88 thoughts on “My son the fanatic”

1. post 43: Saurav, you are right on track! Vast majority of muslims are caught up in between this mindless game between the terrorists and the U.S. All that U.S did after 9/11 has only helped increase the perception of persecution and get more people to Al-Qaeda camps. The wolves in Al-Qaeda are just waiting for the right opportunity to get more people into their bastardly acts. It is heartening to see CAIR and other muslim associations trying to reach out and denounce terrorism in whichever they can. I hope the sanity stays on in muslim communities and they fight both U.S. militarism and terrorism with non-violence. Despite Bush’s actions, it it ridiculous to assume that the west is trying to crush Islam – even when they really did that in 15th century by ousting them from Spain, what happened to Islam? It still has over a billion followers and one of the fastest growing religions in the world. I don’t care care about these numbers, but I just hope the moderates in the community do not fall into the traps of Al-Qaeda likes and realize that Islam only loses out when it loses its humane face, which is what is happening slowly by the actions of a few.

2. Babloo – it’s a little more complcated than that. Have you read Fareed Zakaria’s “The Politics of Rage”

   http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/newsweek/101501_why.html

   An excellent article which covers political, historical and religious roots of Islamic extremism. He also has a very astute conclusion on a program of engagment with these roots.

3. I just heard on the BBC a moslem youth (pakistani origin) stating “…what’s the big deal, it just 50 people, look how many are dying in Iraq everyday”

   When are these guys ever going to understand? Since when did two wrongs make one right? History has shown us that this kind of thinking only makes matters worse. I am sure there are thousands of hindu youth in Gujarat living with guilt and shame because of what they did as an act of revenge for the killing of 50 Hindus on a train. Do you think they feel better that they killed a 1000 moslems in response? Do you think the moslems who took part in the initial attack is happy now with what he did??

   In the words of KPS Gill, “If you feel strongly enough to take up the gun. Do it against me and my men, spare the civillians. We are ready for a fight, they are trying to feed their families.”

4. Just another reminder. As I stated at the begining we ARE going to stay on topic in this post. Sepia Mutiny is NOT a message board or an internet chat room. If you have “just heard” something send it to our tipline. Making random comments leads to chaos and a bunch of useless “facts” that are too hodgepodged to make sense of or learn from.

5. Saurav & Anji

   Take off your myopic, obfuscatory and knee jerk ignorant blinkers and stop pussy footing around. The need of the hour is for clarity. We need to call a spade a spade. Get used to it. And Anji, your statement about how these people are, like, just like everybody else who is angry in the world is part of the problem.

   I anounce that people like you and saurav, in your refusal to face up to the issues of hatred and bigotry being propagated by a virulent, cancerous and menacing form of Islam inside a culture of hatred for Jews and the West within a section of Pakistani British society, cross the line of just passive observers, and become TACTIT SUPPORTERS OF FASCISM.

   This is fascism. Dont shoot the messenger. Moral relativism at this time is a sophists choice. Do not be a snake oil salesman or a sophist. Do not wriggle and obfuscate.

   Pay attention to the real source of hatred and fascism.

   Wake up!

6. [Deleted by Abhi–off topic]

7. Is it really fair to call this young boy a murderer, just yet?

   I understand the London Police haven’t said anything or charged anyone yet. They have only pulled in one man for questioning.

   Alleged murderer, perhaps?

8. Prem, you’re precious (which makes sense, given your name). I don’t know that many people who “announce” anything, let alone that I’m a “TACIT SUPPORTER OF FASCISM,” so I should probably consider you a valuable resource 🙂 I can’t speak for Anji though.

   Vikram, I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. There are obviously Islamists and other people that you would disagree with in the United States. There may even be sleeper cells that are working with Al Qaeda or in some other way to promote violent Islamist action. If you’re looking to indict the entire ummah, though, you’re just not going to succeed, because the evidence just isn’t there.

