The Boyz in the (Brother) Hood

Well it seems that the boys are back in town. Osama, with his network of terrorist cells spread thoughout the world, has added another dimension to his organization: Homegrown terrorist cells.

Over the last eight months the security services of Britain and America, with assistance from Pakistani intelligence, have had a number of British Muslims, mostly young, educated men, under tight surveillance. This group of young men, brought together by their religion and their anger at Western foreign policy, were plotting to destroy a large number of commercial aircraft and huge numbers of innocent people. The plot has been well covered by the world's press, and it will be making headlines for some time to come. The repercussions will be felt around the world in terms of international travel and the increased security measures that will follow.

It would seem that the wars in the Middle-East have inspired a sort of "resistance" movement among young, alienated Muslims. They aspire to be a part of the great movement towards the re-establishment of the Caliphate, and the supremacy of Islam in this world. They see the wars in the Middle-East as a war against Islam, one that has been raging since the Crusades, and they are determined to carry that war forward.

Many disaffected youth in today's world seek purpose and identity. Street gangs flourish in the Americas, north and south, and offer their members a solidarity and comradeship that society at large cannot. The idea of living, and dying, for a cause is one that has long drawn young men to service at arms. Now we in the West are faced with a very serious problem. There are traitors among us, a homegrown insurgency, that have been inspired by the likes of Osama Bin Laden, and they are willing to live among us and hate us all the while.

I believe that the wars in the Middle-East have empowered terrorism. The fact that we are now faced with our own domestic terrorists, inspired and driven towards murderous and insane attacks on innocent people by the seemingly oppressive foreign policies of our governments, speaks to that point.

I have no solution to offer. Perhaps there is none. I believe that the real problem, and perhaps the only real solution, lies within Islam. Violent and dangerous factions, from street gangs to Al Qaida, from the IRA to Hezbollah, exist in a climate of fear. Their promised violence, and their willingness to use it, drive people into a state of fearful silence. Where organizations like this exist, from Belfast to Sao Paulo, from East Los Angeles to Beirut, and from Baghdad to Walthamstow, it is the silence of their communities that empower them. Only by rising against these insidious outfits, organizing protests and educating children, routing out the clerics and other leaders that seduce the young into violence and terror, will there ever be a solution.

Many Muslim community leaders have been interviewed, in Britain and around the world, and they all seem to say the same thing: The radical Islamists do not speak for the majority of Muslims. I would argue with that. I believe, in their actions, words, and clerical aspirations, that the Islamic extremists are indeed speaking for Islam. But this is not because they are right, it is because Islam itself has no real answer to the extremists in its' midst.

The solution lies with Islam. The problem, perhaps, lies with us all.