle East oil

But ZZZZ under some tennants of Islam thats not true, dc in saudi are taught to hate jews and kill. I guess the word is innocent...perhaps sometimes they dont view them as innocent because they are infidels, unbelievers? Gay or Jewish etc.

Perking - might be me, didn't sleep much last night ☹️. From my understanding internment during the troubles created problems as some people felt unfairly victimised. I.e faulty intelligence meant detaining innocent civil right campaigners. No Ulster groups were detained even though they had bombed catholic owned stores. Bloody Sunday also. This in turn increased sympathy.

I'm not advocating for internment btw just that I was under the impression that it's accepted that we have 3000 known extremists & perhaps it would work in specific cases. Does that make sense?

Oh, please. Here we go blaming Israel again. Actually, Palestinian terror used to be secular. George habash, the leader of pflp was Christian! It's only in recent couple of decades that it's taken a jihadi religious run.

What has israel to do with the terrorism in Bangladesh? Or the 80 people killed this week in Afghanistan? What they do have in common is Islamic extremism.

try to encourage integration.

^^ id love to know how when there are so many rules and restrictions on Muslims that preclude them from integrating with us.

Muslim girls didnt attend bday parties in my school, we never ever got invited to their houses but they were invited to our s and they wanted to come and we wanted to go they were our friends.....their parents didnt want them mixing with us.

It's true. The comparison to NI is limited. But I stand by the belief that we learned things, most notbably some pretty big things that can make the situation even worse and some broad understanding of the path to conflict resolution.

What has israel to do with the terrorism in Bangladesh? Or the 80 people killed this week in Afghanistan?

Manilla.....africa.....its world wide.

hefzi the Bible is very explicit in its rejection of homosexuality and yet most Christians in Western society are accepting or at least tolerating of same-sex relationships. The blooming Pope has said that the Catholic Church should apologise to gay people! And some traditionally Catholic countries have been leading the way with same-sex marriages etc.

I am aware that there isn't a head of Islam, but having influential leaders (that people look up to) publicly, unequivocally support tolerant values while also live by the basic tenets of Islam would be incredibly powerful. I remember the gunman in Orlando - IIRC he was either gay or bisexual and used to visit the club where he did the shooting. It made me think that if you are a man, a believer, Muslim and realise you are gay... what do you do? You either reject your faith or live a lie. Neither is good for your mental health - mix that with a history of violence, no support, seeing no way forward, living in an environment where weapons are available and a big shootout / suicide is seen as something men just do, and you have a very nasty cocktail. But that's in the US.

I agree with pp that internment can be counterproductive. Wasn't the IRA formed when Irish prisoners were sent to a camp in the remote Welsh village of Fron Goch? They were all together, had time in their hands, were resentful of their "keepers" and were inspired by the Welsh-speaking community around them. However working with individuals might work.

how on earth to we conflict resolute with people who want ww domimation?

we broke away from the bible centuries ago - age of englightenment.

@Scandelicious I'm not getting how this is all Israel's fault either...

talkin & beyond yes that's what I mean. Very different ideologies.

I think there is a train of thought thats determined to blame the uk for everything now because of colonialism.

Beyond
THey do not want domination.
They are nihilists
Which is why carrying on as normal is the greatest affront possible
which is why I hate the "minute silence" every time they kill the same number of people as die on the roads each day.

If we did the minute silence for every major road crash it would put the vest wearing nut jobs into context

I dont think you can without encroaching on certain freedoms. Certainly one aspect of it is extremists worming their way into the lifes of dissillusioned young people, who are caught between a muslim lifestyle and a western lifestyle, much like the gangs in America who prey upon the young who are caught between poor backgrounds and capitalistic society (obv. thats extremely simplified). I dont think America has made much headway into getting rid of gang culture and I dont think UK could make much headway into the youths caught between muslim and western lifestyles, or not without curtailing certain religious beliefs.

Are we saying that we need to move towards reconciliation and integration with conservative muslims in the UK

but...

how do we move towards that if the conservative muslims have it in their religious code that they should mix with people who aren't conservative muslims as little as possible (and not at all if they are women)???

Does that turn it into an us/them scenario, where they have to change (which isn't a good look) because the whole idea of finding common ground is predicated on them (here I go again) opening up to western liberal/ secular/ whatever other religions we have in the mix ways of looking at the world?

I'm a practicing catholic but attended a secular state school. I fully support secular only schools. If my faith can't withstand challenge and learning about other faith, humanists, atheists etc. then it's pointless.
I do wonder how you would enforce this in relation to private schools and home education. From reading posts here I think some parents

Foreign policy, involved with Saudi etc. are factors but how does that explain what's currently going in the Philippines or the Yazidi genocide.

Likewise disenfranchisement is a factor but there are lots of marginalised sectors of society who don't want to blow themselves up.

Posted too early...
Some parents choose a different education because of more freedom in what is or isn't taught. Also as regards mixed only schools see some parents preferring single sex education on basis that DC particularly DD will do better in STEM subjects.