What is "Londonistan"?
The title is drawn from the mocking reference coined by the French security services during the 1990s when they were in despair over the fact that the British had allowed into Britain large numbers of Islamic radicals and were doing nothing about them. The French warned the British repeatedly that such people were fermenting global Islamic terror and would turn into a terrible threat against Britain and against the West in general but were very frustrated by the fact that the British persistently turned a blind eye to this.
As a result the French coined the term "Londonistan". Londonistan was the derisory therefore to signify that Britain had turned into the most important European hub for the production, recruitment and dissemination of Islamic terrorism.
What has Britain done wrong to become this "European hub for the promotion, recruitment and financing of Islamist terror"? How has Britain got to this point?
There are two parts to this story of radicalisation in Britain to the jihad.
The first part is what I just said. A large number of Islamic radicals came into Britain during the 1990s. These people were people that had fought the Soviet Union and defeated them in Afghanistan and had been radicalised to the jihad as part of that process. They become too radical even for their own home countries and had found the most hospitable welcome in the world to be in Britain, particularly in London, where they poured in large numbers during the 1990s. Some intelligence experts even think that it was in London during this period that al-Qaida was forged from separate Islamic radical grievances into a global Islamic radical and terrorist movement.
Britain accepted them in such large numbers because of a number of factors: excessive regard for freedom of speech; a cynical view that today's terrorist is tomorrow's possible prime minister; a complete failure during that period to know anything about, let alone understand, the radicalisation that was going on in the Islamic world to the jihad; and a complete failure to grasp that this was going to turn into a threat against Britain and the west.
Insofar as anyone here knew about it, it was a phenomenon that was relegated to the Muslim and Arab world. This is, of course, a terrible intellectual error.
During this period there was also a complete breakdown of Britain's ability to control its borders, a complete breakdown of our procedures to control immigration and asylum. As a result, there were hundreds of thousands of people who the authorities had no track of, and so were unable to know who was in the country, and were unable to see who was dangerous and who was not.
This is exacerbated by the espousal of the English judiciary of minority rights or human rights doctrines, which meant that the courts persistently thwarted all attempts by the British government to remove from the country people that they thought were either illegal immigrants or a danger to the state.
The other half of the story was the radicalisation of British Muslims, which was going on again completely below the official radar. These were people, communities that came in the1980s from the Indian subcontinent and, unbeknownst to the British authorities, were being radicalised because their home communities, particularly in Pakistan, had been radicalised by Saudi Arabian wahhabism.
Consequently, when British Muslims immigrants set up religious institutions in the 1980s, these were run by and financed by wahhabi and other extremist jihadi ideologies, and consequently radicalised large numbers of British Muslims without anyone realising this process was going on.
How do you respond to the claims that British foreign policies and domestic social and economic disparities fuel the growing sense of alienation amongst British Muslims?
I don't think these are reasons at all. First of all, the socio-economic excuse is clearly absurd. The 7/7 bombers, who blew up London in July 2005, were middle class boys who had been to ordinary British schools and universities and had jobs and were to all intents and purposes pillars of the community, they were not deprived.
This man, Dhiren Barot, who was jailed very recently for 40 years as a senior al-Qaida figure engaged in plotting those appalling atrocities in Britain was a middle class Hindu convert.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, there is no doubt that the grievances around the world such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir - all variously active recruiting sergeants for the jihad - are used to incite hysteria.
However, the idea that British foreign policy is responsible is clearly absurd. The west and American interests were under attack from the jihad during the 1980s and 1990s, before even 9/11.
We can date this assault on the west in recent times to the revolution in Iran by Ayatollah Khomeini who declared war against the west on the grounds that the west had to been conquered for Islam. If you look at what the ideologues of the jihad said certainly they refer to all these grievances, these iconic disputes around the world, but the most important part of what they say is that the world has to be claimed for Islam and brought to Islam and that the medieval Islamic empire or Caliphate has to be re-established. Those are the aims of the jihad. To see that British foreign policy is responsible for this is clearly a-historically illiterate
In that sense, is terrorism in some way intrinsic to modern Islam?
No. I am not saying that at all. There is an interpretation of Islam, which is claimed to be authentic Islam which is driving the jihad. It is completely absurd not to see it as an Islamic jihad which is being waged against the west, in the name of Islam, it is being mandated by Islamic religions authorities and it is not seriously contested within the Arab and Muslim world.
However, it is not for me to say whether this is intrinsic to Islam to or not. Clearly there are many hundreds of thousands of British Muslims and many millions of Muslims around the world who do not subscribe to this interpretation of their religion. It is very important to remember, as I say repeatedly in my book, that there are many Muslims in Britain and elsewhere who have no truck with violence; indeed, Muslims are the most numerous victims of jihadi violence around the world. Nevertheless, all I can say as a journalist is that the dominant section in the Muslim and Arab world is the jihadi interpretation of the religion, which is driving the terror.
