Veiling and security

The Metro carries a story on the comments made by Admiral Lord West, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Security and Counter Terrorism, to the Commons Defence Committee meeting yesterday on ‘UK national security and resilience’ where he said that ending radicalization among young British Muslims could take up to 30 years.

The newspaper complements the news item with a picture of Muslim women in niqab. Is it any surprise that some Muslim women have had their veils forcibly torn from their faces when newspapers allude to connections between forms of Muslim dress and stories on terrorism and security?

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Perhaps more notable among the minister’s comments are the acknowledgement that the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq have played some role in the radicalisation of young British Muslims but that engaging with them and embarking on a dialogue has and will yield positive results.

Maybe now we might see the end of fatuous columns by former ‘jihadis’ all of whom seem to push an argument that has been proven to be false; that radicalisation and foreign policy are not connected.