Oh, why d’you refer to Stanislaw as a “he”? Maybe you know, but this looks like an assumption.

>> This is debate, not alchemy …

Something you should you do well to remember the next time you attempt to exert totalitarian control by denoncing a critic and then denying them the right to reply.

This is a public forum where disagreement may be met. If you wish to have an unmolested conversation with X, Y or Z, try Google Groups.

>> Perhaps the fact that in the past three years, four former heads of Islamic societies of London Univeristies

As I recall, Yassin Nassari still was at Westminster University when he was arrested for importing qassam blueprints.

well-respected by who exactly? he’s not exactly innocent of voicing pretty extreme views on university campuses… witness his recent embarrassing behaviour at a student debate in Cambridge.

“It may not be very large in number but you do not need very large numbers of people in order to do terrorism and the university authorities have simply ignored the problem.” Take your head out of the sand and read it, Miriam.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4252506.stm

As Ruth Dudley Edwards has noted: “Four years ago, Professor Anthony Glees documented in his book, “When Students Turn to Terror,” more than 30 universities where “extremist and/or terror groups” were to be found. The book was met with hostility from the academic establishment. One year later, an all-party parliamentary commission reported on the rise in anti-Semitism that was accompanying increasing support for Islam on campuses. The Commission, chaired by well-respected Denis MacShane, saw university chancellors ignore its findings.”

Grant’s attitude – and that of yourself and several others on this thread, is nothing new and no surprise. There has been a culture of denial on this matter inside universities for years. And the best you can manage in your denuded state is to try and smear your opponents as Nazis…

“In case you are wondering, the answer is no, no and yet again … no. I will not be a willing party to metaphorical book-burning.” No, I wasn’t wondering at all, and your hysterical strawman insinuations that I am calling for repression, nazi-style or otherwises, does you great discredit, and have no basis in what I have said on this thread.

“So you imagine he just bumped into Alwaki while at the grocers’ shop or at the cinema, then?”

I don’t imagine anything of the sort. What I do realise is that for all the difference it makes, he may well have done that as well as any other place. I don’t think that living in a society where surveillance and suspicion is the norm is either going to resolve all the issues or, and this is possibly more important, keep them resolved.

Where there is a group of people who have a vested interest in radicalising individuals they will find a way of locating and radicalising those individuals. We can bolt all the doors and bar all the windows and they will find a crack in the skirting board. Short of hermetically sealing everything and everyone in an individual isolation chamber and then keeping those seals 100% hermetic at all times, you are never going to eradicate radicalisation. At best you are going to minimise the threat for a while, but sooner or later, it will happen again.

Since mankind first evolved on this planet there have been groups with vested interests that have not sat well with others. Looking at the last few years, comparatively speaking, we have had the Luddites, the National Socialists, the Communists, the IRA and the list can go on … Today it is the Jihadist, tomorrow … who knows; your guess is as good as mine and we most probably both end up wrong. But as sure as eggs are an omelette in potentia there will be another group who will try and force a view/a means/an end.

Now admittedly the potential consequences of Luddite activity were not as far reaching as the potential consequences of todays’ activist but that is in part because society has become more global in its reach and activity; the other being of course that technology has developed and therefore the ability to damage has increased.

The question for me is more a question of balance. To what extent am I willing to forego hard won civil freedoms in order to minimise threats to my physical being. To put it in simple terms, am I willing to be bullied into voluntarily putting myself and my fellow human beings in a strait-jacket, under a microscope; breathing only that air which has been previously filtered and engaging in intellectual or other pursuits only after they have passed rigorous censorship?

In case you are wondering, the answer is no, no and yet again … no. I will not be a willing party to metaphorical book-burning. I will not be a willing party to restricting movement; be it of ideas, be it of individuals. Nor will I bow to terrorism of whatever kind by allowing myself to be terrorised.

What of it? That is precisely what happened in the case of the Undercover Mosque Despatches programme. Are you denying that?

“Oh, and before you say it – no, I don’t have an interest or an agenda. I just think that you sir or madam are a parody of yourself”.

And I think you are smug and stupid.

