Earlier this month, a UCL board of inquiry was assembled to determine whether or not Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab—variously know as the “Detroit,” “Christmas,” “Syringe” and “Underwear” bomber—had been radicalised while studying for an engineering degree at the university between 2005 and 2008. So far there is scant evidence that this is the case. But I have had exclusive access to recordings that may suggest otherwise. And if he was indeed radicalised here, how should UCL—and other academic institutions across Britain—respond?
Most of the details reported thus far about Abdulmutallab’s life have centred around his late teenage years in west Africa—in internet chat rooms he talked about his loneliness and his jihad fantasies—or from his time in Yemen in 2009. The radical Yemeni-based preacher, Anwar Al Awlaki, has admitted that Abdulmutallab was one of his students, adding: “I did not tell him to do this operation, but I support it.”
The years of Abdulmutallab’s life that most lack detail, in fact, are those three years at UCL. We do know that he was president of the Islamic Society (Isoc) from 2006 to 2007. In an interview with the BBC’s Daniel Sandford, Qasim Rafiq, UCL Isoc president during Abdulmutallab’s first year of university, said he was “shocked” that one of his friends had been involved in a plot to kill 289 passengers. Rafiq, now the media officer for the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), the student body that represents Muslims students at a national level, has not given any further interviews about his friend.
The inquiry, set up by UCL’s provost Malcolm Grant, is expected to take between two and three months to complete, and is being headed by Fiona Caldicott, pro-vice chancellor of Oxford University. As an expert in psychiatry and psychology, she should be well qualified for the task. And one question she might well wish to consider is the role of the radical Islamist preacher Abdur Raheem Green at UCL.
Green, who was educated at Ampleforth College and converted to Islam in 1988, was a regular feature of the UCL Isoc schedule, speaking three times during 2005-2009. The first of these talks, on the 23rd November 2005, was entitled “Islam and Terrorism.” It closely followed an outing in which Green and several friends accompanied three London university Islamic societies on a paintballing trip (and during which Abdulmutallab captained the UCL team). I have had exclusive access to the recording of the talk, and it makes for interesting listening.
During Green’s two-hour discourse he argues that Bin Laden’s terrorism as a rational strategy makes sense: “If you kill our women and children we’re going to kill your women and children. And we’re going to keep on killing your women and children until you stop killing our women and children. This is his rationale. If you just take the point of view of just logic and reasoned argument… it’s pretty difficult to counter an argument like that. It’s pretty difficult to do it. There’s a sort of justice to that, isn’t there?”
After half-an-hour, however, Green dismisses the idea that Muslims should be persuaded by rational argument. Instead, he states that Islam does not support the deliberate “targeting”—a word he stresses on a number of occasions—of civilians, because the Koran says it is wrong. By equating terrorism with the deliberate killing of civilians, Green concludes that terrorism must be Islamically wrong.
But then, as he continues to talk and take questions from the audience, Green elaborates—adding three further points that muddy the theological water.
Crucially, he makes it quite clear that Islam is not a pacifist religion: “[Islam] is not a religion that teaches us not to resist. It teaches us to fight against tyranny and oppression… Those verses in the Koran that talk about ‘fight those who disbelieve,’ they are talking about those people who are fighting you. They come to fight us so we fight them. So Allah says fight them, go and fight them. And when you fight them kill them…this is serious matter, so of course you fight them and kill them and you do it in the most effective way. So, as the Koran says: ‘strike them at their necks’… When we fight we really are going to fight. This is what these verses are talking about.”
Green also points out that it is not “blameworthy” if women and children are killed during otherwise legitimate fighting: “If in the course of fighting that some women and children are caught up and accidentally killed… that is something that, in the process of war, is sometimes unavoidable and that is not blameworthy.” The blame he refers to here is the concept of religious sin. Green is saying that, theologically speaking, it isn’t wrong to kill women and children per se, it is only wrong to “target” them. It is about one’s intention before God.
Finally, Green reminds his audience that, “It is impossible that you are Muslim and you don’t believe in the obligation and the necessity of having a Khalifah. It is from our religion. There is no doubt about it.”
Should Caldicott and her seven-member board listen to the recording, they may not find any problem with it. Green’s speech is nuanced, and therefore very unlike tracts that landed hate preachers such as the hook-handed Abu Hamza in jail. As UCL’s provost has already stated: “Campuses are and should be safe homes for controversy, argument and debate.”
However uncomfortable, the right to free speech often does entail the right to advocate the deaths of others. The supporters of the Iraq war or bombing of Serbia in 1999, for example, or those agitating for the downfall of fascist Spain during the 1930s, were all ultimately stating that killing others—the enemy—was a necessary part of making the world a safer and better place. In this light, Green is not doing anything different.