   I don’t know where you live, but you could probably go talk to some people who are practicing Muslims–there are all kinds. Some of them will probably bitch about the maulvis and the fanatics more than you will. It might help you get a less theoretical and more grounded perspective on all this.

9. Here’s my 2p.

   What’s the difference between your non-Muslim (i.e. mostly Hindu desi) and your Muslim desi in UK?

   Think about how the aspect of Hinduism and the culture associated with it is idolized & exoticised in the West. ‘Indian’ girls are exotic, desi beats are blasting at night clubs, Ganesh is on shoes (I’ve seen this, I wish I had a link, though I found it a bit distasteful), Om is on teeshirts, Raghav is a pop sensation. The average man on the street cannot tell whether a passing desi is a Hindu or a Muslim (unless they don religious symbols), but at the heart of it – what you are, where you come from, Hinduism and India is ‘cool’. It is THE age to be brown.

   On the other hand, their Muslim counterparts, not only have a handful on men defame their name internationally, their neighbours are suspicious, their women are thought to be oppressed when they don the burkha (while nuns who do the same are not given a second thought) – speak of serious alienation, no one seems to want you in their country, because ofcourse it only takes one bad apple for you to be suspicious of the whole barrel.

   I think that, my dear, is the difference between Muslim desis and non-Muslim desis.

10. Even as a simple gesture of distancing themselves from terror and fundamentalism, has any American Muslim organization issued a Fatwa against Osama Bin Laden?

    Well, my understanding is that it would have to be a religious authority that issued a fatwa, not a group like MPAC or ISNA or CAIR. If the American clerics haven’t distanced themselves sufficiently, as some did in Spain, it would probably be in their best interests to do so, and someone should tell them. Maybe you? But I think this article, entitled “Muslim leaders condemning terror to the deaf?” might be of relevance, since I and numerous other people have pointed you to numerous denunciations of al qaeda style attacks by Muslim groups.

    Again, if the proposition is “could Muslim communities be doing more to combat extremism by other Muslims?” well other people on this blog who are actually from Muslim communities seem to have made those arguments. But the question remains on what authority you’re making them, particularly in a polarized climate in which moderate and secular elements in Muslim communities are being attacked from many sides in many ways and how it’s at all productive. Especially in this venue. Go write a polite letter to your local masjid. Or better yet, make friends with the imam. He’ll probably be more likely to listen to you (although I doubt you’ll get very far if you’re asking him to take on an Ayatollah in Iran).

    Also, why is your argument only applied to Muslims? Why not against the American Hindus that are funding extremists in their communities like VHPA? Why not against Republicans for not bringing Kissinger to trial? Just curious.

    Or spoken up against the Fatwa against Salman Rushie issued almost 16 years ago and reaffirmed earlier this year by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ? Somebody ? Anybody ? (deafening silence)

    Here you go…again.

    “We at MPAC opposed the attempt by some misguided Muslims to condemn Rushdie, and we took a stand in favor of his free speech rights to be impolite.”

    You can also see a similar statement from MPAC here.

11. Some notes from a comparative perspective:

    In Canada, the Air India bombing of 1985 still remains unresolved, with the main suspects being acquited earlier this year.

    An editorial in today’s Globe and Mail makes some provocative points:

    1) Would the investigation have been done more urgently if the victims were not mostly brown? 2) How serious is Canada about securing itself (and the US) from terrorist activities, if it botched the investigation of the largest terrorist attack on its soil so far? 3) Excuse me, weren’t the victims mostly Canadian??? “Immediately after the bombing, our prime minister, Brian Mulroney, sent condolences to the Indian government… in the minds of some, this message justified the allegations of racism.” 4) “Ujjal Dosanjh, now our Minister of Health, once said the authorities saw the growing violence as just some brown people fighting amongst themselves.” … hmmmm 5) Will we learn from history: “The federal government dismisses such concerns by saying the authorities have learned their lessons and the same mistakes would not happen today.”

