Dealing with the I-word

Tuesday, 3rd July 2007

The first time I saw Sayeeda Warsi was on Question Time last year. An extremely impressive, down-to-earth performance, I thought. Given that the Tories are so short of figures who seem reasonably, um, human, she ought to be a useful addition to the ranks. Although those quotes that James Forsyth points to will take some explaining away.

Ed Husain, author of The Islamist, gets a name-check in Dennis MacShane's Telegraph op-ed on why it would be a mistake to stop using the term "Islamist". Husain sets out his views in the Standard [via Norm Geras] and gives Ken Livingstone a roughing-up in the process:

So I listen to the Mayor of our great city and I wonder, what will it take for him to wake up? More bombs in central London? Another attack on the Tube? As someone who was seduced by Islamists such as Omar Bakri, I know how charismatic these firebrands can be. But at the time, I was an impressionable teenager. What's Ken's excuse?
Don't get me wrong. Being a big tent liberal is laudable; but to fail to discern the difference between Islam, the religious tradition, and Islamism, the extremist political ideology hell bent on destroying the West, is a disaster for us all. By confusing regular religious Muslims with fanatical ideologues, Ken blurs the lines between right and wrong, and allows radicalism to flourish within sections of London's Muslim communities.