Barbarism begins at home
Some stories that trickle out of the RSS newsfeeds hit me in the pit of my stomach. Such as this incident involving a thirteen year old Somali girl who was gang raped by three men in the southern city of Kismayo. Instead of sentencing her attackers, the shari’a kangaroo court found her guilty of adultery and sent her to a local stadium where she was buried up to her neck in sand and then stoned to death in front of a 1,000 strong crowd.
Cameras were banned from the public stoning, but print and radio journalists who were allowed to attend estimated that the woman, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was 23 years old. However, Amnesty said it had learned she was 13, and that her father had said she was raped by three men.
When the family tried to report the rape, the girl was accused of adultery and detained, Amnesty said. Convicting a girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law. A human rights activist in the town told the BBC on condition of anonymity that he had received death threats from the Islamic militia, who accuse him of spreading false information about the incident.
He denies having anything to with Amnesty’s report.
The militia in question are the al-Shabaab, a Taliban style goon squad which runs the city of Kismayo. The al-Shabaab receives tens of thousands pounds a week from remittances sent by Somalis from right here in Britain.
A London-based Somali community leader has claimed that much of their funding is coming from the Somali diaspora in Britain, many of whom support the groups’ fierce guerrilla war against Somalia’s long-time enemy Ethiopia, which invaded in January 2007.
“People are sending money over to back the Shabaab because they want to see the Ethiopians kicked out, even if they don’t have much sympathy with the Islamist agenda,” said Mohamed Abdullahi, director of the UK Somali Community Initiative.
But here’s the rub: Somalia has been badly let down by Britian and the US in another example of fatuous real-politik which often amounts to nothing more than applying the maxim: “Find the enemy and back its enemies”, last observed in Afghanistan followed by Iraq. For some reason known only to the government, the al-Shabaab were supported in favour of the more moderate theist government, run by the Islamic Courts Union. The ICU, a coalition of war lords and sharia’a courts, were in power at the time of the US and UK-backed Ethiopian incursion into Somalia earlier this year, hence they became the enemy. Compared to the relatively polished clergymen and gentry that made up the ICU however, the al-Shahaab were little more than a mob of semi-literate mullahs with new guns.
So the matter is more complex than simply blaming British Somalis for sending their hard-earned cash to their choice of competing dysfunctional, AK-47 toting, theist, paramilitary militia group.
Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia as part of a US and British-backed bid to topple the Shabaab’s more moderate allies, the Islamic Courts Union, and replace them with internationally-backed transitional federal government. Although the courts union had managed to impose order on the lawless nation, which has been without a functioning government since 1994, it was suspected by Washington of harbouring foreign al-Qaeda fighters. Since the invasion, however, the country has reverted into all-out anarchy and clan warfare, with the increasingly brutal anti-Ethiopian insurgency costing thousand of lives and sparking a refugee crisis that has spilled into neighbouring Kenya.
Somalis in Britian (and in France) send money to the al-Shahaab because they see them as countrymen fighting for the control of their home, of course. But also because al-Shahaab are seen to be repelling the invading Ethopians and because peace needs to be re-established in a nation that is in danger of imploding. This, in patronising BBC-speak on Somalia, is known as “social upheaval”. One of the consequences of “social upheaval” or rather, the UK-backing and citizen funding of Somali Islamists is the barbaric and horrific death of 13 year old Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow.
You would think that Ayaan Hirsi Ali would use her considerable liberal and feminist profile, not to mention her obvious personal insights into Somalia, to raise awareness and inject some urgency into this issue. Unfortunately she seems busy with putting out ridiculously simplistic policy papers on Iraq (Cut and Run Won’t Do!) for a Bush-era Republican “think-tank”.
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Yeah, I saw this one. Absolutely horrible.
There is a related issue: whether the independendence of Somaliland should be recognised:
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL637638620080808
If the informal Somali hawali money transfer system is impossible to police then the ‘formal’ Somali money transfer system through British based companies like Dahabshil and Mustaqbal in my experience leaves much to be desired. Often extended family act as agents. The underlying culture is one where a cashless society breeds informal arrangements rather than ones generating a paper trail for monitoring authorities to follow.