12. A good post. Let’s ignore the nutbars (Vikram, Prem) in the comments for a moment — they’re all one-track desi uncles (CAIR!, CAIR!, its all about CAIR!!!), and I have enough of those in my real life.

    I liked “my son, the fanatic”. A couple of memorable scenes.

    — the son, before he became religious, was set to marry the daughter of a local policeman. The parents are very proud, and visit their future daughter-in-law’s family — a traditional Desi thing to do. Extremely awkward and uncomfortable scene ensues — British and Desi marriage customs are just too different.

    — The son starts becoming religious, breaks off his engagement. His father confronts him and asks him why he did this. He says “Dad, you can’t mix strawberries and keema” (a ground beef dish common in North India). There’s your metaphor for race relations in the UK.

    If you want to understand people, suicide bombers of unhappy lovers, read fiction. Other sugegestions

    • In Monica Ali’s Brick Lane, Nazneen, the FOB narrator, takes Karim, a young British-Bangladeshi boy as a lover. The religious Karim (notwithstanding his adulterous sex with older Nazneen) is religious and a community ‘leader’ of a farcical group in Tower Hamlets. Nazneen, who has a firm B-deshi identity, comments on Karim with pity “Poor Karim, he was born a foreigner in his own country”. There’s your epigram on being young and brown in the UK.

    • Lastly, in Zadie Smith’s book White teeth, the ladies man turned religious leader Millet (another b-deshi) joins the local Muslim group Keepers of the Eternal and Victorious Islamic Nation (Kevin — they know they have an acronym problem).

    You can’t beat fiction for understanding life. Anyone else have other suggestions beyond these three books?

13. As long as we refuse to recognize the “real source of hatred and fascism” in each and every one of us, this form of terror will always exist. What I suggest is not moral relativism, it’s moral absolutism — look at it all or stay quiet. While attempting to grok the modern human condition here, foisting the blame on one group is useless. Pointing the finger while utilizing words like “virulent, cancerous and menacing” is completely ineffective as an intellectual and physical way forward, and shows a metastasizing cancerous lesion in itself. What does it accomplish? As Victor Hugo once said, “If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.”

    What sense of severe alienation turned a boy named Shehzaad Tanweer into the latest famous suicide bomber? What made Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris? What pushed Timothy McVeigh over the edge? What created Nicholas Minucci, the thug, and a score of nameless others like him? What is it about our world today that estranges a growing number of young people and leads them to acts of supreme violence?

    Is it anger, boredom, a lack of purpose, hormones, disgust at the double standards surrounding them, an easy way to attain peer status, poor educations and a general feel of impotence in the face of problems out of their control? Well-off, suburban, middle-class kids grow frustrated with their surroundings and take a stand to do something … anything. What put them in that despairing position? Let’s delve further; is the reason:

    a) their parents’ materialism (arguable — a lot of parents work their tails off so the little Shehzaads, Nickys and Dylans can have better lives — leaves less “quality time” with kids),

    b) following from a), are these kids spoiled and given a lot more than their parents ever had, and thus lack a sense of meaning and individualism when everything is given to them,

    c) the growing competitiveness of today’s urban and suburban centers when it comes to employment, housing and racial/social status,

    d) traditional tenets of religious conservatism that promote violence against invaders/infidels,

    e) from d), that the west has stuck its often unwelcome hand into the affairs of almost every other country on this planet and continues to reap those rewards (again, I abhor the “vengeance” mentality vs. growing oneself and living well as a better form of revenge)

    f) double standards everywhere — kids are very sensitive to this global phenomenon — Don’t smoke but it’s so glamorous in the ads; Don’t drink but parents’ liquor cabinet is stocked; Follow the 10 commandments, the Gita, the Quran, but it’s ok to let go of these moral guideposts when it comes to people and situations we don’t like; Repaying terror with more terror,

    g) swords more handy than pens in a world that doesn’t find education very uplifting or of immediate use, or

    h) a combination of all of the above (which is very easy for me to say, but I’d like for you all to help me put flesh on or take down any of my above suggestions)?

