Extremism on campus: Islamist narratives are going unchallenged

Daesh’s 100,000 foot soldiers were not born evil, nor was their radicalisation ever inevitable. The experience of racial or religious harassment and discrimination isolates communities and individuals, and makes them susceptible to extremism. However there still needs the purveyors of an ideology to manipulates these genuine grievances, and indoctrinate the vulnerable. It the ideology, that pushes an angry, alienated kid, to embrace violent extremes — be this neo-Nazism or Islamism. Disenfranchisement doesn’t inevitably lead to extremism, that simplistic argument would be absurd. But a disenfranchised individual makes ripe pickings for a charismatic recruiter to the cause. They can channel and feed their grievances, and give the disaffected a new identity through ideology. In 2011, a review of the Prevent strategy by the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism identified higher education as one of primary sectors that is vulnerable to radicalisation. In a damning report, it found that there has been a ‘culture conducive to the promotion of non-violent extremism has developed on a number of UK university campuses’.

The report went on to say: “there is unambiguous evidence to indicate that some extremist organisations … target specific universities and colleges … with the objective of radicalising and recruiting students”. Moreover, “[that] extremist preachers from this country and from overseas […] have also sought to repeatedly reach out to selected universities and to Muslim students”. To combat this, the NUS currently ‘No-platforms’ six extremist organisations. These organisations are banned from attending or speaking at any NUS function or conference, and for standing for election to any NUS position. These 6 include three far-right groups; British National Party, English Defence League, National Action, and three Islamist organisation, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Muslim Public Affairs Committee and Al-Muhajiroun.
The report by the Home Affairs Select Committee stated that those who ‘distrust Parliament and who see a conflict between being British and their own cultural identity’ are susceptible to radicalisation. It is clear that there are speakers appearing that our University who are promoting the divisive narrative that Islam is incompatible with Western secular democracy, and facing little challenge or counter-narratives.

Despite the new legal duty facing universities, too many institutions are still allowing events featuring extreme or intolerant speakers to go ahead without ensuring adequate challenge. Between the start of 2012 and the end of 2014, there were 400 incidents of extremist speakers at our universities. Hamza Tzortzis is a senior member of Islamic Education and Research Academy (ISRA) and is a regular speaker at British universities. He has close links to banned Hizb ut-Tahrir. He has said: “We as Muslims reject the idea of freedom of speech, and even the idea of freedom. We see under the Khilafa (caliphate), when people used to engage in a positive way, this idea of freedom was redundant, it was unnecessary, because the society understood under the education system of the Khilafa state, and under the political framework of Islam, that people must engage with each other in a positive and productive way to produce results, as the Qur’an says, to get to know one another”

Our universities are meant to be a ‘safe space’ according to the NUS. This ideas of ‘safe spaces’ has facilitated a culture of censorship that has embedded itself within our student unions. Many universities now have an outright ban on ‘transphobic material’, as well as having vague restrictions on ‘offensive’ dress and conduct. Human rights campaigners and secularists have been banned for offending religious sensitivities. Feminists have face black-listing for daring to say that trans-sexual woman are not ‘real women’. So when our student community recoil in disgust at the government’s plans to ban “non-violent” Islamist extremists from speaking on campuses, we must feel uneasy. These students and academics, so happy to censor everything from offensive pop songs to ‘page three’  — will fight tooth and nail for the rights of religious reactionaries to preach unopposed their prejudices about women, Jews, homosexuals, and apostates. In the [url=http://www.studentrights.org.uk/userfiles/files/Extreme or Intolerant Speakers in London FINAL%281%29.pdf]6 month period[/url] from September 2015 and January 2016 we have had speakers on campuses who have promoted sectarian violence, hatred of gays and hatred of Jews.
While many of the Islamist speakers who are appearing on our campuses may not directly argue for Jihad, they do routinely offer apologia for terrorism and violence. A prominent example is Cage, an advocacy group who work closely with high-profile figures within the NUS. Qureshi an executive director of CAGE, was recorded in 2006 as saying: “When we see the examples of our brothers and sisters, fighting in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, then we know where the example lies … We know that it is incumbent upon all of us to support the jihad of our brothers and sisters in these countries when they are facing the oppression of the West”. Last year Qureshi described the now deceased executioner and propagandist ‘Jihadi John’ as a ‘beautiful young man’.
According to an article on Cage‘s website the Bring Back Our Girls campaign is a “colonial trope” and criticism of Boko Haram is about “demonising Islam”. Proud feminists and NUS members regularly sit alongside Cage to denounce the government’s anti-extremism programme.

