by Pritam Banerjee
Anyone who lived inwards N London inwards the piece of cake 1990s, together with wasn’t biased to Islamism, would tell you lot that the propaganda that went unchecked at that topographic point should get got been nipped inwards the bud. Justice Chandrachud’s reference to dissent equally a cast of security valve inwards democracies is undoubtedly good meant together with pertinent. But equally whatever engineer would tell you, security valves require to survive good designed. Otherwise they tin Pb to all kinds of lethal accidents. To allow dissent without discernment is unsafe to the real stuff of civilian appointment together with compromise that modern democracies embody. I am speaking from personal lived experience from piece of cake 1990s United Kingdom. Living equally a pupil inwards London inwards 1999-2000, I found inexpensive lodgings alongside a Bangladeshi immigrant menage unit of measurement inwards Bounds Green expanse of N London. This stretch of the metropolis from around Finsbury Park northwards had a large immigrant population, South Asian, Turkish, together with West African, which was predominantly Muslim. These were pre 9/11 days, together with mosques, ‘social clubs’, together with shops brazenly displayed poster exhorting the faithful to jihad, together with the devastation of the pagan inwards Kashmir together with Chechnya. The variety of trigger-happy rhetoric against the Indian state, together with Hindus (not Indians) that these posters carried were shocking to me. Even worse, many shops openly had collection boxes to aid fund such violence. As an Indian together with a Hindu, I was angered together with insulted past times these posters. When I challenged a few Pakistani source shopkeepers close these, some were openly hostile. The older generation (ironically the ane alongside possibly a direct retentiveness of Partition) was to a greater extent than understanding. They pointed instead to the gradual takeover of the mosques together with other social organisations past times newer together with to a greater extent than fundamentalist groups, together with their helplessness inwards forepart of this rising tide.
My curiosity drove me to delve a combat deeper into this phenomenon. Discussions inwards together with around the neighbourhood where I lived pointed to the ascent of 2 critical individuals together with organisations.
The individuals were Omar Bakri Mohammad together with Abu Hamza. Mohammad was the founder of Al-Muhajiroun, a radical Islamist grouping inwards the United Kingdom. Abu Hamza was the imam at Finsbury Park mosque, an epicentre of radical together with trigger-happy Islamist thought. Apart from Al-Muhajiroun, the other key arrangement was Dawatul Islam which was systematically trying to infiltrate mosques inwards East together with North London together with supervene upon an older, moderate generation of preachers together with clerics alongside to a greater extent than ‘fire-brand’ versions.
Both organisations ran an impressive network of social organisations, including report circles, cinema clubs, together with ‘tute groups’ where older students provided gratis tuition together with helped younger students. Both of these organisations had a strong presence inwards London campuses, straight or through pupil clubs that provided fronts.
At the LSE, where I was a student, ane such forepart was a theater club-it organised street play performances highlighting Muslim victimhood. What I found rather disconcerting was that at that topographic point were a few academics together with graduate students who were openly supportive of these groups, together with spoke the same linguistic communication of victimhood together with identity defined past times Islam, equally a theological together with ideological construct.
In the campus, they stopped only brusque of actual calls to violence. This restraint was taken off inwards the mosque together with N London neighbourhoods. Listening to some of my Muslim friends who attended the Fri prayers inwards Finsbury Park Mosque close the content of these sermons made me fifty-fifty angrier. There were repeated calls for state of war against Republic of Republic of India together with Hindus, together with fifty-fifty calls to destroy the remaining Sikh places of worship inwards Pakistan, described inwards ane sermon equally wounds inflicted on Islam past times Sikhs. One sermon, afterwards made famous past times mesh posts, called for the flag of Islam to wing over Whitechapel together with the Buckingham Palace.
Even to my naive 21-year-old mind, what was happening was dangerous. When I started to hash out this alongside my British friends on campus, most of them were dismissive. The word security valve powerfulness non get got been genuinely used, but was it was indicated. The actual phrase was ‘young hotheads who require to allow off some steam’. But what if ‘letting off steam’ meant violence, together with allowing impressionable youngsters to survive recruited equally cannon-fodder past times ideologues to create produce their battles? Was that allright equally well? And proficient for democracy? What if their rising influence inwards surely pockets of the UK ensured the destination of gratis spoken communication together with choice inwards these areas? I hollo upwards a British Pakistani woman, a classmate, telling me she chose non to hang out alongside her white British friends during her schoolhouse days out of fearfulness of some of these groups inwards her neighbourhood inwards East London.
Within the academia itself, peculiarly its left-leaning elements, at that topographic point was a style to encounter the Islamists equally subalterns making a heroic stand upwards against imperialism together with state-power. There was post-modernist mumbo-jumbo close how the concept of the ‘ummah’ was akin to universal brotherhood together with a reaction to the failure of twenty-first-century nation-state scheme together with capitalist economic scheme that impersonalised human beings (where get got nosotros heard that?). The largely leftist academic institution was thus giving a veneer of respectability to the worst variety of fundamentalism possible. Keffiyeh wearing ‘radical’ rappers were oft seen jamming together alongside Islamic stone groups that belted songs alongside the same narrative of Muslim (and non Pakistani, Bosnian, Turkish, or Bangladeshi) angst together with victimhood.
By providing platforms, together with back upwards networks to this groups, the left-liberal institution was helping create a ‘value-chain’. At the apex of this value-chain were the nitty-gritty fundamentalist groups that would fund terror together with violence. In betwixt were ‘moderate faces’ couching their narrative of Islamist victimhood using reference points of human rights together with anti-imperialism that made them pop alongside the leftist leaning academia. The base of operations of the value-chain had the ‘social workers’ together with NGOs who also doubled upwards equally recruiters, equally good equally the entrenched elements inwards the academic together with cultural institution who also did recruiting, on campus.
