This essay was published in the Observer, 28 May 2017, under the headline ‘How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism?’
Were I 20 today, would I be attracted to Islamism or desire to become a soldier of Islamic State? It seems shocking, even insulting, especially to those who lost their lives in the Manchester Arena on Monday night, just to ask that question. It seems more shocking still not simply to give a resounding ‘No’ as an answer, and then move on.
It is not, however, such a deranged question. True, I have spent most of my adult life pushing back against Islamism. I have described jihadists as degenerate and barbarous. I would find it unimaginable to don a suicide vest under any circumstances, let alone at a teenage concert.
Yet, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I was as angry and disengaged as many young Muslims are now. So were many of my peers. Why did we not end up like Salman Abedi, the suicide bomber at the Manchester Arena or Mohammad Sidique Khan, the ringleader of the 7/7 bombings in London?
One answer may be that, as an individual, I possess a moral compass that Abedi or Khan did not, a moral compass that guides me away from such ideologies, and from committing such barbarous acts. That may be a comforting thought for me, but the problem cannot be dismissed so simply. The difference is not just one of individual morality; it is generational, too. Mine was a generation in which anger and disaffection was expressed very differently to that of today’s generation. My story, and the contrast it presents with the stories of today’s generation, may help reveal some of the reasons that Salman Abedi or Mohammad Sidique Khan could act as they did.
I grew up in south Manchester, just as Salman Abedi did. But my Manchester was very different from Abedi’s. Racism in the 1970s was woven into the fabric of British society in a way unimaginable now. ‘Paki bashing’ was a national sport. Stabbings were common, firebombings of Asian houses almost weekly events, murders not uncommon.
I attended largely white schools. My main memory is of being involved almost daily in fights with racists, and of how normal it seemed to come home with a bruised lip or a black eye. And if you reported a racist attack to the police they were as likely to arrest you as they were the racist. From union leaders conspiring with management to keep out black and Asian workers to immigration officers conducting ‘virginity tests’ on Asian women, racism was open, vicious and raw.
I felt real fury at a society that would not embrace me as an equal, legitimate citizen. But it was a very different kind of anger to that which many young Muslims feel now, and the ways of expressing it were even more distinct.
My fury towards Britain was not expressed through the prism of being ‘Muslim’. Partly this was because I was not religious. But partly also because few, even believers, adopted ‘Muslim’ as a public identity. We thought of ourselves as ‘Asian’, or ‘black’, but these were political, not ethnic or cultural, labels.
The institutions that shaped what are now called ‘Muslim communities’ were not mosques, but secular and political organizations such as the Indian Workers Association and the Asian Youth Movements. The struggles of Asian communities were intimately bound up with wider working class struggles. Migrant workers were at the forefront of industrial action, from the first significant postwar ‘immigrant strike’ strike at Red Scar Mill, near Preston, Lancashire, when Asian workers took action against the practice of forcing non-white workers to work more machines for less pay, to Grunwick, in London, where in 1976 black and Asian women went on strike for more than a year, demanding union recognition. In these struggles, union officials often backed management against black and Asian workers; Grunwick was the first dispute of black workers that attracted mass support from the trade union movement.
This history provided the grounding for the struggles of my generation. We recognized, almost without thinking about it, the commonality of values, hopes and aspirations that bound together Asians, blacks and whites. Organizations of the left and of the labour movement offered us the vehicles to give grievance a political form, and the mechanisms for turning disaffection into the fuel of social change.
I was drawn towards politics by my experience of racism. Politics made me see beyond the narrow confines of racism. I came to learn that there was more to social justice than the injustices done to me, and that a person’s skin colour, ethnicity or culture was no guide to the validity of his or her political beliefs. Through politics, I was introduced to the ideas of the Enlightenment, and to concepts of a common humanity and universal rights. I discovered the writings of Marx and Mill, Kant and Locke, Paine and Condorcet, Frantz Fanon and CLR James.
Today the picture is very different. The kind of raw racism that defined Britain thirty or forty years ago is barely visible. Racism exists, of course, and Muslims are often the targets of such bigotry, but the visceral racism of the Britain of my youth is thankfully rarely seen.
Equally importantly has been the transformation in what it means to be disaffected. The kinds of campaigns and organizations with which I was involved have either disintegrated or seem out of touch. It is not progressive politics that gives shape to contemporary disaffection but the politics of identity, which over the past three decades has encouraged people to define themselves in increasingly narrow ethnic or cultural terms.