However, I would urge caution in placing too much emphasis on the British Somali diaspora for funding these political groups. There is simply no evidence other than anecdotal tidbits. Most immigrants tend to look forward to funding their life in Britain rather than looking back; and even then most Somalis are sick and tired of the constant warfare in Somalia.
What is more likely is that the vast proportion of charitable remittances are going to Southern Somalia (as opposed to Puntland/Somaliland) to help fund Islamic social organisations like madrasas, mosques, clinics etc and often based on localised clan affiliations. These organisations are probably deemed trustworthy. Somalia is no longer a nation state and informal Islamic institutions have had to fill the vacuum.
If individuals have a problem with Islam in the social sphere, they should argue this rather than hiding behind excuses like anti-Islamist politics. Most conservative Somalis are unlikely to be Islamist ideologues.
Most immigrants tend to look forward to funding their life in Britain rather than looking back; and even then most Somalis are sick and tired of the constant warfare in Somalia.
To take the first part of that assertion:
According to WorldVision on remittances by Somali expats and diaspora:
And according to the Bangladeshi Chamber of Commerce, almost $900 million was remitted to Bangladesh from the UK in 2007-2008.
Most of that money is going via the informal channels and is directed to private enterprise, service delivery and safety nets for the extended family networks. Some of it ends up funding Islamist interests.
Somalis feel an extra burden to fund the militia they believe is fighting the occupying Ethiopian army. Unfortunately these militia also happen to be the UK-backed Islamist groups.
Is there actual evidence that this story is true?
The Amnesty sources for it appear to be the Ethiopian backed Somalis currently controlling Mogadishu-hardly the most unbiased source.
a thirteen year old Somali girl who was gang raped by three men in the southern city of Kismayo. Instead of sentencing her attackers, the shari’a kangaroo court found her guilty of adultery and sent her to a local stadium where she was buried up to her neck in sand and then stoned in front of a 1,000 strong crowd.
The fundies here would just make the girl marry one of her rapists.
If she got pregnant from the attack, they’d make her go ahead and have the kid.
Terry @ 5 as you seem to have superlative mind reading skills can you too forecast what the banks set the lending rate to next month?
I was hoping for a while that this would get covered on PP. The story has been gathering momentum on the MSM.
I can’t imagine a more horrifying scene, I really can’t.
Another source of funding (to Islamic countries generally) that is growing massively and has not yet been tackled at all is money raised through Sharia Finance.
This includes payments to Sharia councils who approve the products, and payments made by Western banks in order to ‘purify’ profits in Sharia funds. Such payments are frequantly to Islamic ‘charities’.
Remember that your bank probably offers Sharia Compliant products, and the Sharia these products comply with is the same system of law that prescribes stonings for adulterous women.
There is a MASSIVE ethical campaign coming on this one, just wait.
As a catholic, sort of, I would actively encourage and welcome it if my bank offered sharia compliant products. I may not be the intended end-user but it’s a huge, respectable, and increasingly important pool of global capital.
Why should I want to hamstring my bank from capturing more business that might enable it to offer me more competitive products and to strengthen its balance sheets? Why would I also not want London to compete with upstarts like Singapore and Dubai by becoming a global centre of Islamic finance at a time when other lines of financial business are shrinking?
There is nothing wrong with sharia compliant finance.
The excesses of some Islamic fanatics and cultures has nothing to do with Islamic finance.
What you gonna do? Boycott Abbey and Bradford & Bingley because its parent bank comes from a country where they torture and kill animals for sport?
Exactly. One thing has nowt to do with the other.
You’re either not party to the all the facts, haven’t thought it through, or are a wrong’un.
I won’t jump to conclusions just yet.
ac256, what on earth does sharia-compliant finance have to do with stoning? What if halal meat were called sharia-compliant meat, would we want to do away with that, too? Don’t be ridiculous.
El Cid, Ala,
I am glad for your #8 and #9 respectively. It saved me becoming hugely hugely abusive of ac256.
