Center for a New American Security

The News on Sunday newspaper printed a list of "obsessions" Pakistan could do without in 2010. It's sort of like a list of New Year resolutions. But away from politics (as much as anything can be in Pakistan) it's a fun, alternative look at Pakistani society from the inside.

Read the whole thing here:

Londonstani's favourite is this:

"Membership of one Ummah

We strongly believe in the idea. Ummah, one single body that goes beyond the considerations of borders, tribes, castes and nationhood... It is binding upon us to help Muslims wherever they are. We in this country are more concerned about the problems and miseries of our fellow brethren from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Chechnya and Kashmir rather than those living close-by. Problems faced by Muslims in these countries form the subject matter of sermons of our clergy. One can hardly find prayer leaders talking about the problems of Muslims living in Pakistan. Ironically, the Ummah seems equally oblivious about Pakistan."

Well, it's between this and the one on sex.

This blog has previously noted the rise in the number of American militants.

How does the greater accessibility that American universal values are supposed to offer immigrants explain events at Ft. Hood? An isolated incident? Well, what about, Najibullah Zazi, who planned "Mumbai-on-the-Hudson" with help from extremists in Pakistan. Or, Byran Neal Venas, a Hispanic American convert, who was captured in Afghanistan and admitted to helping with initial plans to launch an attack in the US. Or David Hedley, an American who planned to kill an editor at the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Copenhagen. If he had managed, the US would have joined the list of nations that have become a launching pad for extremist violence.

Read Peter Bergen's Foreign Policy article where he outlines these cases and others in more detail and effectively makes the case that the US has basically just been lucky so far. And as we know, luck is no basis from which to argue for policy direction.

Recently, this new American problem managed to link up with a slightly older American problem; namely Pakistan. The Daily News reported:

"Police on Wednesday arrested five American nationals believed to have gone missing from the Washington DC area last month, officials from both countries said.
The five were arrested at the house of a member of the banned terrorist outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad in Sargodha, District Police Officer Usman Anwar told AFP."

Londonstani thinks that on the one hand this means American policy makers and commentators will be slightly less smug sounding when comparing community cohesion in the United States with Britain, but at the same time this case and others like it knock another presumption away from the general understanding of what causes extremism and radicalisation in the first place. If the US has a growing home-grown extremism problem, under the current logic, it means either that its social integration mechanisms aren't as good as it thought, or that social integration is not the key factor everyone thought it was.

Londonstani's money is on imperfect American social cohesion. That's not to say there aren't a whole host of other factors. But "social cohesion" as a phrase seems to have gained popular currency as part of the extremism/radicalisation discussion, whereas there's no reason it has to refer to Islamism at all. If the discussion is about "social cohesion" as a stand alone phrase, it refers to the interlinking of the various strands of your society. This can refer to religious or racial communities, but also people of different generations, income levels, geographical areas, sub cultures etc. From Londonstani's experience of working in the UK and various countries in the Muslim world, extremism since 9/11 takes root in the fissures between those strands. Muslim populations are the initial audience as the message is crafted to appeal to their fears, concerns and prejudices. But it has moved on to other groups too. And the US definitely has its fissures, as do other places.

Having said all this, Londonstani still maintains that extremists aren't getting the kind of recruits they'd really like to be attracting. And as evidence he submits below exhibit 1, a police mugshot of the Sargodha wannabe warriors.

Londonstani spent most of the summer on a housing estate clinging to the outskirts of Bristol. The job in hand was to investigate racism for a documentary by living as an immigrant in the kind of area many recent arrivals are housed in by local councils. But the experience also shed light on how the process of radicalisation plays out on the streets of modern Britain. Considering the recent debate about Prevent in the UK, Londonstani thinks it'll be useful to share his observations.

British readers will have little difficulty guessing Londonstani's identity from this post, but he would very much appreciate they keep it to themselves as full disclosure will threaten continued posting from Pakistan.

(preemptive apologies to Ma Exum and Lady Muqawama for some of the language in this post)

I'm used to hearing people in the Muslim world talk about life in Britain as a utopian fantasy. In Pakistan, on a daily basis, i hear rich and poor people talk about Britain's civilised society, it's impartial justice system and the humanitarian founding principles of a health system that provides care for all. Sometimes, I try to inject a little realism into the discussion by pointing out our social problems and the frequent complaints about the deteriorating quality of the country's social services. But I can almost see the words bounce off people's glazed expressions. This is not restricted to Pakistan. Even people in more stable countries like Egypt allow themselves to think of life in a developed economy as a heaven-like dream.

This summer, I saw reality hit home for those few who make it to Britain. I was sitting at a bus stop on the edge of Bristol's Southmead Estate. Beside me was a Sudanese man with his young daughter, who seemed about six years old. We sat on the same bench as he asked her about school and her homework. He had no reason to think I understood his northern Sudanese Arabic dialect, and I felt guilty being an unintended party to a private conversation between a father who looked like he'd just finished a long shift as a security guard at a supermarket and a child, who was plainly excited to be out with her father. 