Seeing myself as ‘black’ provided for me the entry to a wider set of struggles, and to a broader vision of the world. For today’s ‘radicals’, Muslim identity has become a cage of separation from other struggles and other peoples, even from other Muslims.
In the case of Salman Abedi, much has been made of the role of Didsbury Mosque, where he prayed. The full story of his relationship with the mosque is yet to be understood. Most homegrown jihadis are, however, as estranged from Muslim communities as they are from wider society. Most detest the mores and traditions of their parents, have little time for mainstream forms of Islam, and cut themselves off from traditional community institutions. It is in Salafism, the fanatically intolerant form of Islam, promoted primarily through Saudi riches, that jihadists find their identity. It is an outlook that leads a believer to look at a group of teenage girls and see a ‘gathering of Crusaders’, as the IS statement boasting of the Manchester Arena bombing described the audience at the Ariana Grande concert.
As the character of identity has changed, so has the meaning of solidarity. For my generation, ‘solidarity’ was inextricably bound up with working class struggles. Today those struggles have disappeared, the influence of trade unions have eroded, as has the power of the left.
Today’s angry young Islamists are not interested in the fight against austerity, or the defence of the NHS, or even in the struggle against racism. They are obsessed, rather, in showing solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Chechnya, Libya and Syria. In an age in which anti-imperialist movements have faded, and belief in alternatives to capitalism dissolved, radical Islam provides the illusion of being part of a global movement for change.
But even here, Muslim radicals rarely know much of the actual freedom struggles. The people of Palestine or Chechnya or Syria are seen merely as symbols of oppression. Jihadists are outraged at Western intervention in Muslim countries while also bombing schools and mosques and markets in those same countries. The ‘internationalism’ of radical Islam is itself a means of creating an intensely narrow vision, of cutting itself off from broader struggles.
A generation ago, today’s ‘radicalized’ Muslims would probably have been far more secular in their outlook, and their radicalism would have expressed itself through political organizations. They would have regarded their faith as simply one strand in a complex tapestry of self-identity. Most Muslims still do. There is, however, a growing number that see themselves as Muslims in a deeply tribal sense, for whom the richness of the tapestry of self has given way to an all-encompassing monochrome cloak of faith.
Perhaps the question to ask is not ‘Were I 20 today, would I be attracted to Islamism?’ but rather ‘Had Salman Abedi or Mohammad Sidique Khan been born a generation earlier, would they have rejected Islamism?’ It is impossible to answer that, of course, but in asking that question, we can begin to tease out some of the social reasons for Abedis and the Khans of this world becoming as they are.
I am not suggesting that anyone apart from Salman Abedi (and his co-conspirators, if there are any) bear responsibility for the carnage at the Manchester Arena. The reflex response to anyone digging deeper into the motives of jihadists is to denounce them as ‘apologists’. Witness the Tory onslaught against Jeremy Corbyn for what was a largely innocuous speech on Friday. What I am saying, however, is that while individuals bear responsibility for their acts, they also act within particular social contexts. If we are serious about combating the scourge of homegrown jihadism, we need not just to denounce jihadists as evil, but also to look at how the shifting social landscape has given them space to act as they do – and at how we can remake that landscape.
The paintings are all of Manchester. From top down, ‘When Dreams Take Shape’ by Cathy Read; William Turner’s ‘In the City’; and ‘Going Home’ by Dave Coulter.
Pandaemonium 
What in the name of God is “the changing social landscape”? What is ‘social’ in this context that gives British – yes full British citizens – some alibi to turn little girls into flying mincemeat? To consign whole families to everlasting Hell in their very own ‘social landscape’.
But perhaps this is an upgrade from your old ‘identities are fluid’ discourse?
Some vague, attenuated ‘ there but the grace of God go I’ is up there on a par with the blabbering, drooling, prating gibberish oozing like debauched moral diarrhoea from the we are united/stop the hate/carry on as usual brigade.
Is it your view that British society in 2017 is the same as British society was in 1980? Or is it that you object to the use of metaphoric language?
I have no idea what question it is that you’re asking. I know that you are familiar with my views about Islamism and jihadism. But, just in case you’ve forgotten, a few reminders:
‘Every terror attack is barbarous. To set out deliberately to inflict mass murder upon a group of children is truly unconscionable. The Islamic State statement claiming responsibility for the attack boastedof ‘placing explosive devices in the midst of the gatherings of Crusaders’. It would seem surreally absurd were it not so painfully raw.’