It is up to the Muslim world to decide whether the alternative interpretations of the religion are going to be successful in fighting this off.
Does the jihad have any motivations, political or otherwise, beyond ideology?
Islamic jihad is a fusion of religion and ideology, which makes it difficult for us in the west to deal with it. We don't really understand this fusion and how religion and political ideology work together. We find it difficult to deal with the political ideology part of it.
In your book, you say that “the British establishment is still failing to acknowledge what it is actually facing and take the appropriate actionâ€. What actions would you like the establishment to take?
I would like them to take on the ideology. The British establishment understands that it's facing a terrible terrorist threat. It has to intercept and thwart terrorist plots and break up terrorist cells, that is absolutely essential. What is failing to do is understand that terror is merely the product of something bigger that has to be fought.
The thing that has to be fought is the political ideology which is driving these people to do these terrible things. The British establishment refuses to acknowledge this. It is taking refuge in all these excuses to do with foreign policy or Islamophobia or discrimination. It is refusing to get to grips with the fact that unless it starts to take on the ideas that are driving the jihad, it is not going to get very far.
In my view, they should take it on in a number of different ways. First of all, at a rhetorical level, to say that the ideas that are driving this terrible jihad against the west are shared by a large number of Muslims who would not lend themselves at all to terror or violence but who, nevertheless, share these ideas; the idea, for example, that the west hopes to destroy Islam, that the Jews are the puppet masters of the west; that the Arab and Muslim world is the historic victim of the west; the idea that Israel is an illegitimate incursion into Arab and Muslim historic territory. These are false.
These ideas should be faced down in public. The people should be told that these ideas are simply wrong.
Then, the ideology of hatred and incitement to murder and overturning the west has to be fought. To that end, the British state must say that Muslims are very welcome to practise their religion, which is respected, but it has to be practised on the terms that are adopted by all other minority faiths, which is that while the state believes that they are welcome to set up communities of faith without interference by the state, the quid pro quo is that the minority faith makes no demands upon the state and on western society. That is the basis on which all minority faiths are accommodated in this country. Consequently, there can be no accommodation by the state to the demands made upon it by any minority faith. There can be no exceptions made to any minority faith. Those are the kind of ground rules that have to be laid down and administered.
In terms of integration, how does the UK stack up against European countries such as France and the Netherlands?
We have a very different approach to France and yet France is clearly also in significant difficulties with its Muslim minority.
Our approach is nearer to the Netherlands, which also has significant difficulties.
I think the doctrine of multiculturalism, which is not shared by France but is shared by the Netherlands, is a very important part of our problem because it basically has hollowed out British national identity and we can't fight the threat from outside if we are busy undermining our own culture and indeed no longer know or wish to defend what it is.
An American publisher was first to pick up the book. Only later, in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, did a British publisher get on board. Why has the book generated so much interest and met with such a positive reaction in the US?
People in the US have said to me in large numbers that although my book is absolutely about Britain, I am describing certain characteristics, which are very prevalent in America and which are disturbing them too, particularly the grip of multiculturalism and the minority rights culture, which seeks to equate all minority values in status with those of the majority culture, and therefore enable minorities of all kinds - racial, sexual, religious, ethnic - to undermine and attack the majority culture and national identity. There are many in America who feel that this is a very serious threat to American society and will in time undermine America as it attempts to defend itself from the external threat of the Islamic jihad.
Another reason is that they are very concerned by what has happened to Britain itself, because Britain is not only America's major ally, it is the mothership for American culture and where the concept of liberty at the heart of western civilisation and American culture was first formed. America is clearly the more dominant partner in this relationship, but, culturally-speaking, America still looks to Britain as a role model. These cultural difficulties that I am describing are of great concerns to Americans because they perceive that in time this will affect them too.
Are there any lessons for Britain to learn from the US in tackling terrorism?
I don't think that America is doing very well at all. America has very similar problems to us in acknowledging what we're all up against. Like us, America is very wary of wading into the issue of religion, even more so than us, because America doesn't have an established church, and separates Church and State very rigorously. It is even more wary than we are of tackling problems in a minority space. The American media is also very politically correct. There is a measure of censorship in an informal way.
What America has that Britain lacks is a cultural alternative to all this in terms of Fox News, talk radio, conservative think-tanks and publishing houses. There is actually a debate going on there.
I think we have more to learn from Australia, where John Howard has used his position as prime minister to mount the rhetorical defence of their country and their culture against the attack from the outside. John Howard has made it very clear that culture in Australia is being actively undermined by the politically correct educationists who are weakening the culture. He has lent his authority as prime minister to combating that and to saying very robustly that those Islamists who do not wish to live under the umbrella of Australian values have no business being in Australia. They have to live in accordance with the rules that obtain in Australia for all minorities, with no exceptions, that is after all the basis of non-discrimination.
That is were we have something to learn, from that robust approach.
