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)

Can someone please explain to me what Sweden, the Philippines and countless other countries have done in their foreign policy terms to "deserve" terrorist attacks?

Or the religious minorities in the Middle East (from Yazidi to Christians to Jews) who are being pulverized, day by day?

Or why most Islamic terrorism actually targets people in the same majority-Muslim countries where the terrorists themselves live.

The victim-blaming on this thread is absolutely staggering.

clarionproject.org/factsheets-files/islamic-state-magazine-dabiq-fifteen-breaking-the-cross.pdf

What’s important to understand here is that al- though some might argue that your foreign policies are the extent of what drives our hatred, this parti- cular reason for hating you is secondary, hence the
reason we addressed it at the end of the above list. e fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, impriso- ning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our pri- mary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you. No doubt, we would stop ghting you then as we would stop ghting any disbelievers who enter into a covenant with us, but we would not stop hating you.
What’s equally if not more important to understand is that we ght you, not simply to punish and deter you, but to bring you true freedom in this life and salvation in the Hereafter, freedom from being ensla- ved to your whims and desires as well as those of your clergy and legislatures, and salvation by worshiping your Creator alone and following His messenger. We ght you in order to bring you out from the darkness of disbelief and into the light of Islam, and to liberate you from the constraints of living for the sake of the worldly life alone so that you may enjoy both the bles- sings of the worldly life and the bliss of the Hereafter.

What IS spout is as much related to Islam as is a unicorn latte! If we called them by another name, let's say ' Independent shopkeepers' , now without owning a shop, actually selling anything...how can they be a shop keeper...yeah, but erm...it's an online shop! Everything they sell is off/out of date, people get ill eating the produce, it's bad apples...Do you blame all independent shopkeepers? Do you boycott all stores? No, you blame and close down that particular shop. So IS can manipulate/misinterpret religion to present bad ideologies, making susceptible youth think they get to live the 'jihadi dream'. Labelling selves Islamic, thus giving all Muslims a bad name!

I don't even think the analogy makes sense, basically let's stop the 'all Muslims are bad' and start dealing with the source of these terrorists, follow the trail...where does it lead? Saudi? Then do something about it!

Has anyone thought to ask the intelligentsia of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, UAE, Palestine, Israel, Tunisia, Morocco, Pakistan or Turkey the opening question?

No one, NO ONE (half way reasonable) thinks "all muslims are bad". Or anything close. But it is madness to try and divorce Islamicist extremism from Islam. They are driven in jihad by fundamentalist understanding of the religion. It's all there.

They are not the 'right sort' of muslims, they practice in a way that is an anathema to muslims who live in peace, who believe that observance of the law of the land is part of their faith, and so on.

We can stand together as a diverse community, and have a SHARED abhorrence of and determination to defeat murdrous terrorists. It isn't either/ or.

And surely we stand more chance of protecting ALL our citizens if we don't go fuzzy-focussed on the causes and means of support for Islamist jihadis in our midst.

TM buries report. Including details of Saudi money in mosques

They are driven in jihad by fundamentalist understanding of the religion

My brother is an elderly iman who has spent his entire life studying the Qur'an and there is nothing fundamentalist about these terrorists. Suicide is forbidden as is the killing non-combatants.

Yes, but they believe they are following the call to jihad... killing the unbelievers, establishing the caliphate etc.

Everyone can argue the contents of the Q'uran, but these men believe they are acting according to their religion. They are fired up by it, will equally quote sections, etc etc. We can't address this by saying 'oh, it's not a religious thing...'

*atenco' doesn't the Koran ask that believers should 'strike terror into the hearts of those who do not believe, therefore strike off their heads and strike every fingertip off them'?

I think it also commands that believers should 'slay the idolaters wherever you find them'.

I reckon it's a pretty fundamentalist interpretation, like those christians in American who use that one verse of the Bible to hound homosexuals.

Can't we ban the extreme version of Islam that believe in this violent Jihad?

Illegal already - if you are going about preaching to people that they have an obligation to kill others, that's illegal. As is putting stuff online telling people to commit murder for whatever reason.

I think it's important to keep things in proportion. Most of the main mosques in the UK are filled with very normal people who are going about their daily business with the rest of us. Their imams are the first to condemn this sort of thing as not what a proper Muslim would do. The radical preaching which encourages murder happens away from the main mosques - in someone's living room or online.

The answers lie in the community and all come back to the Prevent strategy. I think in Britain we have a "live and let live" attitude and people are very reluctant to report things to the Police. Seen it loads of times on here with people living next door to drug dealers, or know their cousin is committing benefit fraud, or suspect their friend is fiddling HMRC. The advice is ALWAYS to keep your nose out and mind your own business. If we're not prepared to report drug dealrs and fraudsters, what makes us think the Muslim community will report someone who is acting strangely and advocating extreme views?

It's all about disaffected young men who don't feel they belong in our society. And also about their relatives and friends who might not be as extreme in their opinions, but who are disaffected enough to turn a blind eye.

I don't understand why anyone believes that ending religious schools would solve he problem. People of certain religions will always be in certain areas living together and the local schools will then surely still be made up entirely of people in these religions so yes it technically won't be a Muslim/Christian/Jewish/Catholic/Buddhist school but will still almost entirely be made up of them. I also don't think that it's fair, why should people not be able to send their children to a school that has a religious ethos that they think is important to them because a group of people (who aren't even a real representation of their own religion) behave as they do.

I also think it's worth remembering that many Muslims either don't go to mosque or don't follow all the teachings.

My daughter has a friend who is from a Muslim family. Her dad is from Saudi, mum has Pakistani roots but was raised in Europe (not the UK). They go to Mosque, eat halal meat and observe Ramadan. However, the women don't cover their hair, they all dress in a western way, mum leaves the house when she likes, drives and they have no extreme opinions whatsoever. You can't put all Muslims in one basket like that, there's a huge range of opinion within the community, just as with the Christian churches in the UK who are totally split over issues like gay marriage and women priests.

Because all the faiths I am aware of have oppression of minorities as some part of their religion.

Surely part of this comes down to education. The Manchester terrorist was known by classmates to struggle academically. We have a society that places huge emphasis on examinations and testing children from an early age. A child being educated in the U.K. can be singled out for extra support if they aren't reading to the government recommended standard by four years old. By the time they get to age 6/7, they're in the bottom set for everything and feeling like a failure. By 16, they've had so many years of failure, it's hard to see why they wouldn't be feeling disaffected. This is causing anxiety, depression and mental health issues in our teens, and it's easy to make the link between these feelings and criminality/extremism. As pps have said, improved mental health services, improved job prospects, and I feel less pressure and examination from a young age would benefit in the long term. A more balanced curriculum (to include compulsory citizenship), less focus on dragging children through academic subjects they'll have no requirement for. What do we want our citizens to "look" like (self esteem, understanding of our political system/rights/foreign policy etc etc) are all things I certainly left school lacking, despite being able to solve quadratic equations.

In the short term, in terms of preventing the terrorists who pose an immediate threat, I really don't know.

Red sunshine, I doubt anyone believes ending state schools would 'solve the problem'.

It's one measure as part of a bigger picture.

Red sunshine, I doubt anyone believes ending state schools would 'solve the problem'.

It's one measure as part of a bigger picture.

Yes - we enable segregation via religious selection from an early age, so children of different faiths are less likely to mix with each other and understand each other.

Very easy to see how that contributes to 'othering' and marginalisation. If many of the middle class (Christian faith schools are disproportionately middle class) kids from an area end up at the faith schools

Argh! Accidentally hit post. You end up with disproportionately middle class, disproportionately white schools (because even where faith places are limited to 50%, the small size of catchment means the other 50% are disproportionately affected by ability to pay rent/house prices near the school) and disproportionately poor and minority schools.

Only a small part of th picture. But given how many of these terrorists were born here, don't we have to try everything to improve integration?

Oh and Kenya (ok, Somalia) Kenya and Uganda has the most military fighting in Somalia as part of the African Union. They have both been targeted for that very reason.
Somalia itself is a two state country. Somaliland where you have all the democratic way of life and then the Somali we see on tv. The democratic one has been refused recognition by the world and it's not recognised as country. The one recognised is the one where you have been seeing the fighting with terrorist training camps.

I can't explain the others. I could say India might come down to the split that happened between them and Pakistan. But am not very good at explaining this one.

Foreign policy is more about stability than ethics/morals etc (not least because those aren't absolutes) - plus, Saudi are a balance against Iran. That's interesting and a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

What I thought was that Saudi Arabia being common denominator and the middle man in arms deals for other countries and factions around the world. Everyone should stop selling arms to them. But that would be too easy wouldn't it? When countries makes so much money from it.
Surely they would have had enough by now if they are not selling it on or using it on other states.
As the picture below shows which excluded Sweden but you have pictures showing Swedish given the shaking hands with Saudi Arabia in regards to an amens deal. I wonder why the uk and America are so quick to shake hands with Saudi Arabia too. If weapons are being manufactured and sold, they have to be used somewhere in the world. It does come at the cost of human lives that the governments seem to brush aside.

• The Report shows also export licences to some countries under EU arms embargoes (Afghanistan, Burma, Belarus, China, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe. A small note explains that “exports to destinations subject to EU arms embargoes comply with the terms, conditions and possible exceptions set out in the decisions imposing such embargoes” (p.8). In particular, the almost €7 million of “ground vehicles” sent from Germany to Syria regard “cross country vehicles” for United Nations offices and EU delegations (p. 493). If this is the case, what's the point of an embargo? 