Had I written what I wanted – I would have had to not only ban myself from PP, but also chuck my PC through a window. Ac256’s window preferably.
There is nothing worse than a ‘wrong ‘un’ hooking their agenda onto something as gruesome as this.
El cid at 8 has a point.
There are lots of aspects of shariah finance, apart from the charitable feature, that are positive such as the concept of mutuality and not paying interest.
Plus UK businesses that are looking into shariah compliant structures select the charitable causes themselves eg a UK childrens home. No links to al quaeda or supporting the stoning of women in sight.
The Tel printed a statement by Mohamed Abdullahi, director of the UK Somali Community Initiative.
“But over here in Britain, they are not seeing the violence that they are fuelling, or realising that al-Shabaab has some very hardline policies. Many people here were shocked to hear about the stoning incident, and said that it was not Islamic. In that case, they should think twice about sending money.”
But who is going to tell the US and UK governments to think twice about supplying arms and dollars to the al-Shabaab? The Telegraph does not see fit to ask that question of a goverment spokesman.
But correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t Sharia the legal code which prescribes stoning adulterers and mutilating theives?
How much credibility do we want a system like that to gain? Unless PP has suddenly gone positive on corporal and capital punishment?
Where is the quid-pro-quo that states we will engage in Sharia Compliant Finance only if the compliance bodies publicly denounce the bits of Sharia that do not accord with UK Law?
Surely this is a case where you can’t get a little bit pregnant?
Also, that ‘pool of finance’ should really be accessible without all the faff of sharia compliance.
Why is it so difficult to acknowledge the difference between usury (loan sharking) and commercial, risk-based interest?
Dressing up mortgages as if they are something else, or issuing Islamic paperwork instead of an English term sheet on a financial instrument (while using the IDENTICAL back office systems to track and price it) is just window dressing.
Everyone knows what the substance of the transaction really is- why go all round the houses?
Changing the angle of this thread slightly, I’m a little stunned to discover that British Somalis are sending cash back to Somalia in the first place (never mind who they’re actually sending it to). I thought this was THE most poverty stricken ethnic group in Britain. How can they possibly spare any cash to give to someone else??
” I thought this was THE most poverty stricken ethnic group in Britain. How can they possibly spare any cash to give to someone else??”
Collectively, perhaps, but there are undoubtedly wealthy Somalis. The organisers of- and main profiters from- piracy off the Somali coast live abroad. I’d not be surprised if some were in the U.K. Furthermore, what is poverty by UK standards is probably enough- especially for people accustomed to frugality- to provide a small surplus to send to Somalia.
“Is there actual evidence that this story is true?
The Amnesty sources for it appear to be the Ethiopian backed Somalis currently controlling Mogadishu-hardly the most unbiased source.”
Even if that’s so, Mediasheep, the fact is that no-one could safely report it from Kismayo. Another argument is the fact that no-one at all seems to have smuggled in a camera-phone, though that may have been pure common sense. Groups like al-Shabaab, though, think that what they do is good, so you’d think they’d want their actions circulated round the world. On the other hand, have any of them denied it?
Even if this is a complete falsification, exactly the same sentence has been passed by sharia courts in other parts of the world- notably Nigeria. However,in all of these other places there have been effective governments ready to intervene, unlike Somalia.
Somalia has been let down for a long time. An entire generation has grown up with warfare. Things were getting better under the ICU and now the Ethiopians have removed them and bought these lunatics into power.
Shocking that a country like Ethiopia who can barely feed it’s population has money to fight wars. Shame on the Muslims of the middle east and Northern Africa who cannot dictate even to Ethiopia.
Golam @15: I guess another question would be who the hell allowed all these Somalis into the UK in the first place? We now have all that welfare money being sent to a war zone, to feed fanatics who stone young women to death…I wonder in the Sun is on to this one.
Indigo Joe:
Sid’s BBC source- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7708169.stm – seems to be independent confirmation of what happens, which is evidence against your suspicion that it was exaggerated or nonexistent.
