I am hoping that the Labour government’s £145m Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) initiative will get the chop as part of the new ConLib coalition’s spending cuts. The programme has been ineffective, wasteful, puts public money into extremists’ hands (here) and finds our avowedly secular and religiously-neutral government pouring £millions into anything from schools to soccer clubs, whose common identity overwhelmingly is that they are Islamic. As far as the UK is concerned, Buddhists don’t do violent extremism so their religion doesn’t get state financial support. Nor do Christians. Nor Hindus. Nor Jews. Nor Sikhs. Odd isn’t it?
It is also awful but ironic that a senior member of the government that introduced PVE has himself been assaulted allegedly by one of the violent extremists that PVE was intended to prevent.
Stephen Timms is the personally likeable Labour MP for East Ham. He was a member of Tony Blair’s cabinet and he also held senior portfolios outside the cabinet under Gordon Brown. He lives in Newham, describes himself as a Christian Socialist and is recognised as a hard-working constituency MP.
The alleged assailant Roshonara Choudhary, 21, lives with her parents and four younger siblings in East Ham, just a mile away from Timms. According to neighbours she is a devout Muslim who has given private English lessons to local kids for £5 an hour (here) . She is also bright. A reliable source says that she was an A-star student at a London college who dropped out and became unemployed earlier this year when she started getting involved in radical Islam and studying Islamist websites.
The same source says it appears the suspect would have preferred to get Tony Blair but, reckoning she wouldn’t be able to approach him because of security, she chose Timms instead as an easier target.
Apparently wearing an orange hijab and carrying two kitchen knives she attended Timms’ first constituents’ surgery after the 6th May general election when he was returned with the largest majority in the country. Unusually for a devout Muslim woman she allegedly put out her hand to shake the male MP’s hand – then apparently she suddenly plunged one of the knives into his stomach.
The wounds were not life-threatening and after a spell in hospital Timms has now recovered enough to attend both parliament and his surgeries. He also appeared at the Global Day of Prayer at West Ham FC, Upton Park, on Sunday (see previous post here) where he said he’d been helped by the large number of people praying for him.
(“The church is growing in London,” he also told the 10,000 worshippers, contra Alan Wilson’s Guardian article quoted in the previous post too, “and is a remarkably diverse group of congregations, but one in their faith in Christ.”)
Two thoughts struck me about the stabbing:
First, Timms’ alleged assailant is likely to spend the next decade or so in jail – what a waste of a promising young life. But even more, what a tragedy for the accused’s family who by all accounts are normal local people who will now have to live with the bewilderment, horror and shame that the attack has brought upon them. They deserve our sympathy.
Second, what is it about Islam that regular and socially-integrated people from normal families with good futures ahead of them serving other people can suddenly turn into monsters and killers who perpetrate unspeakable evil? The Glasgow car bombers were doctors working in NHS hospitals and the leader of the 7/7 bombers was a primary school teacher with a young family. Outwardly there was little sign of the dark destructive thoughts that were corroding their inner beings.
The issue is a spiritual one of course and the crisis lurks deep within the consciousness of the individuals. I have noted before (here) the inner moral collapse that was the result of one intelligent middle-class Englishman’s conversion to Islam. How much more must have been the moral and spiritual collapse of the suicide bombers cited above?
PVE is not the answer. A spiritual problem requires a spiritual solution. As a committed Christian Stephen Timms will know this too.
July 28th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Have you wondered about the root cause these problems?
Who created Pakistan? (the country never existed before 1947)
Having watched the movie Gandhi about the independence struggle in India, you will know that Gandhi fought for independence of India.
It was British colonial policy to foster divisions along religious lines. It was a policy to thrwart Gandhis movement for Indian Independence. The policy of divide and rule continued into Partition politics. It was a British decision to Partition India into West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The issue of Kashmir is still unresolved to this day.
Imagine for one minuite that Britain had not created Pakistan. Gandhi wanted peace and secularism. Can you imagine the world we world we would live in?. Do you think we would have faced problems of terrorism?. Would we hear demands of an Islamic state in Britain? Sharia law in Britain? Would you see women with hijabs?.
So you could say that Britain had a hand to play in the creation of extremists. Britain wanted to punish Gandhi, so they gave him a divided and Partitioned India. Just look at history, we are thousands of miles from Pakistan and 60+ years on since Partition, but the thorns meant for India are on our door step.
I guess there is a saying ‘You reap what you sow’ and this country certainly is gettings the fruits for sins of the past.
When Pakistan formed in 1947, its first cruel act was a of mass genocide of local Hindus. As they wanted a 100% Islamic population. The 25% Hindu population faced mass genocide and forced to leave Pakistan for India. (This is not to say there was not any violence on the India side).
Even Britain had wanted to create Pakistan, but if had been on the basis of secular country, but then we would have seen a very different Pakistan. Britain pulled out too quickly out of after the creation of Pakistan. There should have been a guiding hand to create a peaceful country.
Today, Pakistanis youths have grown up not seeing Hindus, Buddhists, Christians as their neighbours because they were forced out. So Pakistanis have no idea of secularism or religious tolerance. All they know, is there is has been a war between India over Kashmir and that India is the mortal enemy. This is contantly pushed out throught their media.
Do you think that Pakistani youth would be thankful that Lord Mountabatten sided with Jinnah (father of Pakistan) to grant the creation of Pakistan, but they are not!
Pakistanis are taught a twisted version history in their schools, in which they are the children of Arab and Persian conquerers. They are in denial that they are a mixed race with ancestors who would have Hindus. The Mullahs and Pakistan state don’t want to mention this, since people will question why there is not secularism and friendship between these countries.
Young British Pakistanis grow up in this country, then go back home to Pakistan to find a bride or groom. So young British Pakistanis are bringing in spouses that have been brought up in twisted school system, with an anti-secular media and we have no idea how radicalised (if at all) these Pakistani spouses are.
We should ban immigration on these spouses, especially if either British or Pakistani spouse is less than 26 years old. Certainly, this will help British Pakistan marry each other in this country. Most of these marriages are arranged, so we will not be standing in the way of true love!
Today, Pakistan is taking money from the American to fights its war in terror, but the army is in bed with the Taliban and Islamists. It is a cash cow for Pakistan’s corrupt army. They take money from Saudi to promote their radical brand of Islam.
I have no idea how these problems will be solved….
July 29th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
“Imagine for one minuite that Britain had not created Pakistan. Gandhi wanted peace and secularism. Can you imagine the world we world we would live in?. Do you think we would have faced problems of terrorism?”
I don’t think you can put all Britain’s terrorism problems down to Pakistan as (a) not all terrorists come from Pakistan or South Asia; and (b) coutries like Spain have terrorism problems and they have no historic connection with Pakistan or South Asia.