Muslim students not so radical, says Cambridge
New academic research conducted by Dr June Edmunds from Cambridge University concluded that the most British Muslim students are more likely to join Amnesty International than Al-Qa’ida. My initial reaction was glee until I saw the number of students polled and my reaction was more in line with Anthony Glees’, professor of politics and director of the centre for security and intelligence studies at Buckingham University, who said the research was ‘flimsy’.
He complains that Edmunds’ research doesn’t cite conflicting research by Prof Martin Innes of Cardiff University who, on the basis of 600 interviews, stated in June: “Increasing numbers of young Muslims are becoming sufficiently disaffected with their lives in liberal-democratic-capitalist societies that they might support violent terrorism… The threat to the UK from jihadist terrorism may increase.”
He also complains that she uses no media reports of terror arrests, trials or convictions, nor any polling evidence in her research which concludes that current government policy on extremism is counterproductive.
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“most British Muslim students are more likely to join Amnesty International than Al-Qa’ida”
That’s hilarious! Surely this isn’t a very bold statement? “Most UK boys are shown likely to join boy scouts than sign up with ETA”
TFI
yeah what a surprise there. Oh look, they aren’t ALL terrorists.
They interviewed all of 26 students, several not even face to face…
This report is meaningless, if a student were involved or sympathised with extremists they’re hardly likely to admit it to a stranger.
Thanks for drawing attention to this out Ala. This is not just flimsy but possibly the stupidest study I’ve ever seen.
1) As you said a sample of only 26 students. Aren’t academics required to have some stats training?
2) What type of comparison is Al-Qaeda to Amnesty International. Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Amnesty would have made a lot more sense. I’d guess that the numbers b/w those two are even if not tilted towarts HUT.
3) As I’m going to say again and again untill someone listens, just because very few Muslims are terrorists doesn’t mean that they aren’t becoming socially much more conservative. This is bad for reasons of integration, womens rights etc. We can’t keep looking at this only through the lens of terrorism
Oh man! I can’t believe it. I’m NOT a terrorist. But I wanted to be labelled so I had a cause. But now esteemed Cambridge say we Muslims aren’t terrorists. I wish they’d make up their minds. I’m off to join the Scouts now….
good point shariq – item no. 2 a comparision of Hut would have been more accurate. and 3 – yep absolutely.
sample of only 26 students – can’t extrapolate from that. just call it in-depth qualitative ethnographic research and be done with it.
Interview 26,000 the results will be similar, you’ll know if you have your finger on the pulse. HT are more what the comparison should have been. Nobody is gonna tell you they’re joining Al Queda. Mind you i don’t think al Queda have like membership forms, or a facebook group or anything.
Most Muslim students….like students of other backgrounds…are unlikely to be joining either AI or Al-Quaeda or HuT, Student life is about enjoying yourself and experiencing new things. Only a minority of students join political groups, even fewer for genuine ideological reasons.
The best way to resolve it, once and for all, would be a nationwide survey of all Muslims.
Don’t mean to be fastidious, but what’s the deal with Al-Queda, Al-Quaeda or Al-Queida? I’ve seen this superfluous U pop up elsewhere. It’s either Al-Qaida, Al-Qaeda or Al-Qa’ida. Get it right!
Glad I’ve got that out of the way.
It does not matter as much what % are radicalised as it matters what the prominent radicals speak of. And with a nutcase like Anjem Choudry around does it really matter whether 1% or 10% are radical. As long as Anjem Choudry and his friends have free access to public institutions and the UK itself creeps towards abominable accommodation by permitting iceberg like practices such as “Islamic” Banking, the threat can only grow worse. Remember the 7/7 bombers went about their work in such secrecy that even their parents had no idea what was going on.
That would actually be quite funny.
“Ahmed wrote something on Nasir’s wall !”
“Hanif gave Mobeen a virtual hug !”
“Anjem is ranting about all the dirty kaffirs on Pickled Politics !”
“Amir is REALLY knackered after his AK-47 practice and is currently having a snooze !”
And so on and so forth.
‘Yusuf is now friends with Ken Livingstone’.
“abdul is now a fan of omar bakri”
“yusuf joined the group ‘kill the jews’”
“anjem’s posse rolls 10 deep”
“anwar changed his relationship status to ‘it’s complicated since i met that guy with the hook’”
b’shalom
bananabrain
“Platinum786 joined the group ‘I can see the Line of Control from my house !’ ”
“George admits that his name isn’t really George”
“Anjem Choudary is currently on antipsychotic medication as per GP’s instructions”
“Omar Bakri just sent a virtual kitten to Anjem Choudary to make him feel better — Click here if you want to send him one too !”