“Things were getting better under the ICU and now the Ethiopians have removed them and bought these lunatics into power.”
These lunatics are allied to the ICU, I think, Platinum786. They might be too much even for the ICU if they didn’t want every ally they can get against the Ethiopian invaders, though.
‘For some reason known only to the government, the al-Shabaab were supported in favour of the more moderate theist government, run by the Islamic Courts Union’
Can you clarify your source for that: that detail is not mentioned in any of the articles you link.
If the UK government is actually formally supporting a group the US classifies as terrorist, shouldn’t we expect to get bombed or something?
The ICU were identified as the enemy by the US/UK backed Ethopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. The ICU were the moderate, ideological force behind the Courts movement. It was your classic “umbrella group” which managed to apply its nous by applying governance to the war torn state, brought together various warring fiefdoms but also harboured many autonomous paramilitary theist hardliners. In 2006 the US partially destroyed the moderate ICU but, for whatever reason, left the various groups like the “Salafist-jihadist” al-Shabaab to move into the vacuum partially filled by a noddy transitional Interim Government (TFG) that had been created by the US/UK. There is now no government to speak of actually in power, a function which the ICU fulfilled quite well until 2006. In other words, they destroyed the moderates and left the militia to regroup, which they promptly did.
To add to this anarchic soup, arms have flowed in from neighbouring Eritrea or smuggled in from Ethiopia – which has been flooded by the US with munitions. The various militia have been quite successful against the occupying Ethiopian army, and with success has come a new confidence, a new ideological phase with contrasting interpretations by the militia of shari’a-based Islamic statehood for Somalia.
This article is based on two ideas which Soruu and myself would like to see CLEAR RELIABLE SOURCES:
1. British Somalis are financially aiding al-Shabaab to the tune of tens of thousands pounds a week from remittances.
2. The alleged role of the British and US governments in favouring the al-Shabaab Islamist militia as opposed to the ICU and the degree of this support.
If sources other than anecdotal observations by one or two ‘community leaders’ is not forthcoming then I submit that the basis of this article is not much more than the thread starter’s own opinions.
ps. ac256 is barking up the wrong tree. Islamic finances are most often regulated by the FSA and the money stays in the UK and is not as informal as the Somali remittance system.
@Sid
In other words you were just making stuff up (’support’ is really not the same as ‘failure to successfully bomb’). Figured so, but just checking: that kind of stuff does happen, but I think its best treated as news when it does, rather than it being a default assumption that if something nasty happens somewhere in the world, it is UK taxpayer-funded.
The expression I used was this:
For some reason known only to the government, the al-Shabaab were supported in favour of the more moderate theist government, run by the Islamic Courts Union.
I have yet to find any evidence of why al-Shabaab and/or other militia groups were not rounded up and murdered in their homes by the Ethopian troops, who had been supplied arms and intelligence by the US and the UK, in the same way that members of the ICU were.
Perhaps they were granted amnesty or perhaps, as I have suggested, back in 2006, the US/UK thought they would make good candidates for another militia-based junta to lead the Somali fiefdoms. And so they supported these idiots, while letting the ICU hang. When however, they turned out to be a bunch of murderous lawless mullahs, they were promptly put on the terrorist list.
So yes that’s my opinion and if you look at my wording, I don’t make an “default assumption” nor am I trying to suggest that this was “news”.
This is after all a blog. If you thought this was wikipedia, you know what to do.
Its not like readers don’t also cast their opinions into the comments threads.
Ashik has, right here on this thread, made the claim that most immigrants don’t send money back home:
Most immigrants tend to look forward to funding their life in Britain rather than looking back; and even then most Somalis are sick and tired of the constant warfare in Somalia.
This, in spite of all the evidence to show that most immigranst do. In fact millions of pounds have been remitted by Bangladeshis and Somalians every year for generations, using formal but mostly informal money transfer methods.
