“If you show generosity to the noble, you will own him, but if you show generosity to the ignoble, he will renounce you.” A well-known Middle Eastern saying. Apposite, considering the barbaric suicide bombing perpetrated by a Briton of Libyan descent: Salman Al Abeidi. His parents had fled the tyranny of Qaddafi and had sought sanctuary in the United Kingdom. Their host country gave them protection and was very generous in providing that family with free housing, free education, free health care, and monthly cheques to live on. The Manchester bombing of May 2017 was how the UK was repaid for its kindness.
The suicide bomber’s father, Ramadan Al Abeidi, had been a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a terrorist organization with significant links to Al Qaeda. The LIFG had risen up against Qaddafi in my own city of origin, Benghazi, back in the mid-1990s. I was residing there at that time, following my return from the UK. I remember the vast majority of Libyans sympathizing with those Islamists, apparently because they were fighting against Qaddafi. I found myself in a small minority of Libyans who did not feel any sympathy for the LIFG, their opposition to Qaddafi notwithstanding. Many of my acquaintances asked me for the reason behind my scepticism of Islamists. I told them that even though I strongly rejected Qaddafi and his government, I nevertheless thought that in comparison with the Islamists, he was the lesser of the two evils. Most of those acquaintances were not convinced back then; most of them are now, especially after seeing for themselves in the last six years what the Islamists are really like, be they the LIFG, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists, or otherwise.
Some commentators on the Middle East and/ or Islam have pointed to a number of reasons which, they think, may account for Islamic terrorism, especially in Western Europe. The question of Muslim integration in particular tends to stand out: Comparisons have thus been made with Muslims in the United States who, it is maintained, are better integrated than those residing in Western Europe; hence, it is alleged, the relatively terrorism-free environment of the US. This view holds that West Europeans have not accepted their Muslim populations, and that this has led to their alienation from their host societies and the subsequent embracing of radical Islamic ideology. Coupled with their supposed lower socio-economic status in Western European countries compared to their co-religionists in the US, the Muslims of Western Europe have fallen easy prey to extremism, or so it is claimed.
The above-mentioned perspective is in fact misleading. To begin with, the US has over the past quarter of a century witnessed many Muslim acts of terrorism on its soil, including (but not limited to) the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 9/11, the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston marathon bombing, the 2015 Chattanooga shootings, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, and the 2016 Orlando night club shooting. As someone who resides in the US, I can confidently say that- like African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans- Muslims in this country are not really integrated, not least because many of them still vehemently adhere to their Islamic values, most of which are incompatible with core Western values, e.g. their views on secularism, freedom of thought and expression, constitutionalism, women’s rights, freedom of belief, and so forth.
The impression that some people seem to have to the effect that Muslims are integrated in the US appears to stem from other misconceptions, too: In Western Europe, the Muslim presence is much stronger than that in the US: Muslims constitute an average of 5% of the populations of their host countries in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland; by contrast, they form only 1% of the US population. Secondly, unlike the situation in Western Europe where a specific nationality dominates in a particular Western European country (Turks in Germany, Pakistanis in the UK, Algerians in France, Moroccans in Holland), Muslims in the US tend to be dispersed among tens of nationalities, with no clear dominant national group amongst them, thereby making Muslims less likely to form ghettos, something which has deluded some people into assuming that America’s Muslims are truly integrated. Thirdly, the facile connection of one’s socio-economic and/ or educational status with terrorism is superficial: There is no credible evidence to show that Muslims become radicalized as a result of poverty or low education; in fact, numerous Muslims seem to be urban, middle-class, educated individuals, the type of Muslims who are more likely to go to the US than to Western Europe, in view of the fact that the US obtains its masses of unskilled labourers mainly from African Americans and Hispanics, legally resident or otherwise..
Western European countries have done a tremendous deal to try and integrate their Muslim populations, but this has not had as much success as those countries would have liked. Yet, failing to integrate is one thing; committing murder is quite another: To say that the former explains the latter is simply false, and this is the very poor argument that some people have used to try and explain why African Americans and Hispanics are responsible for around 80% of murders in the US. Up to the mid-twentieth century, the Jews had been treated far worse by many Europeans than Muslims have ever been; yet, the Jews did not embark on a wave of terror against Europeans as a result. Muslims who fail to integrate into Western European countries do so because they subscribe to Islam, an ideology that is inherently incompatible with the modern, secular civilization of the West. Many non-Muslim Middle Easterners find it relatively easy to integrate into Western countries; even within Islam itself, the more secular Muslims are, the less difficult it is for them to integrate.
The UK has done nothing to deserve Islamic terrorism. The blame for all of this havoc lies squarely at the door of the Muslims.
About the author
Husam Dughman comes from a family that is historically descended from Europeans on his father’s side and Middle Easterners on his mother’s side. He was born in Libya and educated in Libya and the United Kingdom. Before Qaddafi came to power, Husam Dughman’s father had been the president of the University of Libya and his maternal grandfather had been a prime minister. Immediately following Qaddafi’s military coup d’état in 1969, both stood up to the Qaddafi regime and were consequently imprisoned: Husam Dughman’s father was incarcerated for a period of 10 years, during which he was subjected to regular torture by the Qaddafi regime, and his grandfather was incarcerated for five years.
In the 1990s, Husam Dughman returned to Libya and worked as a university professor of political science. Due to conflicts with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position in 1997 and subsequently worked in legal translation. Years later, Husam Dughman left Libya for North America, where he has been working as a newcomer specialist, helping new immigrants and refugees with their settlement. He currently resides in the United States.
Husam Dughman has published a book, Tête-à-tête with Muhammad, and he has also published various articles about the Middle East. He is currently working on a new book on the Abrahamic religions and scepticism. You can find out more by visiting his website at http://www.husamdughman.com