    I offer that this conversation would be better served if we DO work with, and not just wave fingers at or pay attention to, what causes terror. And terror, in this definition, is not the individual cause, but the point at which an otherwise acceptable human being offers to commit violence in the name of that cause. That aspect of today’s human is what I am after.

    Buddha himself was quite the disaffected young indivual who entertained the moral quandaries listed above. He didn’t, however, go on a kirpan-throwing and mace-smashing spree to break himself out of his despondent rut. Quietly leaving the comforts of his home, he retreated to the forest to meditate on himself and how permanently to get over his problems with the world.

    If there is anyone out there planning an act of hatred and violence, including self-annihilation (and I hope there are few to none of you that frequent this site), consider this: Even if you don’t discover your inner Buddha, please find purpose in constructiveness by helping this kid, this kid, or these kids, or heck, even these kids, who so badly want to live.

    Thanks.

14. Hey Ikram, how about a spoiler warning next time 😉 You’re lucky I wasn’t planning on reading Brick Lane anyway, or I would be just outraged.

    Maitri, thanks for putting together that list. It’s hard for me to get my mind around the whole thing, so I’m just going to put out a hypothetical of my own and let you take from it what support or criticism you see fit:

    I think for young people, particularly when compounded by other factors like racial discrimination, sexuality, bullying, etc., there can be a real sense of alienation. When people come from desi societies–where the families were geared to operate as extended families–and enter into Western societies–where at best they get surrogate extended families–you lose out on a lot of things (this is sort of related to your part a, although). Most of all, you don’t have a sense of community (which I think this is a widespread problem among millions in the US, not just desi youth). So you’re left to navigate a culture gap, an age gap, and many other things all on your own, with limited support.

    Now, when you don’t have a sense of community, and someone comes to you and provides you with a sense of purpose, community, a sense of belonging, you’re going to jump at it. And if it’s the wrong people and you surround yourself with them and external influences that would have shifted your thiknking or moderated it are more and more absent or ignored, then eventually, you end up just totally isolated and alienated while at the same time a slave to an ideology that was presented to you.

    Of course, there are strong minded people and independent thinkers and people who have naturally high self esteem and all that who can avoid traps like this. But some people, I think are going to fall into them if they exist.

    Open for comment 🙂

15. Spoilers — you want spoilers? How about this, Anna Karenin kills herself. That’s a freakin’ 1000 pages you don’t have to read.

    But seriously, sorry about that. Feel free to edite the comment to add spoiler warning.

16. Spoilers — you want spoilers? How about this, Anna Karenin kills herself. That’s a freakin’ 1000 pages you don’t have to read.

    Wow…now I am upset. I might have read that someday!

    🙂

17. Now, when you don’t have a sense of community, and someone comes to you and provides you with a sense of purpose, community, a sense of belonging, you’re going to jump at it. And if it’s the wrong people and you surround yourself with them and external influences that would have shifted your thiknking or moderated it are more and more absent or ignored, then eventually, you end up just totally isolated and alienated while at the same time a slave to an ideology that was presented to you.

    Saurav, another good point, but I would like to use it to highlight something about the individual vs. the community: Between the ages of 10 and 17, I grew up severely hating the Indian community in the Gulf and the States. The main source of my rage was my strict parents’ question when it came to everything I wanted to do within my wild-streak volition: “What will other people think?” (The blood of the Mrs. Feynman #1 that lives in me always boils at that question.) They cared so much more about the shame bestowed by this ephemeral phantom known as the Indian community as opposed to their daughter’s happiness. We just had to keep up with the Jainses.