Ashik stated his opinion. He happened to be wrong, but here on PP, we won’t censure you for having opinions.
soru has in the past defended Martin Amis’ outrageous comments regarding detaining British Muslims. His defence was based on zilch, no evidence whatsoever, other than an opinion that Amis did not mean what he said and was being wilfully misinterpreted by people who had an axe to grind. So when I read this:
“but I think its best treated as news when it does, rather than it being a default assumption that if something nasty happens somewhere in the world, it is UK taxpayer-funded.”, well, I have to laugh at the pomposity on display.
So lets not assume that the writers of a blog are a news outlet. But if you’re going to demand factual assertions at all times, then at least have the courtesy to apply the same standards you expect from others, on yourselves.
Perhaps this extract shows how important it is to get to the facts lest the falsehoods define our actions – note how militia translates to elders:
‘Still euphoric from the night before, I opened the paper to soak up the world’s reaction. I enjoyed that. Buried on a page deep inside and below the fold was a story of sobering force. A girl, Aisha, 13 years old, had been raped by three men in Somalia.
Her parents reported the crime. The Muslim elders ruled that the girl had committed adultery and should be stoned to death. That happened. On the same day Americans elected as their President a man whose sometimes silent middle name is Hussein. That happened.’
And that was from a hopeful article about Obama’s success.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/race-for-whitehouse/richard-schiff-i-watched-obama-like-i-watch-athletes-i-rooted-for-him-like-i-root-for-my-son-1001082.html
Who can you trust?
Ashik, Soru,
What is your intent in criticising this article? A young girl was murdered. There are at least three mainstream media articles that point to that event and say that the murder was associated with some group called al-Shabaab.
Two of these sources say that Somalis’ resident in the UK have remitted funds to this group.
Your comments remind me of the North American Irish who denied until they were blue in the face that money raised through NORAID was not used to fund the IRA. In their case it was a convenient fiction.
Seriously, what’s your motive here?
My motivation is I am lazy.
In the very early days of the pIRA (early 1970s), there were elements in Republic of Ireland military intelligence who backed them, shipping arms and so on. That was found out, there was a big scandal, and it stopped, which is why the IRA later had to go to Gadaffi and so on.
Sid’s post definitely implies that something similar is going on: direct support for al-Shabaab from someone in the UK government (as opposed to failing to stop the americans from deciding not to stop the Ethiopians from attacking the group that might hypothetically have calmed down the nutters that did this). If it was, then I’d have to go out in the rain marching against it, make up banners and stuff (Or at least make some angry blog posts).
Also, I would hate to be blown up by some nutter in revenge for failing to stop something that doesn’t appear to have happened.
Soru,
Hey! Wait a minute. These thugs are supposed to be the opposition in Somalia. WTF are they doing fighting against the running dog capitalists, err, us, and imperialist Ethiopia? We are all supposed to be on the same side, pulling down the morally corrupt / upright ICU.
It makes about as much fucking sense as the UK remaining allied to the US when the US allowed NORAID to collect for the IRA.
————————————————-
Y’know, the geopolitics, the religious aspects, or the frank lack of empathy of either your good self or Ashik, to what is at the end of the day was a savage renunciation of justice, is a bit beyond me.
And meanwhile a child is stoned to death. It was probably a bit beyond her too..
RIP.
soru
Bush’s War on Terror has resulted in more terrorism not less. Somalia is now controlled by hard line radical militia of the Taliban type after the more moderate Courts movement was destroyed by the US/UK backed Ethiopian army.
How does the discussion of these measures in Somalia here on PP result in your being “blown up by some nutter in revenge for failing to stop something that doesn’t appear to have happened”?
I am glad that Sid has clarified that the basis of this article is based on his opinions. The title of this thread ‘Barbarism begins at home’ is therefore inappropriate.
It seems to be a project of the threadstarter to tie-in expatriate and diaspora groups such as British Sylheti Bangladeshis and now British Somalis into fund raising Islamist groups in their country of origin.
I submit that such serious allegations need to be supported by clear and reliable corroborative evidence (as is available for example in the case of Tamil financial support in the UK/US for LTTE). An aside from a ‘community leader’ making generalised comments is not reliable corroborative evidence. In the absence of such evidence it is reasonable to conclude that al-Shabaab receive the bulk of their funding from other sources in-country.
