.... Given the depravity of Khan’s religious views, and the cunning with which he evidently concealed them after his release, no government desistance and disengagement programme was going to deradicalise him.
For all the brow-beating of the British state, and the political ping-pong that has resulted from it, the wrong solutions are being posited to guard against the scale of the threat (even if it is common sense to suggest that those guilty of particularly heinous crimes should serve a longer portion of their sentences than Khan did if they remain a potential security concern).
Part of the problem is that it is increasingly difficult to raise the issue of the menace of radical Islam without being accused of “Islamophobia” by those who have hijacked a noble cause — the fight against anti-Muslim hate crime — and turned it into an attempt to silence all discussion of extreme variants of Islam.
It is perfectly obvious why some Islamophobia campaigners desire such a blanket rallying cry: it masks scrutiny of their own views, which they would be able to promote without fear of challenge.
What is less clear is why politicians and state entities are happy to go along with this charade, when alternative and much tighter definitions of racism against Muslims — such as “anti-Muslim hatred” — exist that would avoid the pitfalls of catch-all Islamophobia definitions while still ameliorating a societal ill. [City A.M.] Read more
