The Parsons Green Outrage: Searching for Explanations

We all agree: it could have been worse. If the Parsons Green Tube bomb had been better constructed, we would have seen a tube carriage full of corpses, rather than the scores of people injured by flame. It is a relief to me that two men have been arrested, one in Dover and another here in Hounslow. If these two alleged perpetrators are brought to trial, it will be a relief we all share. Our present sympathies, of course, go out to the victims and to Ronald and Penelope Jones, M.B.E., who are believed to have fostered an 18-year old, allegedly one of the two men arrested.
This is the fourth terrorist incident in the capital this year, but differs in some ways from the others. No-one was killed, more by luck than judgement. A timer device was used for the first time with the IED on the tube train. Also, the attack was unusual in that the attacker left the scene before the bomb exploded; usually, they explode the bomb themselves in a suicide attack, as with the Manchester Arena and 7/7 bombings. This might indicate a change in tactics by ISIS/Daesh; they might have realised that suicide bombings are somewhat wasteful of manpower - especially when you're losing a war elsewhere.
What we are not doing, I believe, is questioning whether or not our analyses of the motivation for these attacks are correct. I don't claim to have the answer, but I believe that some of the current views, held by different shades of political opinion, bear closer examination and evaluation.
We hear a good deal about the government de-radicalisation programme, but little about its effectiveness. According to The Guardian in 2016:
"Almost 4,000 people were referred to the UK government’s flagship counter-terrorism scheme last year (2015) – nearly triple the figure in the previous year, and an average of 11 people a day".
This is done with good intent, but did not prevent terrorist attacks this year. In the same 2016 article, The Guardian noted:
"In October last year, a 14-year-old boy from Blackburn who had been on the deradicalisation programme was jailed for life for plotting the Anzac day beheading of Australian police officers. Worried school staff had referred the boy, who cannot be named, to Channel in 2013 but caseworkers were forced to call in police when the boy paid only “lip service” to their efforts, the judge said in sentencing."
This is not to say that the programme is ineffectual, but it does point to a weakness in the thinking behind it. It is based on the conservative thesis that revolutions, strikes, unrest, terrorism are all stirred up by a small minority of troublemakers that people blindly follow: "All we like sheep are gone astray", as it says in The Old Testament. This simple-minded view takes a very patronising attitude of human beings who, apparently, cannot think or act for themselves. So then, rather like naughty children who just need a good talking-to, a de-radicalisation programme will sort out these deluded individuals. However, we are not dealing with naughty children. While de-radicalisation may prove successful in many cases, it may actually cause more dedicated Jihadis (or Fascists, Anarchists, etc...) to become even more determined in their radical views. No-one likes being talked down to, and it is perfectly possible to undergo ideological re-programming without changing your opinions. Just because you are in a room with a proponent of a differing view does not mean you have to listen to them, still less agree.
From the Left, we get a different perspective on these events. Stop the War Coalition have not yet seen fit to comment upon the Parsons Green bombing, but if they did, they would probably say something like this:
"Yes, well, Comrades, this bomb attack is deplorable but we really should remember that all these terrorist attacks have come about because of the illegal and imperialist invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Let's not forget, also, that millions of innocent Muslims have died in those countries even though the casualties at Parsons Green deserve our sympathy."
The problem with this view, which is every bit as simple-minded as the first, is that it is anachronistic and reductionist. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, wrong though they were, happened in a previous decade. Today's Jihadis are not acting out of anger about the invasions 15 years ago; they believe that Daesh provide the way for all Muslims to follow now. Nearly all the Jihadis arrested or killed in the UK were born here, not Iraq or Afghanistan. By ascribing the invasions as a prime moving force for terrorism, we ignore other factors - and the passage of time.
I believe that those who resort to terrorism in the name of Allah in the UK are possessed of a deep-seated feeling of alienation. Events abroad may well have considerable influence, but there are other possible factors. One might be mental illness; some (unlikely, I admit) may arrive at their Jihadi beliefs through argument and intellectual persuasion. However, I think we should look at the way Asians, and Pakistanis in particular, have been treated in this country since the advent of mass immigration after WW2. Have we forgotten "Paki-bashing"? Rajni Bathia wrote in 2007:
"It's a word I heard all too often in my formative years and one which still stirs up bad memories of bovver boots, skinheads and "Paki-bashing"."
Today's young Asians will have heard of this from their forbears: about racist violence, discrimination, Enoch Powell and being rejected by so much of white society. It should come as no surprise that for a small minority of young Muslim Asians, there is an inherited sense of resentment which has caused them to listen to the equally alienated anti-Western rhetoric of the Jihadis. We often hear about our imperial legacy; I believe that our problems today are partly the result of our post-imperial legacy.

Skinheads - post-imperial soldiers of the Empire.