Simplified narratives were popularised together with novel myths created all the time. Any elbow grease to inquiry this was oft silenced. There were seminars together with workshops alongside participants presenting ‘facts’ such equally how existence children of genocide, Bangladeshi 2nd generation had a growing affinity alongside their Islamist tradition. When I tried to enhance the dot that inwards this illustration the genocide was genuinely carried out inwards the mention of Islam, together with past times Islamist groups, together with it is thus non logical that an aware Bangladeshi 2nd generation individual would observe affinity alongside the same ideology that massacred her people, a speaker inwards the podium silenced me alongside a volley of jargonese-the trauma of broken identities together with how memories are a social construct, etc.
At some other such exalted discussion, a Pakistani graduate pupil presented a hypothesis that Republic of Republic of India going nuclear was ane of the prime number reasons why the youth inwards Islamic Republic of Pakistan were turning to fundamentalism, together with if Republic of Republic of India were to trim its armed forces spending together with take the insecurity felt past times the average Pakistani, it would opposite this trend. All this to a bunch of nodding heads. When I raised my vocalism together with pointed out that Islamic Republic of Pakistan itself had gone nuclear, together with had only been globally censured for its armed forces adventurism inwards Kargil, the moderator thanked me for my comment, together with inwards a musical note that was meant to belittle, said tin nosotros straight off motility on to ‘relevant together with pertinent’ questions.
What also bothered me was the ‘Islamification’ of victimhood. Kashmir, Palestine together with Chechnya were Muslim problems. Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste together with Republic of Ireland were never Catholic problems, though religious identity had a role to play inwards both. These conflicts remained firmly rooted inwards their nationalistic discourse together with identity equally Irish Gaelic or Timorese. This reduction of such a various grouping that constituted believers inwards Islam, alongside distinct national together with cultural identities, to a unmarried dot of identity was also amazing to me, together with then equally is now.
Immigrants tend to create a distinct identity inwards their adopted homelands. In London also at that topographic point were Indians (and sub-groups such equally Panjabi together with Gujarati), Jamaicans, Nigerians, Poles, Chinese sub-cultures together with identities. None of them defined themselves past times their religion. There is no equivalent to the term British Muslim so widely used inwards media together with socio-political discourse for other religions - at that topographic point is no British Hindu, British Orthodox, or British Buddhist. That supposedly liberal together with secular media has no job accepting this simplistic binary identity seemed mind-boggling.
I left London inwards mid-2000 after completing my course, but the feeling that something volition give remained. The sense of impending doom I had felt, together with shared alongside my British friends came to exceed on seven July 2005 alongside the London series bombings. The real same Finsbury Park mosque was the epicentre of it all. There is a real proficient investigative book, The Suicide Factory-Abu Hamza together with the Finsbury Park Mosque, past times Sean O’Neill together with Daniel McGrory published inwards 2010, that reveals the details of how this north-central London mosque, together with the social networks it spawned played a major role inwards radicalising immature minds together with turned them towards violence. The authors dot out that British media together with fifty-fifty tidings had dismissed Hamza equally essentially harmless, earlier events proved them wrong. When Shekhar Gupta refers to some of the characters involved inwards the urban Naxal ground equally ‘useful idiots’, he is treading downward that same unsafe path.
9/11 together with 7/7 happened, but the attempts to expose political Islamists, to isolate together with telephone band to trace of piece of work organisation human relationship the value-chain of recruitment together with intellectual back upwards which sustained together with gave respectability to the worst variety of fundamentalist ideology, together with the powerfulness to telephone band spade a spade never happened. In other words, seriously faulty ‘safety valves’ were never repaired. The upshot was the unprecedented success of recruitment for the Islamic State from Great Britain only a decade later.
There are strong parallels hither alongside the Indian situation. Maoists, who are equally ideologically driven equally Islamists, together with only equally violent, get got a created value-chain of support, supply, together with on campus recruitment. This is aided together with abetted past times an intellectual establishment, together with fronted past times ‘social activist’ organisations. Just similar inwards the illustration of Islamists, at that topographic point is a linear narrative of victimhood cantered around caste together with tribal affiliations, ignoring the multi-layered socio-economic powerfulness structures inwards Republic of Republic of India that are dynamic, together with differ from part to region. Just similar inwards the illustration of Islamists, where activists alter their musical note depending on the audience, i.e. intend vitriol against the Indian solid ground together with ‘caste’ Hindus inwards the shadows, together with the occupation of Marxist tropes together with narratives of victimhood inwards the open. Turning the whole Kashmir ‘azaadi’ narrative to azaadi from poverty together with violence inwards the whole JNU-Jadavpur campus upheavals are a illustration to the point. There is straight off an endeavour to hook upwards alongside caste identity politics, Islamist irredentism inwards Kashmir, together with frustration created past times the gap betwixt aspiration together with reality of educated urban together with urban youth into a strong mix of discontent against the Indian state.
So the inquiry is, are these only ‘hotheads’ letting off steam, together with well-meaning ‘dissenters’ helping India’s republic past times acting equally a security valve? Or is the valve poorly designed equally was the illustration inwards UK, together with nosotros are waiting for our 7/7 moment, together with the unstoppable moving ridge of Islamic State type recruitment that followed a decade later? Actually, if you lot inquire the people scarred together with broken past times Maoist violence across Central India, the dot of reckoning has long come, together with our security valve has been malfunctioning for a while. Perhaps, it’s fourth dimension to repair the valve, or fifty-fifty re-engineer the agency it works. Being dismissive of existent together with introduce danger tin survive a real unsafe thing.
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