I reached into the paint-splattered overalls that were meant to make me look like a Pakistani immigrant doing odd jobs to survive in his new home and pulled out a cigarette, hoping that leaning against the bus stop away from the Sudanese family would let me tune out of their conversation. On the other side of the road was another bus stop. A group of local girls, none older than 15, were talking to each other loudly. Amongst all the squealing, the only words I could make out were "fuck", "bastard" and "cunt". Occasionally one of the girls would pull her skirt up at a passing car of boys and the others would cheer and hand her a bottle of brightly coloured liquor to swig from. Every now and again, one of the cars would stop and another girl might stand in front of the passenger window and pull down her top. The boys would try and persuade them to get in. Eventually, two of the girls got into a crowded little car with wide tyres and lowered suspension.

I had been absent mindedly watching the events in front of us. After the car drove away, the Sudanese father turned to his daughter and said; "That's what English girls are like. Never talk to people like that."

A few days later at the same bus stop, two Indian low-grade computer technicians were discussing their new home. They probably assumed I understood their Hindi, but they didn't seem to care. They spoke of near daily verbal abuse and friends who had been attacked by teenage thugs.  England, they decided, wasn't what they thought it was. Just before they got on their bus, a group of teenagers outside the chip shop behind us proved the technicians' point by rounding on a passing elderly local.

"Look out, he's a perv," shouted one boy. Before another pushed the girl standing next to him in front of the old man and said, "I bet you wish you could fuck her". They all then burst into laughter.

Southmead is the Britain that most people do not see. This is perhaps understandable if you live abroad. But judging from comments after the broadcast of the documentary, people in Britain's more affluent areas are unaware of what happens in neighbourhoods literally on their doorsteps. The little attention places like Southmead merit on the public's radar, is inversely proportional to their physical presence. Places like Southmead exist on the borders of every British city and inside the largest ones. A very large proportion of Britain's immigrants live in places like Southmead and a sizeable chunk of the white population has grown up in similar surroundings. 

I saw these surroundings at close quarters. Hundreds of cans of high-strength cider littered the streets every Saturday and Sunday. I saw unemployed drunken youths accost shoppers in the mornings. The green spaces that looked inviting from afar were littered with used condoms, pregnancy test kits and the excrement of pitbull dogs that were popular pets amongst residents. In the daytime, teenage mothers pushed young children around the estate. I saw the partner of one young mother call a toddler a "fucking little shit" before smacking him hard enough on the back of the head to make the child drop to his knees and cover his head in the expectation of further violence. In the early evenings, young teenagers would sit at benches swigging from bottles of cheap alcohol. On one occasion, I became their target.

As an immigrant in Southmead, segregating yourself and your family was an act of self preservation. Two young British-born Pakistani boys I talked to told me earnestly that they were good because "we aint got no white friends". There were many helpful and kind local people living on the estate. But the few I bumped into were often quick to distance themselves from their environment. A retired man who used to try to talk to me every morning at another bus stop would freeze when tatooed men with aggressive dogs walked by. Young mothers who used the same stop would talk about needing to move out "for the sake of the kids".

The impulse to segregate was compounded by the messages that seemed to reinforce the idea that the treatment in Southmead reflected the mood and views of the rest of Britain. "Hundreds of thousands of migrants here for handouts, says senior judge". "Britain paying migrants £1,700 to return home BEFORE they've even got here" "The violent new breed of migrants who will let nothing stop them coming to Britain" These headlines were just three of many that were printed in the Mail, a right-wing daily during my time in Southmead. I don't usually take much notice of the headlines in the Sun and the Mail unless they are truly shocking, but in Southmead the headlines seemed to have an impact on the treatment we received. The level of low-level hostility from adults seemed to be directly linked to the content of the headlines. More outright hostility from younger adults and children followed a day or so later.

Walking around the estate, I often thought of British Pakistani and Somali boys growing up thinking their experiences were an accurate portrayal of what Britain was about. I imagined growing up with such a view of Britain would make the idea of fighting UK forces in Muslim lands seem righteous. On the battlefields of Iraq and/or Afghanistan, the young soldiers they would face would likely include the white youngsters who joined up hoping the army was their way out of Southmead.

But the army wasn't the only way out. There was also religion. If you decide that the dysfunctional reality of Southmead is a product of a permissive society, austere religion is a logical answer.

I met one man from Southmead who had made that decision. A local man had embraced a strict form of Islam. He told me that the problems of the area resulted from weak family values and a moral laxity that allowed the misuse of drugs and alcohol. Islam had provided him a way out and a template for a better life than the one he had seen growing up. Although we talked for literally minutes, it was easy to tell I was talking to a mature adult who made a considered decision that had helped him live as a productive and responsible member of society.

I heard of at least another local man who had embraced Islam. I didn't meet him but I read about him in the newspapers while he was on trial for trying to bomb a shopping centre in the city. When police raided his flat they found a suicide vest and explosives hidden in a biscuit tin.

