Tuesday, August 31, 2010

"Foreign policy"? "Stereotyping"? Fuggedaboutit. It's Hate Fueled by Doctrines of Jihad, Babycakes

Margaret Wente opines re the "downtrodden" homegrown:
The most disturbing fact about the terrorism charge laid against Khurram Sher is not that he’s so different from the rest of us but that he’s so much like us. The guy could be your favourite son-in-law or your nicest neighbour – a smart, successful, considerate young doctor with three kids and a heart of gold. “Khurram wouldn’t hurt a fly,” insisted one long-time colleague.

Dr. Sher (who is, of course, innocent until proved guilty) is one of three men arrested last week and charged with conspiracy to facilitate an act of terrorism. He doesn’t fit our mental picture of a would-be terrorist. He’s not a disaffected kid who fell in with the wrong crowd. He’s not a hate-filled product of poverty and disadvantage. He’s not even a second-class citizen, such as France’s French-born Muslims who speak with perfect Parisian accents but will never break into the elites. Instead, Dr. Sher’s the product of Canada’s uniquely successful multicultural meritocracy – a homegrown, ball-hockey-playing, fun-loving fellow who zipped through one of the toughest med schools in the country and made fun of religious Muslims on Canadian Idol.

Oh, well, so much for stereotypes. The depressing truth is that radicalized Muslims in the West often work in medicine, engineering or computer science. According to terrorism expert Marc Sageman, they’re typically highly educated family men. They’re quite sane. And they may not even be particularly religious.

It’s nice to think that the roots of domestic radicalization must lie in discrimination, ignorance or social disadvantage. After all, that’s something we can try to fix. But how do we fix this? How do we dissuade fully integrated Canadians from rejecting the essence of what Canada is all about?

Some people have the answer. It’s our foreign policy, stupid! If only we stopped waging war in Afghanistan, kowtowing to the imperialist Americans and sucking up to Israel, then people wouldn’t get so riled up they’d want to blow up Parliament. “The solution is … to stop being in denial that there is no connection between the wars we wage and the terrorist mayhem that they trigger,” pronounced the Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui (among others). In other words, it, too, is our fault...
I know. Maybe Muslim leaders can issue statements to try to soothe the frayed nerves of kafirs weary of seeminlgy endless jihadi terrrorist plots defuse (pun intended) the situation. Yeah, that should do it.

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