Muslim heads stuck firmly in the sand

Hassan Butt, a former jihadist, demands some fresh thinking

In the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings I remember having a passionate discussion with some friends about who was responsible for the attacks. “It’s the work of the security services; I can put my life on it!” one said. “In fact, I think they’ve killed off these guys, planted their stuff on the trains and then just blamed it on the Muslims again.” Then came a timid voice of opposition. “Shaf, I don’t think they’d kill their own people, I mean Tony Blair isn’t that evil. I think Mossad had a hand in it.”

The theories in the Muslim community were wide and varied: some believed the bombings were orchestrated by the Government in order to justify ever more draconian laws. Others believed it was near-impossible for four British-born Muslims to be behind such indiscriminate violence, so the first suicide attacks on British soil must have been the work of other terrorist organisations. Two years on I still hear the same conspiracy theories being clung to by a Muslim community that is living in a comforting state of denial.

Denial by definition is a psychological defence system by which people protect themselves from things that threaten them or make them feel uncomfortable. People do this by refusing to acknowledge the awkward person, thing or event, or by attacking any allegation of the existence of such difficulties.

I spent many years in the British Jihadi Network. While I was a member of that extremist group, I was told to encourage the spread of such theories because they created a useful, murky state of confusion. Propagating the idea that the Government was victimising Muslims by painting them as the bogeymen of the 21st century recruited young men to the radical camp.

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