But there is no escaping the fact that Green is a religious minister, invited by Isoc to speak as a minister of religion, and that the conclusion of his talk to the faithful is that, given certain provisos, killing in the name of their religion may be right. So the real question is: should we be worried because we believe that theology and faith have special persuasive powers? And if so, should we treat believers and their institutions separately within the framework of campus life?
UCL’s provost has also stated that “we must continue to regard students as adults.” To treat Muslims on campus otherwise, by somehow getting university authorities to police events such as these would be unfair, patronising and only encourage a backlash.
The real problem, though, is the lack of proper debate taking place in many of these institutions. Mainstream, liberal campus society does not have the tools to defeat arguments like Green’s: many radical preachers are comfortable with leftist arguments about imperialism and racism and respond in kind to rational attacks on their beliefs from non-believers. Yet these arguments—many of which I have witnessed during my own time following groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and others—only serve to sidestep the real centre of the issue: theology.
In religious meetings like these, it is the various theological interpretations that persuade or dissuade believers into thought and reaction. (Note how Green himself was careful to make the distinction between rational argument and theology.) Green derives his authority from his religious standing and “the Koran says this” is what young Muslim students pay attention to.
Of course, university authorities could try to ensure that for every such meeting there is a theological counterweight on campus; a plurality of views that guarantees an equal debate. But if we are to treat students as adults, then it should be Muslim students themselves who provide this counterweight. The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (mentioned above) would be the best-placed to foster this. Yet many Muslims working against campus radicalism, from the Quilliam foundation and British Muslims for Secular Democracy, are concerned that FOSIS has become a proto-Islamist institution—giving a platform to not only the likes of Green, but also Abdulmutallab’s Yemeni preacher Anwar al Awlaki, whom FOSIS members invited to give a number of talks during the early noughties.
It may also be a matter of growing concern that many university Islamic societies are turning to FOSIS and their theological message. It is worth noting that four presidents of London university Islamic societies have now been charged or prosecuted for terrorism offences in the last three years.
Again, liberals might argue that this is not a problem; for many years the National Union of Students was a bastion of extreme left-wing politics. The hope is that those who believe in radical Islamist theology are also an extreme minority, and in anti-Islamist circles there is talk of creating a new institution—bureaucratically identical to FOSIS but representing a counterweight to their theology—to compete for the loyalty of Islamic societies across Britain. Theological tensions between Muslims on campus would increase, but ultimately Muslim students would be served by a better debate. This might be the only way to break the stranglehold the radicals currently maintain on campuses up and down the country.
But even if this does happen, such efforts will take considerable time to have an effect. And, in the meantime, what of the UCL inquiry? It is unlikely that it will find enough evidence to point a finger of blame at anyone in Britain for the Christmas Day bomb attempt itself. Abdulmutallab didn’t build his bomb here, so at best Caldicott will be examining subtle shifts in his mindset. This may be found within his emails and by probing his activities as president of the Islamic society. The likelihood is that she’ll be wading through a lot of theology and for that reason, might not feel justified to judge what is right or wrong.
Yet whatever the outcome, the UCL board should make the primary evidence public. Ultimately, terrorists like Abdulmutallab function by making everyday events—like getting on a plane or a bus—seem deadly. Their hope is that this will create enough fear to make citizens more malleable to their objectives. After every such incident, both al Qaeda and those on the receiving end of such acts vie for a narrative of explanation. However, in the case of Abdullmutallab, no one—not even his wealthy upper-class family—really knows why he was inspired to kill. Much like the aftermath of 7th July, a veil of silence has descended over his life. No one will talk about him, even though he was president of a society with hundreds of attendees. Explanations of his actions might be forthcoming during his US trial—but, until then, the fear he has generated will remain. At least with the biographical details of his life to hand, the public will be able to make some sense of it themselves. And, for now, that is the best anyone can expect.
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What a load of nonsense. Shiv Malik, are you having a laugh?
Anyone who reads the above article may justifiably think the speech in question could have turned Abdulmutallab’s thoughts to committing terrorist acts, or some such. After all, that’s the impression given by this article.
Unfortunately, this article takes selective quoting to the extreme.
First, in terms of your ‘exclusive access’ – this recording was freely available on the UCL Isoc website until a few weeks ago. I had a listen to it in January, and I’ve still got the full recording on my laptop. So I’m familiar with the speech in its entirety, as no doubt are you, Shiv. So you’ll know that you have misrepresented this speech in the hunt for an ‘exclusive’.
The whole recording goes on for an exhausting two hours, so I’m not going to trouble readers with a full transcript. During the first hour, Abdur Raheem Green – an exceptionally conservative preacher whose message often flies in the face of progressive values – undertakes a lengthy discussion, firstly to define Islam, and then to define “terrorism” so as to include many aspects of Western foreign policy. Most of his speech is dedicated to arguing against terrorism from a Quranic perspective – why anyone needs a Quranic argument against the murder of innocent civilians is beyond me, I must say.
