I’ve seen this before. A Muslim terrorist slays a non-Muslim citizen in the West, and representatives of the Muslim community rush to dissociate themselves and their faith from the horror. After British soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death last week in Woolwich in south London, Julie Siddiqi, representing the Islamic Society of Britain, quickly stepped before the microphones to attest that all good Muslims were “sickened” by the attack, “just like everyone else.”
This happens every time. Muslim men wearing suits and ties, or women wearing stylish headscarves, are sent out to reassure the world that these attacks have no place in real Islam, that they are aberrations and corruptions of the true faith.
But then what to make of Omar Bakri? He too claims to speak for the true faith, though he was unavailable for cameras in England last week because the Islamist group he founded, Al-Muhajiroun, was banned in Britain in 2010. Instead, he talked to the media from Tripoli in northern Lebanon, where he now lives. Michael Adebolajo—the accused Woolwich killer who was seen on a video at the scene of the murder, talking to the camera while displaying his bloody hands and a meat cleaver—was Bakri’s student a decade ago, before his group was banned. “A quiet man, very shy, asking lots of questions about Islam,” Bakri recalled last week. The teacher was impressed to see in the grisly video how far his shy disciple had come, “standing firm, courageous, brave. Not running away.”
Bakri also told the press: “The Prophet said an infidel and his killer will not meet in Hell. That’s a beautiful saying. May God reward [Adebolajo] for his actions . . . I don’t see it as a crime as far as Islam is concerned.”
The question requiring an answer at this moment in history is clear: Which group of leaders really speaks for Islam? The officially approved spokesmen for the “Muslim community”? Or the manic street preachers of political Islam, who indoctrinate, encourage and train the killers—and then bless their bloodshed?
~~~ In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the Woolwich murder, it was good to hear expressions of horror and sympathy from Islamic spokesmen, but something more is desperately required: genuine recognition of the problem with Islam.
Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.
~~~ last week the Guardian newspaper could still run a headline quoting a Muslim Londoner: “These poor idiots have nothing to do with Islam.” Really? Nothing?
Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary.
On both sides of the Atlantic, politicians, academics and the media have shown incredible patience as the drumbeat of Islamist terror attacks continues. When President Obama gave his first statement about the Boston bombings, he didn’t mention Islam at all. This week, Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson have repeated the reassuring statements of the Muslim leaders to the effect that Lee Rigby’s murder has nothing to do with Islam.
But many ordinary people hear such statements and scratch their heads in bewilderment. A murderer kills a young father while yelling “Allahu akbar” and it’s got nothing to do with Islam?
I don’t blame Western leaders. They are doing their best to keep the lid on what could become a meltdown of trust between majority populations and Muslim minority communities.
But I do blame Muslim leaders. It is time they came up with more credible talking points. Their communities have a serious problem. Young people, some of whom are not born into the faith, are being fired up by preachers using basic Islamic scripture and mobilized to wage jihad by radical imams who represent themselves as legitimate Muslim clergymen.
I wonder what would happen if Muslim leaders like Julie Siddiqi started a public and persistent campaign to discredit these Islamist advocates of mayhem and murder. Not just uttering the usual laments after another horrifying attack, but making a constant, high-profile effort to show the world that the preachers of hate are illegitimate.
The fact that Obama does not take the lead in condemning these muslim terrorist acts makes those contemplating more attacks braver. He is a hypocrite in that he professed his “muslim faith” in the past, but then hid it for political reasons. We have a “quisling” for prez and we need to get rid of him and never look back. For this I blame selfish democrats………
A UK prison warden bought the official line: the attack on Lee Rigby had nothing to do with Islam.
Therefore he thought there should be no problem in asking the prisoners to pray for him and his family.
Oddly, three Muslim prisoners became ”offended.”
They attacked the warden and held him hostage for three hours, stabbing him so much that, to quote a source from among the prison guards:
HMMMMmmmmm…..
PS, in a country with fewer than 3% Muslim population, more than a fifth (22%) of the prison’s inmates in 2012 were Muslims.
I would like to see more action than lip service from the Muslim community after a horrible event like Boston or London. I know BHO will stay quiet or rephrase everything.
Do we need to wonder how long it will take for an incident like Lee Rigby to occur in the USA… I’ve said it before and it stands to reason…. Muslims need to have the courage to stand up to and speak out against Islamic radicalization among the youth and to 30 +….
Courage is key, because we all know what happens to those who speak out against Islam..
There doesn’t seem to be a single easy answer to this new epidemic of Islamic radicalization turn terrorists…killing innocent people…
From an Article –
“In fact, we already know all we need to know about radicalisation. What the task force needs to focus on is what to do and – equally important – what not to do.”
