Guess who's coming to terror?
A new British study of Muslims who become radicalized turns liberal victimology theories inside out. The Investigative Project on Terrorism summarizes the findings.
A British research study of Muslim radicalization is challenging some key conventional wisdom. It identifies "youth, wealth, and being in full-time education" as potential risk factors
Less than 3 percent of the 600 British Muslims surveyed by London's Queen Mary University were sympathetic with terrorism, while another 6 percent "remained neutral."
But those with the highest sympathy were respondents born in the United Kingdom, under age 20 and full time students. In addition, people from high income homes – more than £75,000 a year ($123,000) were more prone to sympathize with political violence. People with mental health problems also were more likely to support terror.
Savor that for a moment: education and wealth as risk factors. Could that have anything to do with the liberal theories that dominate education in both the UK and the United States? And could the liberal guilt-tripping of wealth induce young people into sympathies with terrorism as a means of assuaging the guilt?
What the researchers did not find was the conventional liberal explanation that poverty and hopelessness drive Muslims (and others) to terrorism:
"We were surprised that [the] inequality paradigm seems not to be supported," lead researcher Kamaldeep Bhui told Al-Jazeera. "The study essentially seemed to show that those born in the U.K. consistent with the radicalization paradigm are actually more affluent or well off."
The US is not immune to these terror inducing influences:
A 2007 Pew survey found a quarter of Muslim American men under age 30 considered suicide bombings justifiable.
This week alone, young men from California and Michigan were arrested for plotting to join terrorists fighting in Syria's civil war.
The takeover of education by the left has had profound negative consequences that the West will be living with (or perishing from) for many decades. Antonio Gramsci and his communist followers made no secret of the intent to bring down a system characterized by liberty and opportunity in favor of something directed from above (all in the name of the oppressed). They have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.