Green approvingly paraphrases Noam Chomsky (I told you this speech was exhausting) in his definition of terrorism:
“He defines terrorism as the use of force or violence against the civilian population in order to achieve your military, political, economic or religious objectives … It doesn’t matter what the goal is, terrorism means using and directing force or violence against the civilian population in order to be able to achieve that. When you do that, you are committing terrorism.”
He then gives Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the “two most obvious forms of terrorism the world has ever seen”, and compares the moral argument in favour of these attacks to the arguments used by Osama bin Laden and the IRA. He describes this as “how poor people fight”. At this stage of the recording, I must say I was concerned.
Lots of equating Western (and Russian) foreign policy with terrorism follows – others can debate the validity of this. Then comes the discussion of Osama bin Laden’s ‘rationale’ for terrorism, which you quote in your article. He goes on:
“The Prophet Muhammad, in several different narrations that are rigorously authenticated, mentioned in different ways the impermissibility of targeting, killing and attacking women and children and old men … not to destroy the churches and synagogues and monasteries. Not to poison the water supplies. Not to chop down the fruit-bearing trees … the Prophet Muhammad prohibited that those Muslims who were engaging in combat with the enemy should do any of these things.
“The Prophet also mentioned ‘the workers’. In those days they didn’t have this generic term ‘civilians’, but it is clearly understood and was understood by the companions of the Prophet and those jurists who took their guidance from their example, that combat was to be directed against those people who are involved in the fighting … armies against armies, soldiers against soldiers. This is a matter that was very very clearly understood.”
Green then relates a Quranic story of a woman who was killed in the course of a battle: “The Prophet Muhammad said, ‘this is not one against whom war should be fought’.
“If the Prophet Muhammad did not approve of, and in fact condemned, a woman being killed in the course of fighting, how is it possible that Islam could sanctify and approve the directing of aggression against civilians?”
I could go on (and on) but you should get the picture. The whole thrust of his talk is a forensic theological argument against violence against civilians. No ifs, no buts.
Now, as you say, the water gets muddied in the Q&A. He demands that Muslims support a caliphate, which is an inherently bigoted concept towards non-Muslims (and gays etc). I was actually slightly surprised you didn’t quote the part where he says that he has seen no evidence that the Taliban are terrorists (granted, this was 2005, before the Pakistani Taliban ran wild, but even then this is an extraordinarily deluded statement). And there are the passages you quoted about accidentally killing civilians while targeting the enemy – I believe we call it “collateral damage” in the West – which he follows with:
“But how does one take from that, justifying directing aggression against women and children? It’s two completely different things. And here’s a perfect example of using a text that supports one thing to justify something completely different.
“It is very clear from this text that all that is permitted in that case is that sometimes in the course of fighting … it may be that some civilians will be killed. That this is something that is not therefore blameworthy – although one should do one’s best to avoid killing the civilians, but if they happen to get killed in this situation, that is something that during the process of war is sometimes unavoidable.”
I do not write to defend Green or his views. I write to question how Abdulmutallab, assuming he attended this lecture, could have listened to an hour-long theological argument that the Prophet Muhammad outlawed the targeting of civilians, and then have seen this as justifying blowing up an airliner full of civilians? Is this not targeting civilians? Does this sound like doing one’s best to avoid the killing of civilians?
Who or whatever it was that convinced Abdulmutallab to go ahead with his bomb plot, it was not this speech by Abdur Raheem Green – by contrast, he ignored its core message. Maybe the UCL panel will find a different Isoc speech that did justify terrorism – I have not heard all of them – but it will not be this one.
When I listened to the recording, I wondered how long it would be before some tabloid newspaper or right wing think tank harvested it for a few quotes and ran wild with it to make the crotch-bomb stick on UCL’s Isoc. What I did not expect was for it to come from a respected journalist writing for a respected title. Get your act together.
Having said all that, I do agree with some of your conclusions. UCL should make public what evidence they can. They should in fact have appointed an anti-extremism expert onto the investigating panel. And most fundamentally, FOSIS needs to take it upon itself to ensure university Islamic societies have a plurality of views, liberal speakers as well as conservatives, rather than the current parade of conservative literalist clerics encouraging what I would describe in some cases as non-violent religious extremism.
If FOSIS doesn’t act, someone else will act for it. It’s about time FOSIS worked this out.
Gandhi became radicalised during his residence in London; Ho Chi Minh became a communist while living in Paris. Both men, and many, many, others left the European metropole determined to fight for their new found cause. I personally know an Irish youth with no connections to politics who spent some months in London, discovered his cause and returned to Ireland to play a significant role in the Irish republican struggle. Umar Mutallab is yet another. But what does this prove? Not very much I think, except loney men taken from their own cultural environment will often (re)discover who they really are (or think they are) and discover a cause they think is worth fighting for.
please dont lower yourself to the typical media portrayal (and people’s misconception) of what a jihad is.
