Friday 27 June 2014

Police Mistake Muslim Complicity for Complacency.

"O you who believe! Do not take My enemy & your enemy for friends: would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the truth, driving out the Messenger & yourselves because you believe in Allah, your Lord? If you go forth struggling hard in My path & seeking My pleasure, would you manifest love to them? And I know what you conceal & what you manifest; & whoever of you does this, he indeed has gone astray from the straight path." So Allah maunders & gurgles to his addled adherents, in his book that said adherents aver is the finest & clearest ever written, but the rest of us see as a garbled morass of moral filth & hate, the Koran, in verse 60:1.

Imagine it: you're a parent living in the UK somewhere, & you suspect that your son's head is being turned by some bearded blowhard at the community centre or over the Internet, & there is a danger that they may be persuaded to enter the meat-grinder that is the Syrian civil war. You'd do something, yes? You'd tell the authorities & try to stop them, surely. Not if your worldview has been poisoned by the 'teachings' of the Koran, & you feel compelled to heed admonishments such as the one quoted above.

Our police are exasperated at the inaction of British Muslims in the face of jihadist recruitment. Had they read a sufficient amount of Islamic scripture they would realise that Muslims are never going to alert British authorities of their young people going off to fight jihad for Allah. This is not because they are complacent, but because they are complicit. This does not, unfortunately come across in this report from MailOnline on Monday (hat-tip to Mr Normal P.A.I @PaulWilko657):

UK Muslims 'complacent' over threat of home-grown jihadists, warns top counter-terrorism officer Cressida Dick

  • Police chief says 'warning signs' not brought to attention of authorities
  • Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner says 'greatest challenge' is to make some Muslims less accepting of radical views
  • Ex-defence chief says military 'not good enough' to deal with jihadi threat
  • Lord Richards of Herstmonceux calls for a rise in defence spending

Muslim communities in Britain are guilty of 'complacency and passivity' over the threat from home-grown jihadists, the UK's top counter-terrorism officer warned last night.

The Metropolitan Police's Assistant Commissioner, Cressida Dick, said there were many cases where 'warning signs' about extremists were not brought to the attention of authorities.

She also indicated some Muslims were too accepting of radical views, saying it was the police's 'greatest challenge' to make them 'wholly hostile to violent extremism'.

Her comments came as the Government was confronted with a damning assessment by a former head of the military of Britain's capacity to confront terrorism.

Lord Richards of Herstmonceux, chief of the defence staff until last year, said the military was 'not good enough' to deal with the global threat from jihadis.

The crossbench peer, formerly General Sir David Richards, called for a rise in defence spending and warned that without it, the effectiveness of the Armed Forces would inevitably deteriorate further.

He told the Lords that militant jihadism was the biggest threat to the 'free world today', adding: 'Are our Armed Forces in a fit state to play their role in dealing with these and other risks to our way of life? … The answer must be that it's not good enough but it's some consolation that it's better than any other allied nation except the US.'

Another senior police officer backed Miss Dick's remarks. Sir Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, said a lot of extremists were radicalised 'in their own community'.

He said propaganda videos of Syria made the conflict look like a 'Boy Scout camp' when the reality was 'very brutal, very callous'.

'We mustn't over-emphasise the power of the internet,' he said. 'We know that a lot of people have been radicalised in their own community by people who themselves have given this very perverted message.'

He added that police needed the 'whole of the community to counter this narrative'.

The Government's former counter-terror adviser Lord Carlile called for ministers to bring back powers used to control terror suspects, which were watered down after pressure from Nick Clegg. He said it was impossible for police and security services to follow jihadis returning to Britain from Syria or Iraq and said ministers were wrong to 'abandon' control orders which had protected the public.

Dick
Richards
Fahy
Carlile
Clegg

Miss Dick, who leaves her role tomorrow, made her comments in an address to the Royal United Services Institute think-tank.

She said there is less 'alertness' among British Muslims about extremism compared with those in other countries. But she said violent images from Syria and Iraq were forcing them to confront the problem.

Police were using the conflicts to try to convince families and friends to turn in loved ones if they suspect them of extremist activities

She said: 'In the UK we want to depend more on families, schools, friends, health professionals, employers, observing changes in behaviour and having the confidence to come forward. We do have frequent examples of this, but also many examples of warning signs being missed, ignored or not being brought to the attention of the authorities.'

Miss Dick added: 'In the UK, it will be communities that defeat terrorism and it remains our greatest challenge to support the development of communities that are wholly hostile to violent extremism and to identify, support and protect those who are vulnerable to radicalisation.' 

But she said that communities also need to 'stand up to them and reject them', adding: 'The daily awful news stories underline the scale of the challenge and are, I believe, reducing complacency and passivity.'

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