“”And yes, he did make contact with Awlaki while he was at UCL.”

So what? He probably spoke to the milkman too not to mention the bus-driver, a shopkeeper or two and that woman walking her dog in the park …

It isn’t the where but the why; it isn’t the when but the how.”

So you imagine he just bumped into Alwaki while at the grocers’ shop or at the cinema, then?

“Stanislaw has evidently never heard of Reductio ad Absurdum”

Miriam will evidently do anything to evade addressing evidence she has asked for and been presented with several times.

MaidMarian

You say, ‘I wonder how many convicted terrorists have been former heads of other university societies.’ I wonder how many read the Daily Telegraph? Ate cereal for breakfast? Used the Internet? Were employed? You want to flaunt the chip on your shoulder about those things too?

What could those other activities possibly have to do with Islamist terrorism? Conversely, are you really telling me you can see nothing noteworthy about the fact that four former heads of London university Islamic societies have been charged with terrorist related offences in the past few years? Is your head really buried so far in the sand?

What you are more or less saying is that no one should gather in civil society unless you say it meets with your approval

I haven’t said or implied anything remotely like that. My argument has solely been with the denial on show here and elsewhere regarding the connection between Islamist terrorism in this country and university Islamic societies. Four of those societies in London have been run by terrorists. How is that normal?

If you can show me that four (or three, or hell, even two) sports societies have been run by future terrorists in the past few years, then I’ll treat what seems to me to be an irrelevant ‘point’ about sports societies as relevant. So, can you?

Mark Almond

The Washington Post reported that according to federal sources, over the year prior to the attack, Abdulmutallab intensified electronic communications with al-Awlaki. The paper also reported that one government source described intercepted “voice-to-voice communication” between the two during the fall of 2009, saying that al-Awlaki “was in some way involved in facilitating [Abdulmutallab]‘s transportation or trip through Yemen. It could be training, a host of things.”

WSJ

So the Intelligence authorities were monitoring him, at least. I have no idea why they did not inform UCL. This must be the “intelligence gaps” that Obama wants to repair.

UFAB was a radicalised agent *while* he was in the UCL ISOC. Do you agree that that is the important take-home point here?

No – the relevant question – to this debate, at least – is whether the UCL should have known that Abdulmutallab had violent or extremist leanings, ie. were there signs they should have identified. The alleged contact with Awlaki is, I think, irrelevant to the question, unless you can show that the University should have been monitoring it.

The (sometimes fair) accusations against Moazzam Begg are also irrelevant, as Naadir Jeewa points out…

Moazzem Begg spoke at UCL in January 2007, and didn’t broadcast an interview with Al-Awlaki until December 2007, and after AbdulMutallab passed on the reigns of the ISOC presidency to another.

Perhaps they shouldn’t have allowed Qureshi – the intellectual freedom debate can hold on for another day – but that, at present, is the most damning thing that you’ve laid against them. And as his unpleasant speech was and is hardly of widespread notoriety – he’s still published on CiF, for example, and apparently has a book contract – I find it tricky to see how that could stick.

Ben

So what? He probably spoke to the milkman too not to mention the bus-driver, a shopkeeper or two and that woman walking her dog in the park …

It isn’t the where but the why; it isn’t the when but the how.

Sorry, you’d better read my post and my first comment on this thread. I have not said UFAB was radicalised *at* UCL. I said this:

Malcolm Grant’s point was that the Underpants bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not radicalised at UCL – which somehow lets UCL off the hook. He offers no proof either, other than to say there is no evidence to say that he was. Which is true but is immaterial. What does it matter the provenance of his radicalisation when there is plenty of evidence that he was already radicalised while he was the president of the the UCL ISOC.

You seem to trying your damnest to make a wholly immaterial point?

UFAB was a radicalised agent *while* he was in the UCL ISOC. Do you agree that that is the important take-home point here?

And yes, he did make contact with Awlaki while he was at UCL.

Latest news – tomorrow’s Telegraph says:

“The suspect in the attempted Detroit plane bomb had links with a London campaign group that has championed Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda cleric.”

http://tinyurl.com/y87xrgv

I’ll be interested to see that in the morning…