robhu has posted about the recent kerfuffle at Wycliffe Hall, a theological college attached to the University of Oxford which trains people for the Anglican ministry. Apparently all that martial language about how such colleges are strategically important isn’t just post-modern poetry to the evangelicals who are now in charge.
Sounds suspiciously like there might be campus extremism going on.
It surprises me that the government would enact a policy that specifically targets Muslims rather than all ‘extreme’ religious groups.
TTBOMK it’s not a policy, it’s a leaked proposal. (And we’ve no idea if it’s one person’s view or represents a consensus inside the department, nor for that matter why it was leaked or what it said in full.)
Spotting people before they get caught up with violent extremists – of whatever variety – is clearly a good end (and benefits the people involved themselves, if you stop them becoming a suicide bomber for instance); the problem is how do so without engaging in some rather suspect means.
I don’t see how this can be achieved without alienating the Muslim community further, and therefore working against the very goal we want to achieve.
Far better I think to play the long term game, work on education and other social engineering to reduce the number of children who become Muslims.
I don’t think a long-term attempt to reduce the causes of explosive radicalism (which is pretty clearly not Islam as such) has to preclude short-terms attempts to not get blown up.
What do you mean, it’s not Islam as such?
Islam is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for people to go round blowing things up. Counterexamples either way being the IRA and any number of non-violent Muslims.
It’s more complex than them just being Muslim, but people are far less likely to become suicide bombers if they don’t have an irrational belief in an afterlife.
Also their whole belief system is based on a ‘holy text’ that advocates the murder of those who have different beliefs.
It’s not just Islam that is a problem, but getting rid of Islam would be a step in the right direction.
This article about the 7/7 bombers argues the distinguishing feature of suicide bombers is that they are part of a close-knit community which supports their activity. The author points out that until 2000, the Tamil Tigers had carried out more suicide bombings than all other groups combined. The Tamil Tigers are a secular group.
I think protecting people from getting into those sort of communities is a more realistic goal than the removal of Islam in its entirety.