    I yearned for a community of people who “understood me” and, for a while, broke away from my parents, physically, intellectually and emotionally. The time by myself, to work hard for myself, to make ends meet by myself, to think about my life and my future by myself was severely useful (those wings of mine grew and grew). Yet there were many waiting to take me down the path of monarchism, Nietzsche’s philosophy, Keynesiansism, Dittoheadedness, Hare Krishna, bad drugs, abusive relationships, Republicanism, Democrat politics, the cult of Rand, this, that and the other. I somehow reserved the right to judge everything for myself and didn’t fall prey to any of this. So, can we say that only the self-destructive to begin with are going to end up self-destructing? And did I not ruin my life because, no matter what, somewhere back there in the recesses of my life, there was a community to lean my head on? Keep in mind that that community and I had very little in common and I distanced myself from them. So, what kept me? I don’t know — maybe it’s my personal need to survive, live and thrive.

    I no longer loathe my community, because they are who they are, and they have come through for me, culturally and emotionally. Needless to say, I still try to maintain a healthy balance between my own life and getting overwhelmed with what this uncle or that aunty thinks.

    The subtext: Am I simply lucky? Could I have gone down that track of no return? Or, is there something in the human will that can prevent one from making a bad decision? What else is missing from these kids’ lives that breaks that barrier?

18. Let’s ignore the nutbars (Vikram, Prem) in the comments for a moment

    How about this, Anna Karenin kills herself. That’s a freakin’ 1000 pages you don’t have to read.

    I suppose the moderators think none of this stuff is off topic and requires deletion… So much for on-topic and non abusive postings on this blog.

19. Vikram, I apologize to you for calling you a nutbar. I have many one-track uncles, and although I do my best to avoid them at parties, I do not think they are nuts.

    And besides, couldn’t any young brown man turn, one day, into an irritating one-track brown old man. But for one small ‘v’, a letter many desi’s can’t even pronounce, wouldn’t I be a Vikram too?

    Again, my one-track brother-in-Kram, I’m sorry.

20. I finished reading White Teeth the day before the bombings happened and yeah, I was struck by the similarities. Hopefully this doesn’t sound too stupid, but the relationship between Millat and his father had me in tears. I’ve kinda been through the same thing with my parents. When I didn’t get into med school, it was a huge round of “you’ve brought shame on the family” and “if only you could be as well behaved and obedient as the girls in India”. Instead of becoming hyper-religious, I spent a lot of time turning that frustration and loneliness back on myself but the point is that it has to go somewhere. Acceptance can be a really heady feeling. I know that I’m not the only one who was faced with these expectations, I’ve had so many conversations with friends where we mirror these same feelings back and forth. I’m NOT saying that the parents of these bombers were the reason that they turned to this sort of senseless violence and hatred, but I still wonder whether these relationships and expectations played a small part in what drove them to fanaticism.

21. But for one small ‘v’, a letter many desi’s can’t even pronounce, wouldn’t I be a Vikram too?

    That letter would be ‘w’ and not ‘v’ my indian brother 😉

22. Vikram,

    I hear ya, man…I too had written what I thought was something perfectly germane to the topic. The mod here is clearly exercising political censorship, especially against people that have a rational and logical set of arguments that question their political biases.

    Prem,

    You rock : we need more people like you to call a spade a spade.

    The rest of you: read Friedman…

    “If it’s a Muslim problem, it needs a muslim solution”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08friedman.html?incamp=article_popular

    Islam has a lot to answer for.

23. Gujju, I called up Islam Bhai but he was too busy playing cricket and eating samosas. If you see him, can you please ask him to answer the question.

24. The subtext: Am I simply lucky? Could I have gone down that track of no return? Or, is there something in the human will that can prevent one from making a bad decision? What else is missing from these kids’ lives that breaks that barrier?

    Well, only you know the answer to that for sure. I think there’s probably a combination of clearheadedness or self-love or simple fear of going down the wrong path that can keep you in check until you have better options in front of you. But I guess the way I look at things is that a lot of it depends on the particulars of your life situation (e.g. how strong your mental health capacity is, propensity for addiction, self-esteem, what your parents are like, how much outside support you get (either from other kids or your family or teachers or whatever), whether you were victimized in any way)–so yeah, there’s some luck involved. I have a friend (White, well off, divorced parents, probably other stuff I don’t know about) who told me that she would have fallen apart had it not been for a babysitter.