The jihadi state of mind
‘What the terrorists despised, what they tried to eliminate, were ordinary people, drinking, eating, laughing, mixing. That is what they hated – not so much the French state as the values of diversity and pluralism.’
After Paris
‘Faced with a horror such as the slaughter of 148 schoolchildren and staff by the Taliban in Pakistan, it is tempting to describe the act as ‘inhuman’ or ‘medieval’. What made the massacre particularly chilling, though, is that it was neither. The killings were all too human and of our time… If such horrors are neither inhuman nor medieval, there is something else that seems to bind these acts together. All were carried out in the name of Islam. Why is it, many ask, that so many of today’s most monstrous conflicts appear to involve Islam? And why do Islamist groups seem so much more vicious, sadistic, even evil?’
Radical Islam and the rage against modernity
‘It was a mad, barbarous attack, more akin to a particularly savage form of street violence than to a politically motivated act. What was striking about the incident was not just its depravity but the desire of the murderers for that depravity to be captured on film. This was narcissistic horror, an attempt to create a spectacle, enact a performance, and generate media frenzy.’
Reflections on Woolwich
‘It is important that we mark the sheer inhumanity of jihadi acts. It is equally important, though, not to dismiss them as ‘inexplicable’, or to view evil as just an eternal part of human nature.’
Evil and the Islamic State
Nobody is forcing you to wade through all this ‘blabbering, drooling, prating gibberish oozing like debauched moral diarrhoea’. Just stop reading my articles if they so offend you. Though I might add that if you are going to accuse someone of ‘blabbering, drooling’, etc, it might help not to be blabbering and drooling yourself.
Touche! And salutations for an answer in kind!
This is not a game, or a debating society event. I’ve no desire to ‘answer in kind’. I do think, however, that it’s an issue that needs proper thought and debate, not instant, unreflective outrage.
I want to thank you for an excellent analysis of the current situation. The situation in the US is exasperating the situation regarding identity politics and its influence on Muslims in the UK the upshot of which is further isolating and fragmenting Muslims. It’s got to the point where Muslims are beginning to debate if white people can be Muslims due to white privilege, racism, Islamaphobia and Britain’s colonial heritage. Then there’s the issue of appropriation – how can white muslims be Muslim re cultural appropriation. The list goes on. the impact is to further isolate and divide.
It’s hard to imagine a past where religion was incidental to identity and nominal muslims took leading roles in their communities. Is there a way back or are we resigned to moderate, progressive and other reform-minded muslims arguing for shariah-lite as our only way forward?
Grievances certain Arab countries are , in my opinion ,encouraged to be viewed through the ” religious prism” by the state: Stressing its religiosity to appease the “Arab Street”, the state
allows municipalities to broadcast on loud speakers the call to prayer five times a day and Coranic songs all day Friday. Living in such community makes onone feel there is an obsession with religion and one can’t object to this practice for fear of retribution and being ostracized in his or her community. Why can’t religious practice return to the days when it was discreet and personal so people can focus on more important issues in their lives.
There seems to be a slight conflation in your analysis of the salafi politics of identity with the overlapping but distinct political project of Islamism in which young Muslims are now invited to enlist. (I understand that certain simplifications are necessary due to space restrictions.)
Your somewhat nostalgic recollection of the more wholesome radicalism of your youth omits the fact that, on the European continent, a minority of radicals did engage in terrorism, committed by young misguided idealists attempting to further a utopian ideology, either independently or in concert with Marxist PLO factions and international terror operatives. The communist project collapsed post-1989 and the Islamist variant – also grievance-based, totalitarian, utopian, and adoptive of proxy struggles in Palestine and elsewhere – has provided an alternative outlet to those seeking simple utopian solutions to complicated political and geopolitical problems. The appeal of millenarian political ideologies provides a link between the radicalism of the New Left and the radicalism of today’s Muslim youth and their excuse-makers.
I’m not saying that the above supersedes the thoughtful analysis you offer, but it does complicate and complement it and bears mention, I think.