Andrew Ibrahim is the son of middle class parents, who news reports said were Egyptian Christians. During the trial, a picture emerged of a young man with serious emotional and drug abuse problems. It was a picture I had come across before when looking at a new emerging breed of extremists who came from criminal backgrounds and actively sought out extremist Islam as a way of depicting their activities as more than mere criminality and a route to a new identity as warriors in a cosmic battle.

News reports said Ibrahim described the UK as a "dirty toilet". How much of his view was influenced by the surroundings of his upbringing?

The judge presiding over the trial, which ended with Ibrahim getting a life term, summed up the prosecution's portrayal of Ibrahim as one of a young man who suffered a disturbed adolescence and went on to become lonely, angry and alienated from society. The description could fit any number of young men in Southmead and other places like it. Not all will turn to extremism, but they will likely be drawn to other forms of angry destructive behaviour.

The ingredients that make a British terrorist are numerous, interact with each other in different ways and are changing constantly. Just looking at "Britishness" or identity fails to take into account the growing numbers of extremists that are emerging from non-Muslim backgrounds. But what affects one person doesn't necessarily affect another. Ibrahim's brother Peter was reported to be a Oxbridge educated lawyer. But whatever the ingredients are, it was clear from my time in Southmead that it's easier to find them in places that suffer social deprivation. And the UK has many of them.

The discussion about Muslim immigrants turning to extremism often centres around them not wanting to integrate into British life. But it never addresses the fact that many come with high hopes of a new life, and find reality bitterly dispiriting. They come to take advantage of social mobility and a law-abiding society to build a better life for their families. They end up feeling they need to protect their families from the very society they had idolised. Why don't they go home? Many people I met from more stable parts of the world talked about it "after saving enough". But like others before them, chances are that they will stay. People who had come with a fantasy of Britain ended just seeing it as an opportunity to earn and a contagion to avoid.

Government policy seeks to target resources to fix problems in the most cost effective manner. However, the problem of extremism now involves society as a whole. Pre 9/11 it was limited to a section of a section of the population. That has grown with the advent of the Iraq war and the emergence of an image of Muslim militants as righteous men ready to stand against a superpower and the ability to make the established powers of the world look impotent. It's an image that appeals to people of diverse backgrounds who are disillusioned with their societies. People who aren't necessarily observant Muslims, or even Muslims at all. But at the same time, the increasingly obvious bloodlust of the men and women drawn to the cause has alienated most Muslims.

What does that mean for initiatives like Operation Contest's Prevent aspect? (thanks davidpfbo) On the one hand, allies and partners are easier to identify, but the work that needs to be done has to reach out to more people and address wider issues in our society. Despite the protests of individual voices lobbying for the adoption of their own outlook, work on identity, engagement with more authentic Islamic voices and community work (including seemingly unconnected activities like sports) all have a roll to play. The undertaking is huge and constant fine tuning is vital. It also involves sums that the British government will struggle to find.

Threats to public safety and national security in the UK come from a variety of sources; and not all of them are Islamic.

We have seen the newly energised extreme right wing of UK politics flex its muscles on the streets of several cities. The last being the planned demonstration in front of a mosque in northwest London. While other extreme political strands like radical Islam make their hostility to mainstream British life clear. The extreme right-wing undermine it while claiming to defend it. This is something the government is seeking to address.

"John Denham, who has replaced Hazel Blears as the communities secretary, will ensure that funding goes to a wider range of organisations and the Prevent programme focuses more explicitly on rightwing racist extremism as well al-Qaida inspired ideology."

There is a tendency to focus so intently on Islamist extremism that "the enemy of my enemy" approach makes people who consider themselves open minded suddenly get up and go share a bench with those who admire Hitler. 

"Nick Griffin (the head of the UK's main extreme party) wrote a pamphlet in 1997 called "The Mind-Benders", in which he said of the Holocaust: "The 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda and witch-hysteria."

Griffin usually dismisses these examples by putting them down to excitable youth. Because we've all got embarrassing snippets from our teenage days, so it hardly matters which of us wore crazy kipper ties and which wrote pamphlets denying the Holocaust, and the fact that Griffin wrote that when he was 38 only shows how young and full of life he is.

But around 10 years ago the BNP hit a snag, realising that their approach was holding them back. Maybe they had a focus group, with someone reporting that, "OK, if I can share my feedback, some of the policies, such as distrust of Europe, supporting British farmers, I'm hearing lots of positive energy. But, and don't take this the wrong way, the praising Hitler angle is proving mostly negative, I'm afraid."

So Griffin set about making them appear respectable. They would deny they were fascist, and claim to be an upstanding legitimate party. This creates another problem with them in the media, as their leaders are determined to conceal what I believe is their real mission, which isn't just to campaign in elections but to build a force of street-fighters. After a BNP member was elected in 1993 Griffin said: "The electors of Millwall did not back a post-modernist Rightist party, but what they perceived to be a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'Defend Rights for Whites', with well directed boots and fists."

Preserving and strengthening the kind of communities and country we want to live in involves guarding against those who seek to undermine both overtly and covertly.