My comments regarding immigrants looking forward to life in the UK rather than politics ‘back home’ stands to reason as the British Sylheti experience has shown that as the connection between Bangladesh diminishes between the first generation of our forefathers, and the second and third generation, the amount of remittances also diminishes. In addition as a community becomes wealthier with the passing of the generations, the proportion of family income devoted to remittances also declines. Finally family reunion settlement in the UK means sending remittances is increasingly unnecessary. Remittances may still be large by Bangladeshi or Somali standards but at least for Bangladeshis are declining.
This BBC article talks about the pattern of British Sylheti remittances over the years and the impact in Sylhet.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jun/21/religion.bangladesh
Charitable contributions to NON-POLITICAL localised causes (centred in Greater Sylhet) does continue. Money is often remitted on religious occasions eg. Qurbani at Eid (religious sacrifice to provide meat for the needy). Remittances fund schools, madrasas, clinics etc in and around Sylhet in the home region of the giver. British Sylhetis fill a vacuum left by the central government’s lack of resources and negligence and under-funding of Sylhet region generally. The Somali narrative and development is likely to be similar to the more established Sylheti narrative. Both Sylhetis and Somalis have strong traditional ie. APOLITICAL Islamic identities, both distrust central government, organs, parties and attendant ideologies in country of origin as essentially self-serving. Family, region and for the Somalis clan affiliation is more important as building blocks of community and society than ideology, whether Secular or Islamist.
While no doubt some money does find itself in the coffers of the likes of Al-Shabaab and Jamaat I Islami, the figures are likely to be dwarfed by the amounts going to everyday run-of-the-mill causes like running mosques, schools and clinics. Sources like corrupt practices, extortion and kidnapping, and in Bangladesh state patronage (Jamaat were junior coalition partners in the last BD govt) are more likely in-country sources of income than ppl living in Britain.
Many Somalis are sending money directly back to the al-Shabaab because they believe, quite wrongly, that they can bring back the peace that was enjoyed during the time of their precursors, the ICU. And that is all the Somali community leader in the Times article is saying. I’d rather go with what he has to say than Ashik’s contradictory denials and then admissions rearding Somali and Bangladeshi remittances.
I submit that such serious allegations need to be supported by clear and reliable corroborative evidence (as is available for example in the case of Tamil financial support in the UK/US for LTTE).
Yeah, I would welcome this. Not to mention more information on the relationship between the US/UK funded invasion of Somalia and the ICU splinter groups and militia.
Sid _ I think the execution was witnessed was it not by people other than Amnesty?
I don’t know why people are failing to recognise that quite clearly in this case it appears that the case wasn’t properly investigated and a sentence passed and carried out which resulted in someone who may have been innocent dying. It really is that simple. Thus Justice hasn’t been served even in Islamic terms.
Religion is being used as an excuse and laws implemented by people who lack knowledge which leads to miscarriages of justice.
That much we should all recognise. Surely in this case more investigation was required by the courts before a sentence was passed. This smacks of failure here.
Sadly with the behavior of the media then people do question media ethics when reviewing such stories.
I would point out that religious law does call for a complete investigation which to me it looks like failed in this case so I’d say we need to reflect on the fact that potentially an innocent person died and potentially 3 rapists prowl the streets and may do this to other women in the area.
I think in all the funding replies then the point originally made at the start is being lost.
Apart from the serious misgivings I have with your #34 (mainly that there were no failures or potential failures – just inexcusable barbarity*), my concern is that the rapists themselves may have come from the group passing judgement, and wanted to cover their own tracks from their colleagues.
*Given the strict laws guiding adultery, it is almost unimaginable that the strict rules governing evidence could ever be found, unless on an adult film set.
Should read:
*Given the strict rules governing evidence, it is unimaginable that any could ever be found, unless captured on an adult film set.