While I disagree with some aspects of your article, it would be ridiculous and unserious for anyone to accuse you of terror apologism for what you have written here. But, while I’m not a Tory, I’m afraid I did not find Corbyn’s speech to be especially innocuous (although it strains to appear so). Taken in the context of Corbyn’s previous statements about terror and the West, and what we know about his politics more broadly, it is not hard to discern the political message peeking out from among the inane platitudes: that liberal democracies’ have brought the furious rage of Islamist terror upon themselves.
Jamie
First, I have never denied that political terrorism has a long history. Indeed central to my argument is the difference between terrorism in the past, as used by the IRA or the PLO, and Islamist terrorism today. As I observed in a recent talk I gave on the ‘Jihadi state of mind’:
‘In the past, groups employing terror, whether the IRA or the PLO, were driven by specific political aims – a united Ireland or an independent Palestine… There was generally a close relationship between the organization’s political cause and its violent activities. And, whatever one thinks of such groups, those activities were governed by certain norms and contained a rational kernel. Jihadis, on the other hand, have no explicit political aim, no defined membership, no leadership exercising control. An act of terror is not related to a political demand. It is simply an act designed to terrorize for the sake of causing terror. Many civilians were certainly killed through IRA violence, but, unlike jihadis, the starting point of the IRA was not the mere killing of random individuals.’
Second, yes, there were groups such as the Red Army Faction and The Angry Brigade, which used terror not to relize specific political goal but in a much more nihilist sense. Such groups, in a certain way, prefigured both the disintegration of the left and the kind of terror that we now see almost as the norm. Groups such as the Red Army Faction and The Angry Brigade were, however, marginal in the extreme. What we are now witnessing is a new phenomenon.
Again, and since you know my work I know you are aware of this, I have long argued against the idea that contemporary terror is driven by Western foreign policy. Again as I observed in my recent talk:
‘I am deeply critical of many aspects of the foreign policies of Western powers. But the argument that Western policy explain jihadi violence makes little sense. Western governments were intervening in Muslim-majority countries long before Osama bin Laden took to a cave in Afghanistan, let alone the Islamic State began its brutal rule in swathes of Iraq and Syria. From Winston Churchill ordering the use of mustard gas against Iraqi rebels in the 1920s, to the CIA engineering a coup against the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran in 1953, to the brutal attempt by the French to suppress the Algerian independence movement in late 1950s, to Western backing for Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran in the 1980s – there is a long history of such intervention. There is also a long history of resistance, often violent resistance, to such intervention, and often violent resistance. But specifically Islamic opposition is relatively new, and nihilistic terrorism newer still.’
Corbyn has promoted the argument that Western policy explain jihadi violence makes little sense. But in this speech he was not saying that. Rather he made the point that Western intervention has helped create a social void in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa into which IS has been able to move. Perhaps ‘it is not hard to discern the political message peeking out from among the inane platitudes’. But just as I criticize Corbyn, and others, for making unsustainable claims about the causes of terrorism, I think also that to read this speech simply in the way you do is problematic, too.
So basically, in a nutshell it’s the indigenous white man’s fault for being inately racist and evil, and without a strong, political leftist organisation to help facilitate Muslim, fifth column traitors and their spoilt, entitled views, we should only be willing to accept more dead kids and mass Muslim grooming? I see.
So basically, in a nutshell, you will always read what you want to read. Anything I might have written (except, perhaps, ‘All Muslims are evil’) would undoubtedly have elicited the same response from you. Thankfully, there are many people who don’t read every article with their minds already made up as to what it’s about.
Kenan: This is just an awesome response. Kudos! (I know this is not a debating game, and I did think your post and analysis was very thoughtful and perceptive. Thanks!)
Am I usual in deploring the massive coverage given by the media to jihadi attacks, on the grounds that this is giving the jihadis exactly what they want; fame, publicity, outrage, and the display of suffering?
I would also like to hear more from you about Salafist influence. I know how this is being backed with Saudi money, and how successful it has been in presenting itself to the outside world as the authentic voice of Islam (readers may remember its involvement in the ill-judged attempt by the Law Society of London to offer advice on drawing up wills consistent which sharia law). However, I do not see how terrorism in the UK promotes either Salafist or Saudi interests.
If there was no media coverage, the racist right would be howling that the “liberal media” is “hiding” Islamic terror. c.f. Trump and his nonexistent Swedish attacks.
Given the universal “If it bleeds, it leads” ethos of the mass media for generations, how can one expect such media to not exhaustively cover such attacks?