Britain blamed for Muslim terrorist in Sweden

The headline in the Telegraph says:

Stockholm bomber: family blame Britain for radicalisation

The family of the Stockholm suicide bomber last night blamed Britain for his transformation from an “ordinary teenager” to an al-Qaeda fanatic.

That statement is not supported in the article. The article does not quote the parents or other relatives of the bomber Taimur al-Abdaly. The closest the story comes to the claim made in the headline is:

A close friend said the family had been shocked by his transformation from an ordinary teenager to a religious fanatic after he left for Britain.

That is not “blaming Britain.” In fact, the only people in the story who are blaming Britain are the headline writer and the reporters, Martin Evans, Gordon Rayner, and Andy Bloxham, who write:

Abdulwahab’s radicalisation during his time in Luton once again raised questions over whether British universities are doing enough to stamp out the recruiting of extremists on campus.

See? The problem is not Muslims, Islam, or Islamic extremism. The problem is Britain and its institutions which are not doing enough to “stamp out the recruiting of extremists.”

Of course it’s true that Britain is not doing enough to stamp out Islamic extremism in Britain (which, by the way, it could only do by removing Muslim extremists from Britain). But to blame Britain for the existence of Islamic extremism, rather than Islamic extremists, is the sort of mental perversion that in all of history has only existed in the modern liberal West.

* * *

Another thing. The opening of the article makes it sound as though al-Abdaly was a fine young fellow his whole life until he went to Britain and was radicalized. In fact, his radicalization occurred in 2001. He’s been a radical for nine years. And his family and friends in Sweden have known about this for nine years and apparently have done nothing about it. But somehow, according to the Telegraph, it’s the fault of “Britain” that he was a terrorist.

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December 14

S.P. Cass writes:

Britain’s BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 television news programmes coincidentally followed the same line viz the Swedish/Iraqi/British Muslim suicide bomber, which was to focus attention (and implicit praise) on the Luton Mosque that (supposedly) banned bomber Taimur al-Abdaly from its congregation because of his radical stance. Oh, yes, I listened hard but didn’t once hear any of the newsmen/women utter the Islam word. Was that a coincidence too?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 13, 2010 06:20 PM | Send