In A Word: Islam

"We have to deal with the threat of foreign fighters planning attacks against our people."
"And let's be frank: it's not poverty, though of course our nations are united in tackling deprivation wherever it exists."
"It's not exclusion from the mainstream. Of course we have more to do but we are both successful multicultural democracies where opportunities abound."
"No, the root cause of the challenge we face is the extremist narrative. So we must confront this extremism in all its forms. We must ban extremist preachers from our countries. We must root out extremism from our schools, universities and prisons."
British Prime Minister David Cameron

1 / 1

These young British men featured in an Isis video urging Islamists in the West to join them in Iraq and Syria. About 30 British jihadists are believed to have died fighting alongside IS (Reuters)

Oh, well, as root causes go, that's explicable, then. It's extremism, without a doubt. But what kind of extremism? The explanation lacks something. The word Islam, Islamic, Muslim, Islamism, jihad, Islamofascists, never mentioned. Forbidden in polite society. How to get around the inconvenience of having to name a menace when its source is a religion practised by the innocent and the fundamentalist lunatics alike? Never mind, the narrative was suitably and sensitively lib-left.

Well, call it like it is. "Extremism" will do then in certain circles. Extremists are a right royal pain in the arse. Fundamentalists, extremists, they suffer a type of pathology, perverting and corrupting the ordinary into the extraordinary, making it exceptional in the sense that it becomes a mountain of grievance and threat and burgeoning hatred which must have its expression in verbal or physical violence. In this instance, however, the template is there, in Islam.

Mr. Cameron turned linguistic somersaults in attempting to avoid giving offense and the result was fairly shallow and very unconvincing. But the danger is there, the threat that terrorizes everyone from ordinary citizen be they Christian, Muslim or Jew or Hindu, and governments as well. The enigma is in discovering a method of prevention, as though someone might invent an expiration date on hatred and violence and terror.

Solutions are evasive because human nature is so unpredictable. But since there must be a start, the United Kingdom will henceforth strip teenage jihadists of passports and bar airlines from landing in the U.K. should they fail to be diligent about their passenger lists. Over 500 Britons have so far been estimated to have left the country for Iraq and Syria to fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham. Of that number half are held to have returned to England.

2014 - June   Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. AP

Like having a loaded pistol in the bedroom, under one's pillow; most discomfiting.

About 200 people have been arrested, charged with posing a terror threat in the past year. "Temporary exclusion orders" will now be enforced where those travelling to fight in Syria and Iraq will be considered unBritish, placed on a "no fly list", and permitted return after two years' probation as it were. On their return they must submit to conditions including curfew and surveillance. Exclusion orders can be renewed after two years, as well.

When these new rules were first bruited about, the former attorney general of the U.K. considered it a "non starter"; forcing statelessness upon anyone is specifically banned as a human rights abuse by the United Nations. The new rules have attempted to temper the situation by allowing for return after a period of time has elapsed during which it is hoped that the malevolent effects of jihad will have worn off while the stateless person pines for the comforts of British life.

The new laws will permit police and border officials at airports seizure of suspected terrorists' passports. Those under 18 will have passports confiscated on the spot. A growing number of jihadist teenagers have alarmed security services. Among them a set of 16-year-old twins, Salma and Zahra Halane, who distinguished themselves academically and then flew off to Syria from Manchester, to marry ISIS fighters.

Salma (top) and Zahra Halane (bottom), who last summer achieved 28 GCSEs between them, left their parents’ home in the middle of the night and caught a flight to Turkey, before crossing the border