The ideas promoted by Cage — that Muslims generally (rather than individuals holding extreme views) are under attack; that the authorities are untrustworthy; and that the threats of extremism and terrorism from non-Muslims are greater than the threats from Islamist extremism and terrorism; these ideas have a lot of currency among sections of the Left. Once these Leftists are able to turn a blind eye to Cage and their allies’ views on women’s rights, homosexuality and Jews; sharing a platform with them comes quite naturally. When a CAGE spokesperson says to Muslim audience members: “each and every one of us is a terror suspect, it may not be now, it may have been yesterday, but we certainly will be tomorrow, the way things are heading” — We must question whether this rhetoric is divisive or constructive? Does it feed into the picture, used by Islamists, to promote a grievance narrative that the West is at war with Islam?


When the student Left align themselves with Islamists and offer them an unchallenged platform; they are betraying the very principles that they claim to uphold. When extremists are presented as ‘mainstream’ and ‘moderate’ voices of Islam, we betray liberal reformist Muslims; feminist Muslims; gay Muslims; dissenting Muslims; and minority sects that suffer more from religious fundamentalism than we can ever imagine. They are minority within minority, persecuted within theocracy, white-washed by us.

Just a few months ago, the University of Kingston held an event entitled “The Rise of Islamophobia’” One of speakers on the panel, Bashir Ibrahim, claimed the government was seeking to engineer a ‘Government sanctioned Islam” and that the security services’ “modus operandi” was harassing Muslims, using Mohammed Emwazi (Jihadi John) and Michael Adebolajo (Lee Rigby’s murderer) as examples. These tropes are commonplace. In December, Muhammad Dilwar Hussain visited University College London and claimed that there is “a full on ideological/cultural war is being waged on Islam and Muslims” and described reformist critics as “drunken liberal garbage”. This narrative, that ‘’Islam is under attack and we must defend it” is central to radicalisation, extremism and terrorism. In terrorism, it is used to promote violence; in extremism is it used to promote values that are antithetical to human rights norms; in radicalisation, it is used exploit vulnerable people and recruit them to the cause.

Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Charles Farr has stated that the government are deeply concerned about people “who are speaking regularly against core UK values and whose ideology incidentally is also shared by terrorist organisations”. There little doubt that Cage fall into this group. The Preventing Prevent lobby, seeks to undermine counter-extremism work by fitting it to the broader Islamist narrative has gained traction within the student movement. As a report from the Quilliam anti-extremist think-tank point out. ‘The Islamist narrative has been normalised in the United Kingdom, and other European countries, over the last two decades due to the influence of non-violent Islamist organisations’. The normalisation of these narrative show no sign of abating. The controversial new President of the NUS Malia Bouattia won on part by campaigning on a ‘Preventing Prevent’ ticket and unsurprisingly has been endorsed by Cage. In a written response to critics who have questioned her over alleged anti-Semitism, she publicly attacked the organisations who have been investigating radicalisation and extremism on campuses. When challenged, she has accused her critics of being driven by nothing more than anti-Muslim bigotry.
Those who speak out against Islamism in our universities often face false accusation of racism, anti-Muslim prejudice and ‘neo-colonialism’. Human rights campaigns such as Peter Tatchell and Maryam Namazie have faced McCarthyite smears. While anti-fascist organisations like Hope not Hate have been attack by the Left, for speaking out against Islamism and Islamic sectarianism.

We find ourselves in a situation where the Left is caught in ‘double bind’; on one hand speaking out against prejudice towards Muslims and the excesses of the state in the ‘war on terror’, and the need to oppose the ideas, beliefs and actions of religious reactionaries, Islamists and jihadi apologist. We can do both and we must do both. There are clear failings with the Government’s PREVENT agenda and British Muslims are increasingly marginalised and alienated. But when we take these extremists as the legitimate voice of Muslim opinion, as we do on so many university campuses, we’re doing great harm. We legitimise their corrosive narrative that there is an unbridgeable divide between the ideas of Islam and Western liberalism. What stands before us is far-right political movement based on a fundamentalist and reactionary interpretation of Islamic doctrine. What groups like Cage sustain and apologise for, is a totalitarian ideology. The ideology cannot be separated from its violent interpretation. The ideas peddled on our campus are not separate from the atrocities committed abroad in the name of Jihad.
Islamic State’s outlined in their own magazine Dabiq, their aim to eliminate what it calls the “grey zone,” the middle ground between Islamist theocrats and anti-Muslim bigots, so that everyone is forced to pick sides. In this way, Islamic State hopes to turn non-Muslims against Muslims. We cannot let the likes of Cage drive this narrative. Let’s fight for this ‘middle ground’ where liberalism lives and thrives.

