Wrong-headed Home Office
Much attention yesterday focused on a leaked Home Office memo, and what it had to say about the economic downturn. However, it is what the memo revealed about the mind-set of Home Office officials I find most disturbing.
According to the memo, "there is evidence that grievances based on experiencing racism are one of the factors that can lead to people becoming terrorists".
Did I read that right? Does the Home Office seriously think that terrorism is caused by racism?
To me, this seems like further evidence that many top public officials have unconsciously absorbed various leftist assumptions. Ideas that came out of 1970s university sociology departments now seem to prevail.
I recently read Saayed Qtub's Milestones. I did so in order to better understand the nature of the threat posed by extremist political Islamism. I don't recall anything in Qtub's extremist manifesto that would support the Home Office view.
But then, perhaps rather than seek to grasp the true nature of the threat we face, Home Office officials are incapable of doing anything other than regurgitate leftist assumptions. Until public officials are made properly democratically accountable, perhaps we should not expect anything better.
Posted on 1 September 2008 by Douglas Carswell