Jihadism and Islamic radicalism would have remained largely a fringe on the fringes of Muslim societies much like we have EDL or National Front [in 1980s] UK or the KKK and militia hillybilly nutters in USA. The West in collusion with Saudia Arabia have been largely responsible for let loose this virus and turning it into the pandemic it became. The main reason was the Islamists were cultivated to offset the threat from the Soviet Union and the communists. The madness of terrorism you hear in Pakistan or Afghanistan is direct product of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan which was masterminded by CIA. The Hollywood film "Charlie Wilson's War" covers this. Operation Cycloon was and is the largest covert operation ever launched by CIA. It was a spectacular success and led to defeat of the Red Army. But it left a destroyed Afghanistan and a vacant infrastructure of jihad which then got othe ideas. In Pakistan we are still brabbling with it.
en.wikipedia.org
Even within UK and my lifteime I have seen the differance. I grew up in a UK where Pakistani community was largely traditional [given their rural backgrounds] but outwardly more secular. We would have "Pakistani community centres around which life of the community revolved where they got legal help, or a social meeting point. Traditional Pakistani cafes also dominated where men went to have chai and sweets or kebabs.
When I left universityn 1983 I had began to see rise of Muslim groups. One nascent group I recall was YMA or Young Muslim Association and these guys made effort to recruit members from the students who were mostly into drinking and running after girls including yours truely. These groups appeared to be well funded. Mosques began to sprout on every street corner. I would think the local councils actively helped this process and I believe the funding came from oil rich Arab countries. Saudia, Iraq, Kuwait etc The late 1980s Salman Rushdie affair brought into existence the "Muslim" as opposed to Pakistani, Yemeni, Iraqi etc Religious nomenclature was replacing secular descriptors in the mainstream media.
My brother went to university in Birmingham in 1990 and I once had to go and pick him up at night because he got thrown out of a student house because all other students ganged up on him because he would listen to western music in his room and they called it 'haram'. When I got there I also ended up having words with bunch of Pakistani, Palestinian, Jordanian students led by a older Iraqi who had applied for asylum because he was on the run from Saddam. I joke with my brother that hischam has probably blown himself up by now. It's groups like that which down the road provided the cadre for European based jihadi terrorists.
I can't help by think that British security services and state were complicit. I guess Soviet Union was the target and what happened afterwards was collateral. What did the architect and godfather of the jihad, American strategist Zbigniew Brzezinsk say about this ?
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.
Zbigniew Brzezinski:
www.counterpunch.org
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