No wonder the Taliban rallied around the cry, “Throw reason to the dogs” — rational debate, reason, these the enemies of tyranny. The values of the Enlightenment are theocracy’s greatest fear. We must combat Islamism’s politicised manipulation of the Islamic faith through rational enquiry and critique. The least we can do is open up their platforms to critical voices and challenge their ideas. Combating Islamism on campus should go hand in hand with fighting for free speech on campus. We won’t defeat the ideologies of fascism and Islamism through blanket censorship. We defeat these ideas by exposing their fallacies and undermining their arguments through open debate and criticisms. Islamists and their fellow-travellers on the far-Left will attempt to shut down this discussion, but we cannot let this happen. Let’s promote progressive voices and open up debate on our universities. Let’s work with, and reform, the PREVENT agenda — let’s change the narrative.




https://medium.com/@Layo_91/extremism-on-campus-islamist-narratives-are-going-unchallenged-ecef15d81c3c#.ndldfcum7

the above shouldnt be surprising though didge...when you consider that the left (and the NUS is about as extreme left as you can get without actually shooting people in the back of the head for not singing the red flag) is well into bed with the islamists....one might say they are islamists in western clothes.

they are happy becasue they have a "pet", even if, given the slightest chance, said pet would behead them at the drop of a hat......
and...bear in mind that despite their high and mighty claims to "principles" these are people who actually have NO principles...at all...or , perhaps more to the point whos "principles are so liquid as to be indistinguishable from no principle....

What a load of crap.

Lord Foul wrote:the above shouldnt be surprising though didge...when you consider that the left (and the NUS is about as extreme left as you can get without actually shooting people in the back of the head for not singing the red flag) is well into bed with the islamists....one might say they are islamists in western clothes.

they are happy becasue they have a "pet", even if, given the slightest chance, said pet would behead them at the drop of a hat......
and...bear in mind that despite their high and mighty claims to "principles" these are people who actually have NO principles...at all...or , perhaps more to the point whos "principles are so liquid as to be indistinguishable from no principle....

Indeed mate and where the left should be helping unite society and stop backing poor unfounded claims that help the extremist propaganda machine, they should be getting across how much the UK is a tolerant country and does not discriminate,

As to the new NHS leader, she is extreme left and clueless and inadvertanty antisemetic







As Daniel Cooper over at Shiraz Socialist reports, the NUS NEC has voted down a motion calling for solidarity with the Kurds who are battling ISIS.

The motion was opposed by Malia Bouattia, the NUS Black Students’ Officer, for astonishing and bewildering reasons. Bouattia argued that the motion was “Islamophobic” and “pro USA intervention” – (see Aaron Kiely, a fellow NUS NEC member’s, tweet during the meeting as reflective of the position). The motion then fell as large numbers of NEC members either abstained or voted against (including the bulk of the political Left on NEC). I think this says a lot about the current state of the student movement.

Kiely described Bouattia’s speech as ‘amazing’, because it challenged ‘the Western racist narrative around ISIS’.  The logic behind a choice to support (or at least not condemn) utterly ruthless and barbaric non-white Muslims while showing complete indifference for secular non-white Muslims beggars belief.
Daniel Cooper’s verdict on the NEC is damning:

Some appear not to research issues, work out what they think, engage and take ideas forward. Instead, some are not very interested and vote on basis of who they want to ally with on NEC. In other words, many people who voted against didn’t seem to care about is happening in Iraq.

As Howie puts it:

People need to learn to challenge, to think for themselves, to stand up for what they beleive in which is what I always thought higher education was for.
Sadly not in the National Union of Students.

sassy wrote:What a load of crap.

So you do not care extremist speakers are being invited and unchallenged to the Uk to spout hate and prejudice then?

I think your answer just sums u[ how out of touch some of the lefties truly are, where when it comes to Islam, it has now made their brains malfunction,
Where others like me will condemn anti-Muslim bigotry, the extreme left defend bad beliefs, like as seen recently the face veil, born from a sexist view point to control women and students who refused to shake hands, which would mean, as its based on the same teaching, also that they believe in gender segregation.
Equality means treating all equally under the law. It does not mean you forego equality and end up defending Islam, wrongly thinking its Islamophobic, again playing straight into the hands of the Islamist propaganda machine. You defend against anti-Muslim bigotry. So defending Islam, you thus when in conflict with Islam, relegate the rights of women, homosexuals and religious minorities as of lesser importance. A belief system, when it teaches bad beliefs, of which they are many. Then you should always condemn them. As unless you believe Allah exists, you are defending the many man made views of men, which Muslims are being misled by.
So you are not even being honest towards Muslims either