    Which I guess, sort of brings us back to where you started 🙂 Sorry 🙂

    But I wonder how applicable the picture we’ve drawn would be for someone a little older…I mean, I’m 27 and I’m still lost, so I know it can happen, but it just seems significnat circumstances would be different for the fall of a 30 year old man with a kid and a pregnant wife than they would be for a 20 year old. Although I can tell you that his being a special ed teacher probably didn’t help his emotional state any.

25. Although I can tell you that his being a special ed teacher probably didn’t help his emotional state any.

    Very interesting. I was also thinking about it. Initially I was a little surprised that a person who is a special ed teacher could engage in such wanton destruction of life. However I do wonder about being continously exposed on a daily basis to the sad inequities of life as you see developmentally challenged children struggle on a daily basis to do chores which most of us take for granted. Maybe you then learn to detach yourself from everyday pain and suffering and other human emotions. To be a cold blooded mass murderer you have to be divorced some basic human emotions of compassion and guilt. Its possible that this job helped Tanweer in making that critical transition. Of course being in a state of religous frenzy also makes you temporarily insane and there is no doubt that Tanweer was a religious fanatic.

26. *you have to be divorced FROM some basic human emotions

27. “If it’s a Muslim problem, it needs a muslim solution”

    Even Friedman doesn’t say it is a Muslim problem; he offers it as one of the possibilities. The fact that any human can lash out so violently when something isn’t going his/her way has a lot to answer for, not Islam.

    Yes, you’re very “rational and logical” indeed.

28. Maitri, did you even read the article? Here, let me quote from it to spell it out for you:

    “..it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere.”

    This is precisely what some of us are trying to articulate: it is an undeniable fact that Islam has a triumphalist vision of imposing its retrogade 6th century social vision on the entire world. Now before you go all moral-relativist on me, yes other religious scriptures have similarly uncivilized viewpoints as well, but the key difference is that most of them have moved on while Islam continues to propagate it even today. Muslim countries continue to treat their religous minorities horribly and muslim imama do not issue fatwas against OBL or the ayatollahs in Iran. This is why jihadis see themselves as perfoming the highest moral and religious duty when they are carrying out their dastardly terrorist acts.

    This, then is the reason why the Us vs Them viewpoint : because THEY created it. They divided the world between infidels that are seen as fair game for conversion or killing and those following the final faith of the Book. Don’t think that by hiding your head in sand, you will escape being their target.

29. disclaimer: I haven’t read all of the comments in all of the threads pertaining to the topic, so I might be repeating someone here.

    I read the book Tipping Point a few weeks back and I was really impressed with the similarity between the 1980’s crime scene in NYC and the Jehad (I know, I know – the reason for that decrease wasn’t described correctly in that book, but it still is a good description of the problem).

    My opinion is that teenagers like this are all around us – what makes the difference is their environment. The columbine massacre, for example, happened because of the easy availability of guns. Suicidal jehadi attacks happen because of the easy access these kids have to training camps and the indoctrination that goes on in these camps.

    Maybe Islam is a religion of peace, but the fact is that there are radical ulemas in many countries and terrorist training camps in Pakistan. The only solution, IMO, is to remove them from the picture. I can see a parallel with the Khalistani movement in all this. Sending the army to the Golden Temple was not a very PC thing to do – but that was how that terrorism was stopped and the Sikhs mostly are at peace with themselves and with other Indians now.

30. Gujju,

    You and I are going to have to agree to disagree. Listen to yourself and your own Us vs. Them perspective. What you outline above can be ascribed to right-wingers of any religion, including evengelical Christianity and Hinduism. The problem lies in the born-again via the drumbeats of modern cults of any religion. People who believe they are correct because of an irrationally-sought and humanly-ordained divine or self-centered right have no place on a civilized planet, and this goes for all religions or lack thereof.

