I was saddened but also completely unsurprised to find out that one of the bombers who took part in the massacre of 359 mostly Christian people in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday had a connection to Britain and to a British university. Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed who was a member of a nine member Islamic terror gang that murdered people in churches and hotels in Sri Lanka had previously lived in Britain and attended Kingston University in Surrey.
The Tab, a UK student newspaper, is reporting that various news sources are claiming that Mohamed the murderer (question why are so many murderers called ‘Mohammed’?) studied aerospace engineering at Kingston. Tab is also quoting the Daily Telegraph and saying that UK security agencies are now examining Mohamed’s time in Britain.
I can’t say that I am surprised by the revelations that this murderous Mohamed has had contacts in the UK and in particular a connection with a UK university. This is because the issue of Islamic extremism in Britain’s higher education system and in the Islamic Societies of these universities is an ongoing and serious problem.
Kingston University,where Mohamed is said to have studied has been criticised in the past for allowing extremism and especially Islamic extremism to be tolerated on campus. According to a report in the local newspaper for the area, the Surrey Comet from 2015, Kingston University was one of a number of institutions that had hosted extremist Islamic speakers. Of course the university denies this and gave the Surrey Comet a bland statement about how they were a ‘multicultural institution’ which didn’t tolerate ‘hate’. Kingston University put out the usual guff about complying with the government’s PREVENT policy and that all speakers had to abide by their ‘equality’ policies. These are fine words but if it turns out that Mohamed had been radicalised either in whole or in part by his time at Kingston then they are very empty words. I have come across too many incidents where Islamic extremists have been given a free pass by university administrators who fear rocking the boat, for me to be able to take Kingston’s words entirely on trust.
The Surrey Comet in 2015 said:
Kingston University has been named by the Prime Minister as one of the leading universities to give a platform to extremists.
David Cameron announced a new legal duty yesterday on institutions to “protect impressionable young minds”.
He identified four universities as holding the most events featuring hate speakers – Kingston University, King’s College London, University of London’s Queen Mary and School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
Mr Cameron said: “All public institutions have a role to play in rooting out and challenging extremism. It is not about oppressing free speech or stifling academic freedom, it is about making sure that radical views and ideas are not given the oxygen they need to flourish.”
As someone who has observed the burgeoning Islamic extremist scene in the UK for a while I’m not that shocked that places like Queen Mary and SOAS are listed as places where Islamic extremists are included as they have long been hotbeds of radical Islam and have spawned Islamic groups that have infiltrated our governing system. It is incredibly worrying and concerning to see this extremism occurring at places like Kingston, which should have looked at what was happening elsewhere and prevented it happening at their institution. However, what might have happened at Kingston with regards to Mohamed is that complacency, a fear of administrators being called ‘racist’ along with political correctness and a desire to not stir up ‘unnecessary’ strife, is what seems to have happened at other institutions as well. For example: Mohammed Emwazi the ISIS executioner known as ‘Jihadi John’ was part of a network of Islamic extremists that attended the University of Westminster. It is not therefore beyond the bounds of possibility that the murderous Mohamed who was involved in the Sri Lanka attacks, could have been radicalised at either a British or later an Australian college by a similar network of radicals.
It is a sign of how bad things are in Britain that so many Islamic radical groups have been left unmolested by the State and other institutions for so long. If there is a connection between Mohamed the murderer and the United Kingdom with regards radicalisation then the ‘hands off’ policy of government’s such as that of John Major, of leaving alone those Islamic radicals, who only promote jihad overseas and do not promote terror here in the UK, has been shown to be an abject failure.
If the connections between British seats of learning and this latest murderer called ‘Mohamed’ can be proven then it shows that few of the anti extremism measures brought in over the last two decades have worked that well. In the UK extremists can still hide behind policies designed to foster ‘tolerance’ and also move freely between different Islamic communities radicalising their way as they go. There should be no more tolerance for an ideology that shows that it is inextricably linked to the sort of violent intolerance that caused the deaths of so many people on the island of Sri Lanka. Without making groups like Islamic Societies in colleges fearful of state intervention the cancer of Islamic extremism will continue to grow.
Appendix
There was an interesting comment made below the line in the above-mentioned Surrey Comet article from someone who challenged the claim that all was rosy in the happy clappy multikulti world of Kingston University. I have copied it below for those who may be interested in it.
drhowardfredrics 19th September 2015 2:23 pm
21 Kingston has a very long history of closely associating with extremists. In 2006, they hired Zafar Ali, chair of the governors of the Iqra Islamic Primary School in Slough, which was found to be a front for Hizb ut Tahrir Islamist indoctrination, and which therefore lost its public funding. Mr. Ali was hired to investigate a Jewish member of staff on trumped up charges, which he was all too happy to support through his various increasingly critical versions of his supposedly independent report.
Mr. Ali is not only associated with such extremism, but he is also someone who was forced out of the Labour party when he was caught red handed manufacturing non-existent “ghost” voters, and he was also head of the Slough CAB, which was closed down after an investigation of 107 complaints was upheld. During the investigation, the offices of the CAB mysteriously burned down, destroying its records. Hmmmmmm.
Furthermore, Kingston has been named in a 2003 BBC Newsnight report on extremism on campuses, as permitting open recruitment by extremist groups.
They are a danger to national security and should be shut down permanently.
Last Updated: 29th September 2015 8:05 pm