“Studies show that it can happen to anyone, that there is no single identifiable profile. That said, the great majority of terrorists, unsurprisingly, have been Muslim males aged 16-34, a third to a half of whom were unemployed and a significant portion of the rest under-employed. Most were unmarried. Where women were involved, it tended to be in a supportive role, although in Iraq and Chechnya female suicide bombers were radicalised by the deaths of relatives.
“To start with, it should not let local authorities fund groups little better than al-Muhajiroun under the guise of “community cohesion”. The answer is not money but more effective application of existing laws, especially as to what may be publicly said or broadcast. The task force should not talk of the “Muslim community” – there is no such thing – and should discourage any attempt at single identity politics.
“Rather than ban extremist preachers, the Government should refute, prosecute and deport them (as the French do) with their families. It should stress that the proposed Communications Data Bill (aka the “Snoopers’ Charter”) does little more than extend to new media existing practices with the old. Above all, officials should pay more attention to “non-violent extremists”, the swamp from which the Woolwich murder emerged. The Prime Minister publicly called for this in his 2011 speech in Munich, but Whitehall largely ignored him, focusing on what one of Dame Stella’s successors called “the crocodiles nearest the boat”. It needn’t cost much – a few good desk officers here and there – but it would make a difference.”
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10084172/How-to-spot-a-terrorist-living-in-your-neighbourhood.html
@FAITH7:
Your excerpt for that article reminded me of a discussion we had in an Arabic class years ago.
A very well assimilated American Muslim (who was learning Arabic for the first time as an adult) asked a the foreign Muslims in the class (who said they wanted to understand the Arabic of the Koran instead of having to take their imam’s word for everything) why so many Muslims in other countries were unemployed and therefore so poor they relied on rich leaders for regular gifts and support.
Turns out that’s the plan in Islam.
Make the rabble rely on the leaders.
Then (those rich ones) pick an imam who is a perfect sounding board for their needs and watch the rabble rise to do whatever the rich want them to do.
In exchange those poor get supported a bit better than those who disobey their rich benefactors.
If you look up ”usury” in a good dictionary, you learn it is the charging of EXCESSIVE interest for money loaned.
BUT in Islam, usury is the charging of ANY interest at all.
Therefore the poor cannot get loans at all.
They are doomed to stay poor.
They, therefore need their patron.
They are loyal to a fault to him.
@FAITH7:
It has already happened here in the U.S. A black American convert to Islam, as was the London murderer, shot and killed a U.S. soldier in Little Rock, Ark.
http://littlerock.todaysthv.com/news/news/80492-father-soldier-fatally-shot-ark-testifies
And that is only if you ignore the 13 shot dead at Fort Hood, Texas.
@retire05:
Thwarted attacks, too.
*Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif (aka Joseph Anthony Davis): Plotting to attack a U.S. military recruiting station in Seattle with grenades and machine guns.
(Washington State)
with
Michael Jihad (aka Michael D. McCright), convert to Islam: Attempting to run a U.S. government vehicle driven by USMC Staff Sgt. Ryan Picklesimer and USMC Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Lopez off the road. In a court filing, prosecutors said that Jihad’s cell phone was used on at least three occasions to contact Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, one of two men charged with plotting to attack a U.S. military recruiting station in Seattle with grenades and machine guns.
(Washington State)
and
*Dritan Duka, Eljvir Duka: Conspiracy to kill uniformed military personnel. (New Jersey)
and
*Gregory Vernon Patterson & Kevin James & Levar Washington (converts to Islam) with Hammad Riaz Samana: Plotting terrorist attacks against synagogues, the Israeli Consulate and military facilities. (California)
In one breath the commenter says”
”The question requiring an answer at this moment in history is clear: Which group of leaders really speaks for Islam? The officially approved spokesmen for the “Muslim community”? Or the manic street preachers of political Islam, who indoctrinate, encourage and train the killers—and then bless their bloodshed?”
And a few paragraphs later he says:
“Of course, the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists or sympathetic to terrorists. Equating all Muslims with terrorism is stupid and wrong. But acknowledging that there is a link between Islam and terror is appropriate and necessary.”
The second paragraph is reasonable to a fault, but the first is not. Which group speaks for all of Christendom? Why even imply that one group speaks for all of Islam? Painting an issue in black and white shorthand leads quickly and convincingly to the wrong conclusion.
The very core of the problem is that there IS no “group of leaders” who speak for, or who have control over Islam. If there was such a group, they’d have been dispatched by now, in the same manner that Obama dispatched Bin Laden. But don’t blame Democrats or Obama for Muslim extremism – it goes on unmitigated no matter who occupies the Whitehouse. The World Trade Center came down under who’s watch? Wasn’t Bush’s fault, any more than Boston was Obama’s.
If you want to prevail against the Muslim threat, keep politics out of it. You will never defeat an enemy with half of the country fighting you because you blame them for everything.