    This is not moral relativism, as I said before, because I’m not saying it’s ok because everyone does it. The moral absolutism required here states that all this self-righteous bullshit has to stop. All of it, regardless of religion and color. If you cannot see the retrogradation in yourself, we have already lost. And that is SO sad.

31. I dont think the answer to the question – Why do some people choose violence and swear alligeance to an idealogy that the majority in a society disagree with ? – is such an enigma.

    Of course, there is certainly a chain of responsibility here:

    1. The bomber himself is first cause
    2. The people who convinced /encouraged / supported (logistically and idealogically) him to do it
    3. The larger society that allowed these memes to flourish, and predispose(?) certain people to be more susceptible to step 2
    4. And then a whole set of historical reasons, that can be go on ad infinitum

    If your question, is how come two people exposed to same cirsumstances choose different paths (like constrasting the bomber to say, his friends), I think there is an invidual attribute that may/may not hard to quantify. Perhaps, its the realm of the psycholgists. Moreover, any knowldge of this attribute will not give us any useful tools to deter future bombers.

    If your question, is how come some people are more susceptible to radical idealogy, then in addition to the individual attribute, there might be experiences that predispose him. What are these experiences – racial taunts, alienation (these are just random factors that occur to me, but they may or may not be true). If it is experiences we can put a finger on and do something about, perhaps a society that formulates it policy to decrease these, might put itself at less of a risk.

    And if your question is about how society let some memes flourish, I guess one has to expect that in large, industrialized, and alienated societies . Perhaps, some social marketing and activism can work towards decreasing the attractiveness of some memes, but the decrease is only quantitative. More survaillance on suspected hotbeds is another measure.

    So my point is that regardless of how much change happens in policy and in the percieved attractiveness of certain idealogies, we are only decreasing the frequency with which the the next bombing will occuring. Not eliminating. I guess, the questions come down to:

    1. If by manipulating the factors that we might as a society be able to control (alientaion, racial integration, or whatever else we determine to be necessarily enhance chances of someone becoming a bomber), can we decrease the probabilty of the next occurance to say only about once every 20 years or 50 years etc.?

    2.

    How much do these factors contribute, and how much is contributed by the individual attributes? Do the factors contribute enough that controlling them will be sufficient to expect to the results of “decrease the probabilty of the next occurance to say only about once every 20 years or 50 years etc.? “

    1. Also, there is a cost involved in implementing policies that control these factors:

    • Money spent on implementing policies, activities, social marketing aimed at decreasing future bombers
    • Civil rights issues like profiling, discouragament of assembly of members with extreme idealogies

    How important is security compared to free speech, civil rights etc.?

    These will certainly conflict, and we must deciede if the trade off will be in favor or against more security.

32. Sorry, Maitri : Hindu priests do not preach killing of infidels from temples, but a lot of imams from LAhore to Leeds do. No sane Hindu argues for imposition of Manusmriti in modern society, but muslims even in Western society want to do it (see: Canadian muslims want establishment of Sharia tribunals – http://www.canadiandemocraticmovement.ca/displayarticle535.html). No Hindu or Christian influenced country has institutionalized bigotry against religious minorities to mercilessly persecute them the way Saudi Arabia and Pakistan do (see: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/82/story_8248_1.html)

    “”I was carrying a picture and a small Ganesha idol,” recalled Gopinath, who has since returned to India. “The picture was torn up in front me and the idol crushed. I also saw Bibles being torn.”

    Within Saudi Arabia, as he would soon learn, even a privately held non-Islamic religious display can get one arrested. This includes, for example, praying alone in one’s house.”

    So you’re right, we’ll have to agree to disagree but not for the reasons that you mentioned. The real tragedy is the dhimmitude of people like you who refuse to see the facts starting at them in their face and fail to see the problem. Oh yeah, deinial is a river in Egypt, Islam is a religion of peace and the land of Gandhi has done nothing but practised bigotry for generations. Sweet!

