Sun Muslim Ignorance Exposed

With the sad inevitability of night following day, after the Paris attacks - which, so far as is known, involved no perpetrators from the UK - the cheaper end of the Fourth Estate has turned its gaze on the country’s Muslim communities to demand that they demonstrate a suitable amount of patriotism: after all, merely working hard and leading a peaceable existence is never enough for underemployed hacks.

So it is that the Super Soaraway Currant Bun has run an editorial titled “Muslim march”, pontificating “THERE is a simple way for Muslims to denounce the monsters of IS: march through London in massive numbers with placards saying ‘not in our name’ … Muslims have been quick to protest if their faith has come under attack … Yet they have done too little in public to express solidarity with the victims in Paris”.

Have any of Rupe’s downmarket troops marched thus? Well, no, but details, eh? But, as the man said, there’s more: “There is no greater threat to Islam than IS. It seeks to establish violent, oppressive fundamentalism as the only true faith and divide Muslims from non-Muslims … Accepting that IS ARE inspired by Islam … is a start”. Quite apart from the dictatorial and bullying tone, someone has not done their homework.

So let me help the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker by referring them to an article in The Nation by Lydia Wilson, titled “ What I Discovered From Interviewing Imprisoned ISIS Fighters” and subtitled “They’re drawn to the movement for reasons that have little to do with belief in extremist Islam”. She pitches the key western assumption: “Many assume that these fighters are motivated by a belief in the Islamic State”.

And the reality? “This just doesn’t hold for the prisoners we are interviewing. They are woefully ignorant about Islam and have difficulty answering questions about Sharia law, militant jihad, and the caliphate …  a detailed, or even superficial, knowledge of Islam isn’t necessarily relevant to the ideal of fighting for an Islamic State”. Do go on.

Well, QUITE

“Erin Saltman, senior counter-extremism researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says that there is now less emphasis on knowledge of Islam in the recruitment phase”. One interviewed prisoner told “The Americans came … They took away Saddam, but they also took away our security. I didn’t like Saddam, we were starving then, but at least we didn’t have war. When you came here, the civil war started”.

Many of those interviewed “came of age under the disastrous American occupation after 2003, in the chaotic and violent Arab part of Iraq, ruled by the viciously sectarian Shia government of Nouri al-Maliki … filled with rage against America and their own government. They are not fuelled by the idea of an Islamic caliphate without borders; rather, ISIS is the first group since the crushed Al Qaeda to offer these humiliated and enraged young men a way to defend their dignity, family, and tribe”.

And, let us put this directly, there is stuff all that a march in London is going to do to help that, whether or not it has the blessing of Creepy Uncle Rupe. Yes, Sun readers, your paper is run by the ignorant - to keep you just the same. And that’s not good enough.