What foreign counties have Bangladesh, Lebanon, Bulgaria, Denmark, Belgium and Argentina been involved in?
This in regards to Belgium.
Where some rebels have been found to have their weapons too.
www.ft.com/content/7c8bde24-734a-11e5-bdb1-e6e4767162cc

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....'. What I tend to find is that the uk and other European governments only get involve when there is something to gain for themselves. It's never for humanitarian basis. With every involvement you don't have to dig deeper to find reasons.

This has been a fascinating thread; thanks OP for starting it. Particularly interesting for me as a British, London born-and-raised (with no religious upbringing, although we studied all religions equally at my all-girls private school in SW London), Muslim revert living in the Gulf for the past 5 years, now married to an Emirati and currently back home in London to have our first baby. So quite a mix! And we are of course determined to raise our child with the utmost tolerance, respect and openness.

Just an addendum to all the mentions of Saudi Arabia... A very significant development has taken place in the Gulf region today whereby Saudi, UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen and even The Maldives have severed ALL ties with Qatar with immediate effect. There are several reasons behind the move and it's been simmering for quite a while now but this is a particularly drastic decision today and has been publicly pinned on Qatar's funding of terrorist organisations including the Muslim Brotherhood, IS and Al Qaeda. All countries have, as of today, withdrawn their diplomats, closed their airspace to Qatari planes, cancelled all flights to Qatar and diverted their routes outside of Qatari airspace... Qatari channels such as Al Jazeera and even BeIn Sports are banned with immediate effect. The Qatari stock market has plummeted 8% since the announcement this morning.

Certainly food for thought in this debate, considering the huge proportion of UK land - London in particular - now under Qatari ownership (Harrods, Chelsea Barracks, Olympic Park etc etc - in fact QIA owns 3 x more property in London than The Queen...)

"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."

THIS.

OP, I can't answer your question. I wanted to point out, though, that all those talking about 'education', 'modernising Islam', 'extremist interpretations' vs 'non-extreme'... are overlooking some crucial points about Islam:

The Qu'ran is believed by Muslims to be literally the Word of God. It is perfect, complete, and cannot be subject to interpretation, revision or modernisation by anyone - not Imams, and certainly not Western kafirs (unbelievers).

This is fundamentally problematic, because for every verse that can be quoted calling for peaceful behaviour (and certainly there are some), another verse can be found which calls for the extermination of anyone who refuses to accept that Allah is the one true God.

The same goes for verses calling for death by stoning of homosexuals, adulterous women (which includes victims of rape), etc etc. Sharia law IS the law of Islam, as taken directly from the Qu'ran; it's not possible for a Muslim to deny that, or to deny that every word of the Qu'ran is perfect and true - even those verses that perhaps the majority of those who identify as 'moderate Muslims' would disagree with.

To reject those verses is to reject what Islam teaches about the Qu'ran.

The point I'm trying to make is that jihadists are NOT 'bad Muslims', according to Islam: they are 'good' Muslims, obeying certain instructions of the Qu'ran.

So 'educating' them would mean trying to convince them that their Holy Book is not the perfect and complete Word of God, and that their (Warrior) Prophet is not the perfect example of manhood that should be emulated by all.

I don't see that going down very well.

From the Atlantic article (link posted up-thread):

"The reality is that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam."

This is the unpalatable issue at the heart of Western Civilisation's argument with Islamist extremism.

@ButterflyFree I love your post on what's happening in the golf region but at the same time it leaves me cold with fear. It does make me wonder how they all came to the decision at the same time. That bothers me a lot.

Back to the original question of the thread ("What can be done..."): Germany has actually started deporting ISIS supporters who have dual nationality.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-isis-supporters-terror-suspects-born-in-country-deported-gottingen-nigerian-algerian-attack-a7643366.html

It raises human rights issues, because it establishes a legal precedent which states that it is acceptable to treat dual nationals differently to single nationals--as the mother of a dual national child, I confess it gives me pause.

But what else can states do? Sooner or later, I suspect all countries will start doing what Germany is doing, even though it is somewhat concerning in some ways. I don't think they will have a lot of choice, because it is one of the few things that states can do that will actually have some practical bearing on the problem. Getting rid of dodgy guys with dual nationality (who probably constitute the majority of ISIS supporters) will at least reduce the total numbers of people requiring surveillance, which will free up manpower for more intensive surveillance of ISIS supporters without dual nationality.

Law abiding people who have dual nationality (not to mention their families) will not be happy about this, but I guess we will have to be sacrificed.

"The price of increased diversity is diminished liberty."

If Germany can act this way and remain in compliance with EU rules, then what would stop it happening here? It would seem that we have some strong candidates for deportation.