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August 16, 2005
Jermaine Lindsay and the Debate on 'Race, Islam and Terrorism'
Robert Beckford, a lecturer in African diasporan religions and cultures at the University of Birmingham in England, reveals in an August 16, 2005 commentary in The Guardian of London:The Jamaican origins of Jermaine Lindsay, one of the July 7 suicide bombers, has prompted some to ask why a disproportionate number of black males are attracted to extremism. Lindsay, 19, had spent the vast proportion of his life in England, which made tenuous the tabloid obsession with his place of birth. Intriguingly there was less of a clamour over the ethnicity of Richard Reid, the notorious "shoe bomber", who had a white mother and a black father. In the case of David Copeland, the white, racist, homophobic nail-bomber, there was no analysis of a potential relationship between ethnicity, extremism and terror
"Black men converting to Islam should be placed within the religious context of their communities, where religion still matters," Mr. Beckford added. "African-Caribbean men and women continue to turn out in large numbers for religious activities. But Islam is able to do what the black church cannot - attract black men."
I highly recommend Mr. Beckford's article, which is headlined "Race, Islam and terrorism." He continues a discussion begun "As long ago as 1888, [when] the Caribbean educator Edward Wilmot Blyden argued that Islam was more respectful of black culture and easier to translate into Caribbean culture than Christianity." See Blyden's "Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race."
Posted by Munir Umrani at August 16, 2005 10:53 PM
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