Sid is not entirely neutral when discussing British immigrant residents funding political activity in foreign countries. Sid himself is involved in a British Bangladeshi group called Drishtipat involved in Bangladeshi political activity aligned to the Awami League Party (secular but oh-so corrupt, dynastic and violent). The rival Bangladeshi Nationalist Party (nationalistic rightwing and slightly Islamic but oh-so corrupt, dynastic and violent) has accused Drishtipat of bias.
Tell me Sid, why is it ok for your group to collect financial contributions from British Bangladeshis to fund controversial party political causes in the polarised arena of Bangladeshi party politics like vetting Bangladeshi political candidates for criminal and corrupt practices? Isn’t this mirroring any alleged Jamaati Islami fund-raising in the UK?
How do you feel when British resident members on Drishtipat’s blog ‘Unheard Voices’ voice support for the Awami League to conduct frequent violent ‘hartals’ (political strikes) which destroy ordinary peoples livelihoods and the Bangladeshi economy?
Why do you highlight the terrible ordeal of this 13 year old Somali girl when your Awami League ‘activists’ (read paid thugs) harass and rape female students at University in Bangladesh. That has nothing to do with Islamist ideology. Surely Secular excesses against women are just as bad as Islamist ones?
Is your group registered with the UK Charities Commission? How is the method you utilise to send money to Bangladesh different from the informal Somali hawali or Sylheti hundi system? What are the machanics of accountability and transparancy that Drishtipat adhere to?
I happen to believe cheerleading and support for ALL third world poolitical parties whether secular or Islamist is just silly. Better to send money to ones locality to help poor people on the ground.
To give a perspective to Non-Muslims of the stupidity of arguing of substantial links in financing between expatriates and funding for extreme Islamism:
About 90% of the large British Bangladeshi population are Sylheti. There are 19 parliamentary seats in Greater Sylhet and only one voted for a Islamist candidate (and even then helped by their Secular Bangladeshi Nationaslist Party allies votebank). The rest voted AL/BNP. If British residents were significant backers of Jamaat or other Islamists then the Sylhet region would have been the first indicator with a significant swing toward the smaller Islamist parties in terms of seats won.
There is a danger, as with Somalis., to greatly exaggerate matters. Sid and his friends are in competition with Islamic organisations for charitable contributions. It is therefore from secular but politicised sources like Drishtipat and Sid that we should expect the link being made between Brit Cits and evil Islamist groups regardless of evidence.
There is a danger, as with Somalis., to greatly exaggerate matters.
Is that opinion, generalisation, fabrication or prejudice? Its so difficult to tell with you.
In what way does UK/US tolerance for Ethiopia’s action fit into a narrative of ‘Bush’s war on terror’ – surely it is more a return to the pre-Iraq status quo of realpolitik, of saying ‘is there any particular reason we should get involved to stop them (especially when we can sell them, or perhaps both sides, weapons at the going market rate)?’.
How does the discussion of these measures in Somalia here on PP result in your being “blown up by some nutter in revenge for failing to stop something that doesn’t appear to have happened”?
Well, if you insist at every opportunity that the UK is the main source of every form of evil in the world, but you think it is laughable that anyone would act on that idea, you must be pretty sure that noone, even the most out-there nutter, will take anything you say remotely seriously.
About that, at least, you are quite likely right.
Still, wouldn’t it suck to get quoted in a martyrdom video?
Well, if you insist at every opportunity that the UK is the main source of every form of evil in the world, but you think it is laughable that anyone would act on that idea, you must be pretty sure that noone, even the most out-there nutter, will take anything you say remotely seriously.
fuck me, I thought we were talking about Somalia 2005-2008. If your interpretation of my comment here is tantamount to suggesting “UK is the main source of every form of evil in the world” and that this will be re-purposed by Islamist who want to blow *you* up, then that really is a sad little nightmare scenario in your own head that has sweet FA to do with me.
Still, wouldn’t it suck to get quoted in a martyrdom video?
Yes that really, really would. Almost as sucky as discovering you’re a bit character in one Martin Amis’ more recent novels.
Who? You? Soru?
The folk of Auchtermuchty demand to be told!