The rise of extremism in London

We are now a quarter of a century into the age of jihad in which events in distant lands have the power to radicalize Muslims at home into action. Afghanistan under Russian occupation was for passionate Islamists what the Spanish Civil War was for the anti-fascist left - a cause worth dying for in a foreign land.

Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia, Iraq and, of course, Palestine all add up in the eyes of some Muslims as an everlasting stream of persecution. And now Gaza.

Throughout Europe, in cities with large Muslim populations, officials concerned with community relations and police matters are watching the fallout of Israel’s Gaza war on Muslim opinion. Nowhere is this more true than in London, home to so many Muslims from so many lands.

There has been a big spike in anti-Semitic incidents here in recent weeks, and by no means all of it by Muslims. A senior official involved with community relations told me that anti-Semitic events had increased five-fold since the Gaza war began. Jonathan Freedland, columnist for The Guardian, wrote last week that just as “progressive voices insisted that Muslims were not to be branded as guilty by association, just because the killers of 9/11 and 7/7 had been Muslims,” so should it now be made clear that Jews in general should not be held responsible for Israel’s behavior in Gaza. “There has been no chorus of liberal voices insisting that no matter how intense their fury, people must not take out that anger on Britain’s Jewish community,” Freedland wrote.

Oddly, incidents against Muslims by extreme right-wing thugs have also risen in the wake of Gaza, according to Metropolitan Police Inspector Fiaz Choudhary. But whereas anti-Semitic incidents have been carefully documented by the Jewish community, Muslims are more likely to shrug it off as just one of those things that happen to Muslims, Choudhary said.

Home-grown discrimination, lack of education, and a paucity of opportunity also contribute to Muslim radicalization, especially among second- and third-generation British Muslims who don’t feel the links to the homeland that their parents and grandparents had, but don’t quite feel accepted as truly British either.

It is usually young Muslim males who the authorities in anti-terrorism worry about. But the Gaza invasion, probably because so many women and children were killed, is radicalizing Muslim females too. “We usually feel that women are a calming factor,” a senior official said.

Perceived Muslim grievances are taken seriously by London’s police force, which is this city’s largest employer. Inspector Choudhary, chairman of the association of Muslim police, regrets that only 1 percent of the force is Muslim in a city in which Muslims have now reached 12 percent of the population.

There is work to be done with police attitudes, Choudhary says. Section 44 of an antiterrorism law permits the police to stop and search just about anybody. But in Britain the police have the right to stop any vehicle anytime for any reason, so why tell dark-skinned people they are being stopped for a Section 44? “It is not the stop and search, it’s the attitude of the officer that gets the backs up of Muslims,” Choudhary said.

There is an effort being made by the police to hire more Muslims to the force as well.

Another aspect that has officials here worried is the fallout of the economic downturn on community relations. Since Muslims are often the poorest and least educated in Britain’s workforce, will they be the first to be laid-off as the economy shrinks? There have already been flash strikes against foreign workers in Britain. Will this turn into anti-immigrant sentiment as the economic pie shrinks?

One senior official told me that the real danger will come, not when all boats are sinking together, but when the recovery comes and those with immigrant backgrounds are the last to get rehired.

The combination of inflammatory events abroad, alienation at home, and now what Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called an economic depression are contributing to fears about growing extremism in this traditionally tolerant land.

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