    Ok, I’ll leave now to continue my pursuit of bigotry as expected of a Gujju. Over and out.

    Peace, Gujjubhia

33. Satish, will you please go work for the U.S. government? That’s the most cogent and fairminded outlining of the problem I’ve seen.

34. These young men were indoctrinated, pure and simple. Actually, not so pure and not so simple. And this indoctrination is a particular problem in a subpopulation of Muslims, at this point in time in our history as a planet. By pointing this out, it doesn’t make you anti-Muslim, or racist, or us-vs-them, or an apologist/’ignorer’ of violent actions by other ethnic/religious groups – say the Tamil Tigers (I’ve never got on the MIA bandwagon the way others have at SM because of this. I hate the radical chic of MIA. Absolutely hate it).

    Look at the Muslim majority countries – does this look like a healthy picture to you? Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and so on. Only Turkey really looks like a country that is moving into the future…. it is in the interest of Muslims everywhere to look work against the jihadi death cult. And it is a death cult. By fighting the cultists, you help Muslims everywhere. It makes Muslims’ lives fundamentally better. Why are some of you so afraid to see the obvious? Why not call a spade a spade? It’s like knocking your head against a wall, it really is. Isn’t this typical of some South Asians (notice, I say some)? Where you can never admit you are wrong or that you might have anything to do with a problem in your life? It’s always racism, or the West, or the war in Iraq or capitalism or some such. But I’m sorry, I don’t care if you hate the war in Iraq, or the Palestinian situation, or multinationals or whatever your political beef is. None of that justifies what these young men did, and unfortunately, so much of the ‘understanding the motives’ slips into a sort of soft and gentle justification. We have to understand, certainly, but we also have to say: this sort of hatred preached against women, and Jews, and, Hindus, and Christians, and ‘bad’ Muslims, and gays is completely unacceptable. The ideology of these jihadis is utterly repugnant, reprehensible and vile. And yet, as long as you say the right thing and are brown, someone somewhere will accept the racist things you say in a way they never would with whites. This is moral relativism, and it stinks.

    So, guys. How do we stop the death cult, the jihadis? I know the answer I prefer, but it wouldn’t be popular on this board where the pain of being called “mohammed” or “paki” because you are brown is conflated with having your child blown up on the Underground.

35. Sorry, Abhi, I know you wanted to stay on message for this post, but I just had to respond to some of the commenters. Apologies if I have broken a cardinal rule 🙂

36. Sorry if the last sentence in my first comment seems harsh – but I’m a pathologist and make bad cancer diagnoses all day long. Some of the young people who post on this site drive me to distraction. Yes, life is hard and can be hurtful, painful and very difficult to negotiate. Feeling bad because you are different from the majority culture or are called a racist name is terrible, and I sympathize, but it is so far from the worst things that can happen to you in this life……

37. We have to understand, certainly, but we also have to say: this sort of hatred preached against women, and Jews, and, Hindus, and Christians, and ‘bad’ Muslims, and gays is completely unacceptable.

    What does that mean? Should we enact laws against certain kinds of speech ?

38. Why be surprised at the homegrownness of the London bombers? It’s apparently too difficult for policy makers and observers to understand that the threat to the West (I’m not speaking here of local conflicts like Palestine and Iraq) comes from modernized Islamists – whether homegrown like the British bombers or killer of that Dutch filmmaker, or modern-educated, a la Bin Laden and Zawahiri…at any rate, it should at least be clear to them that al Qaeda has best USE for the English speaking, trained engineer or scientist, as opposed to a madrassah trained village boy who speaks only Urdu, and whose traditional beliefs act as a buffer against the sort of radicalization required by al-Qaeda-types. It’s therefore ironic that the Western eye continues to view the traditional Muslim in a burqa or whatever as an object of fear and derision and expresses wide-eyed surprise when the modernized Islamist is proved far more dangerous time and time again.