“Osama is currently BORED in his hideout”
“Hanif joined the group ‘I swear I only popped across the border to Afghanistan to check out the local naan bread and yes they ARE really big’ “
Mr. Bananabrain – Perhaps you can also write a poem on your own communities terrorism:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043612.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043612.html
These people are armed by the state you hold so dear and allowed to roam. These people are not fighting for their freedom and are protected by the state.
So will you be commenting on these events and call them what they are or is that left to a few courageous publications in Israel:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043413.html
It is amazing what people will support if you allow a bit of voting.
No doubt the Chief Rabbi will stay silent on this, the BoD will not say a word and Memri – well what can one say.
Memri is more concerned at highlighting an Egyptian Clerics call for Obama to become Muslim than highlighting this terrorism. Many on Israel’s Capital Hill listen to Memri but will good old George or Gordon say anything about this?
Where are the petitions and protests calling for an end to this terrorism? Or will these people be given more money from US taxpayers to continue this whilst the Jewish Community sits idle and mute to its own growing terror problem?
Lets call it what it is and it has been hidden for too long. Lets hear what Israel’s Staunch Defender The Chief Rabbi has to say about these going on? Ah the silence.
So lets see your poem on the so called “Settlers” and what they are being taught? Lets see fairness in action. Over to you………
Imran for future reference posts that tangentially (and ultimately repeatedly) skew debates onto Israel/Palestine end up deleted; im unsure what exactly post #16 has to do with Ala’s original topic but try and stay on the general theme of the author’s argument.
Kulvinder – It was in reply to the poetry you permitted in comment 14:
““abdul is now a fan of omar bakri”
“yusuf joined the group ‘kill the jews’”
“anjem’s posse rolls 10 deep”
“anwar changed his relationship status to ‘it’s complicated since i met that guy with the hook’”
which doesn’t have much to do with the original topic that Muslim students are not extremists. Yusuf joined to kill the Jews is part of the original thread is it, but comments such as these pass without public rebuke.
Enforce the rules for all and not lopsidedly please. Feel free to delete my comment but why not delete 14 at the time?
The specific irritation was derailing onto Israel/Palestine.
Well with respect the comments he made at 14 were derailing, insulting and it was allowed through without question – and this is a constant issue that when Muslims are insultued and people go off theme it is ignored and if we reply we are rebuked which is doubly unfair.
The question of radicalisation applies to all faiths – thus in reply I asked him to make a poem on his own faiths terrorism and gave him some examples to help get him going it wasn’t about derailing it was to make him think about the issues with his own religion which too often go ignored and without much comment or criticism from student bodies here.
Imran Khan:
‘a constant issue that when Muslims are insultued and people go off theme it is ignored and if we reply we are rebuked which is doubly unfair’.
Welcome to ‘progressive’ blogging. LoL
We already have two individuals who have declared themselves apostates from Islam. One wonders if ANY of the Muslims writing articles on this forum, which predominantly discusses Muslim and Islamic and Asian cultural issues, actually consider themselves Muslims in the first place and in any way respect their culture. Surely at least SOME of the articles about Islam or Asian culture ought to be written by people who are practicing Muslims (not necessarily political ideologues who can only talk about ‘Khilafa’) and proud of their culture?
The problem with blogs like PP is that they are peopled by many individuals who can only see people in their own ethnic and religious minority communities in the UK as the benighted ‘other’ and as the ‘problem’. In it’s own way a form of orientalism.
The discussion of topics like religion-inspired terrorism, integration of minorities, forced marriage and inter-racial relationships as it happens on PP actually UNDERMINES efforts to solve these problems because individuals take a maximalist approach from the liberal/permissive spectrum of opinion and are no different to Islamist and rightwing forums which take a maximalist approach from their end.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an article talking about the positive aspects of Muslims in the UK eg. the huge charity infastructure or the strength of family ties in the South Asian communities. Yet such positives do exist.
ps. Imran, if anybody wrote a counter to the anti-Muslim poem at 14 including Judaism it would inevitably involve references to the Holocaust industry and a dozen PP’ers would jump in, fangs bared. Therein lies the double standards you have rightly identified.
‘The specific irritation was derailing onto Israel/Palestine.’
Imran @ 18,
That’s not poetry, that’s twitter. And it was bloody funny.
“Imrhan now hates dougie”
“dougies posse is 1″
“imrhan is now confident”
“Kulvinder thinks the heat is off”
and so on and so on.
Here’s a poem:
Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite them, and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on ad infinitum
Kulvinder – “‘The specific irritation was derailing onto Israel/Palestine.’”
Yes and the poetry/twitter what ever it was also was an indirect divergence to Israel/Palestine. You don’t get many Muslims killing Jews here do you now. So again you let that pass as acceptable and criticised the reply.
It is a bit like your editorial colleague Sid who is able to label people Islamist when they disagree with him which is a smear and no one says a word to him.
Play the comment not the person!