David Cameron and Sayeeda Warsi are both right
The Prime Minister and Baroness Warsi both made carefully nuanced, responsible speeches this week about what we can do concerning terrorism.
Unfortunately the way both speeches were reported was not entirely helpful and could easily give someone who only glimpsed the headlines the impression that they were saying entirely opposed things. They were not, and I agree with what both actually said.
Dan Hannan MEP has an excellent Conservative Home column which addresses the similarities between the radical Muslim loonies who support groups like ISIS and similar loonies of other races and creeds such as the South Carolina gunman:
"British Jihadis and the Charleston murderer have more in common than they might like to admit."
This is what he says about how the nuances disappeared from both DC's and Sayeeda Warsi's speeches in the way they were reported:
"As is so often the case in politics, both made more balanced and measured arguments than the headlines suggested. The Prime Minister, speaking at a security conference in Bratislava, correctly recognised that the lure of revolutionary violence was not new: “We’ve always had angry young men and women buying into supposedly revolutionary causes.”
"He then addressed the problem of those Muslim radicals who, as he put it, “don’t go as far as advocating violence, but who do buy into some of these prejudices giving the extreme Islamist narrative weight and telling fellow Muslims, ‘you are part of this’”.
"Inevitably, the newspapers summarised his intervention as telling Muslims that they ought to be doing more to rein in the jihadis. Which, if you think about it, would be as silly as telling white people that they ought to do more to rein in the next Dylann Roof. "
"In reality, the Prime Minister did no such thing. He is well aware that mosques up and down Britain regularly condemn ISIS. Several British imams have gone so far as to pronounce fatwas against the young people drawn to its black flag. David Cameron was not addressing British Muslims en bloc. He was talking about the hate preachers who, though few, engender much misery."
"Sayeeda Warsi, for her part, acknowledged the truth of much of what the Prime Minister was saying, but fretted that the overall impression – British leader goes overseas to lecture Muslims – might vindicate part of the jihadi narrative, namely the belief that there is a conflict between being a good Muslim and being a valued citizen of a Western democracy."
"You can see her point, too. The radicals who incite the grievances of troubled young people, while themselves remaining comfortable in Western homes, are monsters; but they and their sympathisers are sparse."
Unfortunately the way both speeches were reported was not entirely helpful and could easily give someone who only glimpsed the headlines the impression that they were saying entirely opposed things. They were not, and I agree with what both actually said.
Dan Hannan MEP has an excellent Conservative Home column which addresses the similarities between the radical Muslim loonies who support groups like ISIS and similar loonies of other races and creeds such as the South Carolina gunman:
"British Jihadis and the Charleston murderer have more in common than they might like to admit."
This is what he says about how the nuances disappeared from both DC's and Sayeeda Warsi's speeches in the way they were reported:
"As is so often the case in politics, both made more balanced and measured arguments than the headlines suggested. The Prime Minister, speaking at a security conference in Bratislava, correctly recognised that the lure of revolutionary violence was not new: “We’ve always had angry young men and women buying into supposedly revolutionary causes.”
"He then addressed the problem of those Muslim radicals who, as he put it, “don’t go as far as advocating violence, but who do buy into some of these prejudices giving the extreme Islamist narrative weight and telling fellow Muslims, ‘you are part of this’”.
"Inevitably, the newspapers summarised his intervention as telling Muslims that they ought to be doing more to rein in the jihadis. Which, if you think about it, would be as silly as telling white people that they ought to do more to rein in the next Dylann Roof. "
"In reality, the Prime Minister did no such thing. He is well aware that mosques up and down Britain regularly condemn ISIS. Several British imams have gone so far as to pronounce fatwas against the young people drawn to its black flag. David Cameron was not addressing British Muslims en bloc. He was talking about the hate preachers who, though few, engender much misery."
"Sayeeda Warsi, for her part, acknowledged the truth of much of what the Prime Minister was saying, but fretted that the overall impression – British leader goes overseas to lecture Muslims – might vindicate part of the jihadi narrative, namely the belief that there is a conflict between being a good Muslim and being a valued citizen of a Western democracy."
"You can see her point, too. The radicals who incite the grievances of troubled young people, while themselves remaining comfortable in Western homes, are monsters; but they and their sympathisers are sparse."
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