Normally when the words British and jihadi are used in the same sentence, the reference is to what the United Nations calls "foreign terrorist fighters". That is, westerners who left their countries to fight for ISIL in Syria.
But on Sunday, a prominent UK politician suggested a link between Britain and a different sort of jihad. Commenting on the heightened sensibilities aroused by the British referendum to leave the European Union, Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrat party said, "we haven't yet heard about 'Brexit jihadis' but there is an undercurrent of violence in the language which is troubling."
It was probably one of the more high-profile attempts by a western politician to examine political extremism of different kinds and discern the common thread that runs through them. A couple of months ago, Tony Blair's former spin doctor was castigated for tweeting about "Brextremists" and the way they spew "hate". But Mr Cable's remarks may be more significant by far. He heads Britain's third party and is a veteran who has been in active politics since the 1970s. It is noteworthy that he sees jihadism as radicalisation of any sort, rather than that simply caused by a perversion of one faith, Islam.
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Before Brexiteers start to bristle at their project being equated with murderous violence in service of Islam, consider this. In early November, Britain's second biggest-selling daily newspaper attacked a court ruling on Brexit with front-page pictures of the three judges alongside the headline, "enemies of the people". Within hours of its publication, Brexit supporters took to social media to call for the judges to be publicly executed and for the main litigant in the case, a foreign-born, brown-skinned woman, to be murdered. The scion of a noble family offered £5,000 on Facebook to "the first person to 'accidentally' run over this bloody troublesome first generation immigrant."
It is a given that social media often provokes, even encourages, extreme commentary and behaviour, but the menacing attempt by sections of the Brexit brigade to throttle dissent by threats and imprecations is a classic manifestation of radicalisation. This is what Mr Cable meant when he spoke of the Brexit jihadis of the future.
The realisation that anyone, from any community, can be radicalised, is important. It has profound policy implications. It confirms a new wave of analysis that views ISIL more as a gang of young people driven by the identity politics of victimisation than as a religious or ideological movement.
This is borne out by a new study for the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Center. It found that young Muslim jihadis see their faith "in terms of justice and injustice rather than in terms of piety and spirituality". The study, conducted by Professor Hamed El Said of Manchester Metropolitan University and British terrorism expert Richard Barrett, noted that the majority of foreign terrorist fighters interviewed "felt a duty to go to Syria in order to defend what they perceived as their in-group". Many were religious novices, the researchers said, and lacked even a basic understanding of the Islamic faith. A substantial number of fighters did not know how to pray. But they felt a strong sense of community and a raging sense of injustice.
This chimes with a theory put forward last year by Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist, sociologist and a former CIA case officer, in his book Misunderstanding Terrorism. Communities aren't enablers or facilitators of radicalisation but they can be the reason for it, Mr Sageman found, after studying 34 campaigns of political violence over 200 years. In other words, men or women may decide to attack a system if they think it is failing their people. In 80 per cent of the campaigns of political violence Mr Sageman examined, people became militant – in word or deed – when they felt their community was threatened in some way.
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The alt-right jihad, with Donald Trump espousing some of its main grievances, is a case in point. In the words of an American columnist, "the new Whiny Right (is fighting to protect) the waning power of whiteness, privilege, patriarchy, access, and the cultural and economic surety that accrues to the possessors of such."
Their perceived victim status is akin to that of misguided youths who happen to be born Muslim and are sufficiently enraged by the state of their community to fight a distant war.
And that victim status is echoed in the ill-tempered, ill-logic of Brexit hardliners. Aggressively touting their sense of ill-usage in relation to the European Union, they argue against all available facts, statistics, expert opinion and economic projections and insist that Britain need only leave the European straitjacket in order to be great again.
Clearly, one does not have to be born into any particular faith to wage a jihad. In an age of mobility and ceaseless change, it is enough to believe it’s Us versus Them and that radical means are justified.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
CONFIRMED%20LINE-UP
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Company Profile
Company name: NutriCal
Started: 2019
Founder: Soniya Ashar
Based: Dubai
Industry: Food Technology
Initial investment: Self-funded undisclosed amount
Future plan: Looking to raise fresh capital and expand in Saudi Arabia
Total Clients: Over 50
How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
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Key 2013/14 UAE Motorsport dates
October 4: Round One of Rotax Max Challenge, Al Ain (karting)
October 1: 1 Round One of the inaugural UAE Desert Championship (rally)
November 1-3: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (Formula One)
November 28-30: Dubai International Rally
January 9-11: 24Hrs of Dubai (Touring Cars / Endurance)
March 21: Round 11 of Rotax Max Challenge, Muscat, Oman (karting)
April 4-10: Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge (Endurance)
More on animal trafficking
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills