From Left Radicalism to Radical Islamism

http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/from-left-radicalism-to-radical-islamism/
Date Written:  2017-05-28
Publisher:  Pandaemonium
Year Published:  2017
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX21031

The current preoccupations of Islamic youth in Britian are much different from the anti-racist activism and political radicalism of the author's generation.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt: Today the picture is very different. The kind of raw racism that defined Britain thirty or forty years ago is barely visible. Racism exists, of course, and Muslims are often the targets of such bigotry, but the visceral racism of the Britain of my youth is thankfully rarely seen.

Equally importantly has been the transformation in what it means to be disaffected. The kinds of campaigns and organizations with which I was involved have either disintegrated or seem out of touch. It is not progressive politics that gives shape to contemporary disaffection but the politics of identity, which over the past three decades has encouraged people to define themselves in increasingly narrow ethnic or cultural terms.