Non-English speaking mums have nothing to do with radicalisation!
The Daily Mail reports:
“The Prime Minister has privately argued that one of the main reasons why young Muslim males fall under the spell of fanatics is because their mothers have too much of a subordinate role within their communities to argue against the influence of the extremists.”
My mother, and the mothers of many others of my generation, did not speak very much English and yet we were not radicalised. An English speaking mother is not a sure-fire solution to radicalisation. Once again the government and whoever is advising them are coming up with pathetic hair-brained solutions to problems that don’t actually exist.
Radicalisation happens away from the home, away from the mosque and madrassa and away from the community. This is mainly down to the failure of mosques and madrassas in not giving proper religious instruction, or parents who do not know the answers to the main POLITICAL and theological questions teenage kids have. If they are not finding answers from their family, community and mosque/madrassa they will go elsewhere and inevitably fall in to the clutches of those demagogues whose rhetoric and bombastic speech appeals to young foolish minds.
I do agree there is an issue of language, but Muslim mums are not part of the problem, it’s non-English speaking imams and ill-educated mosque committees who offer no pastoral care for the youth and who are not, in general, offering a comprehensive normative Islamic education. The answer to this problem is to help traditional mosques and madrassas up their game and stop the importing of sub-standard non-English speaking imams. We also need to support institutions like Jamia al-Karam and Cambridge Muslim College who train and produce imams who are well equipped to deal with the Muslim community of 21st century Britain. The answer is more religion, not the criminalisation and outlawing of it.
Muslim mums are some of the most child-focussed women in Britain and to blame them for the problem of radicalisation is an insult and a foolish attempt to find yet another thing to beat up Muslims over.
The upshot here is that the media will now push this highly political narrative and the general public will view traditional Muslim mums with suspicion and disdain because “they are not raising their children properly”.
Muslim mums are among the best mums in the country, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.