(Via Prospect Facebook)
Salaam
Renowned Swiss politician Daniel Streich, who rose to fame for his campaign against minarets of Masajid,has embraced Islam. Now he has become a soldier of Islam. His anti-Islam thoughts brought him so close to this religion that he embraced Islam. He is ashmed of his doings now and desires to construct the most beautiful Masjid of Europe in Switzerland. He is also thinking of a movement contrary to his previous one to promote religious tolerance and peaceful cooperative living, inspite of the fact that ban on Masajid minarets has gained a legal status. This is the greatest quallity of Islam that it comes up with even greater vigour, when it is faced with confrontation. During his confrontation, Streich studied the Holy Quran and started understanding Islam.
I would like to make a few corrections to what Iftikhar has written. Daniel Streich was a very small time politician – a local official in a very small town. Yes, he was a member of the SVP, but hedid not rise to fame through anti-Islam campains, indeed he never campaigned against minarets. Indeed the anti-minaret campaign cuased him to resign from the party. Mr. Striech has nver expressed a wish to build Euope’s most beautiful mosque. The rest of what is written is correct. He converted to Islam and now preaches religious toleration. His story was reported in the Swiss news, where I live. It was reported in English in America by journalist Jason Hamza van Boom. It was then taken up by Islamic blopggers and websites and became increasinly distorted e.g. by The Nation of Pakistan. What Iftikhar reprts is this distorted version (I don’t blame him – this inaccurate information has gone virile). Sorry for this correction. The news about Daniel Streich is interesting, but the truth is a bit more nuanced, less dramatic than portrayed by Iftikhar.
On one level the Abdulmutallab case is about Islam, radicalisation and terrorism. On a broader level it is about identity, politics and belonging and the role of educational institutions play in defining the direction that students take beyond their degrees. Young people go to university for a multitude of reasons – education is just one of them. University brings new freedoms, channels for self-expression and opportunities for experimentation. It is often the first time young people are ‘released’ from the constraints of parental influence to make their own choices.
The identity of an individual is moulded during, and beyond, a period of study at a university. The people who inspire you, that you respect and adopt as role models are also ones who connect with your innermost dreams and fears. Universities are a microcosm of the world with significant powers of influence and authority at play. The future social contexts and networks individuals belong to are defined in student days.
So is should come as no surprise that while at university a student may have become radicalised or recruited to a terrorist cause? For the majority gaining a degree is a stepping stone to recruitment by an employer, a profession or other socio-political cause. Everyone goes somewhere from university. It is well established that Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial are a recruiting ground for intelligence agencies, political parties and future leaders. That postgraduate research positions provide privileged access to students, staff and latest academic thinking makes part time positions an attractive proposition to those acting as recruiters to an external organisation. Universities provide easy access to global networks of thinkers, researchers, writers and speakers. To become a contender in the game of global domination recruiting the brightest and best from the world’s most prestigious institutions is a highly logical starting point.
As Harvard Business School is a well established recruiting ground for captains of industry and the financial sector. The Abdulmutallab case highlights the fact that UK universities may be a weak link in the battle against terrorism and other forms of anti-social and extremist activity. The parallels may not be obvious but they do exist.
When employed by a university in a non-academic role I was approached by students on more than one occasion. One sought contacts in the UK police and foreign security services, another access to funding after declaring no interest in completing a programme of study while another asked me to make contact with professors in other institutions: he communicated with me on scraps of paper and shunned email. Suffice to say I did not entertain these requests but then the institution in question having earned its fees and turned a blind eye to these incidents. The misuse of its financial resources and academic expertise seemed immaterial.
All organisations, whatever the objectives, need to train, to recruit, to influence and to control its members. Educational institutions are ideal venues. Low barriers to entry, virtually unrestricted knowledge sharing, high turnover of students and staff combined with light touch monitoring of attendance, identity and communications are highly attractive to those operating below the radar of the authorities. Abdulmutallab may not have been radicalised at UCL, more likely that he was picked out by a recruiter for future a mission.
Censorship is a legal minefield and thorny path. Rather, the time has come for universities to rethink their own identities, streamline administration and refocus their resources on learning, research and responsible application of knowledge. Get this right and recruitment will take care of itself.
You should ban all religious politics at university:it is one thing to hear different point of views and another to have islamic students who in the end will target other fellow students with death if they are of a different religion or conviction.You should not allow any religious societies on campus,period.Nobody should breed and nurture poisonous snakes near his breast!
In the last three years four Presidents of Islamic societies at London University (right name?) have been charged or prosecuted for terrorist offences??? Well, if the same ratio applied to my real tennis club, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Security Services turning up . . . .