Extremism is a sign of failed policies

The Times of London reported yesterday that there are more young British men fighting as jihadists in the Middle East than there are Muslims in the British army.

Though figures are not precise — estimates stand at anything between 500 and 1,500, the highest in Europe — the prospect of radicalised, battle-hardened zealots returning to Europe, and specifically these islands, must be a cause for concern. That concern is strengthened if those extremists continue their reign of terror in pursuit of an unwanted and unattainable European caliphate.

That they have so dramatically rejected the legitimacy of the British state must be a blow for those who have worked so very hard to encourage multiculturalism. This rejection must bring into question too the policies, or more accurately the failed policies, that have encouraged immigrant groups to maintain a distance from the society they choose to work and live in. That this distance, this ghettoisation, helps germinate the kind of anti-western hate fuelling Isis cannot be ignored. More must be done to realise the opportunities and security successful multiculturalism and integration should offer. The alternative is division, conflict, and the kind of distrust that eats away at stable societies.