We parents worry when we send our kids off to college. But do we worry they’ll become terrorists?
No.
But a funny and slightly disturbing article by Colin Lidell in Taki’s Magazine takes notice of the deep connection between college life and terrorism. Indeed, “every major Islamist terrorist attack in Britain has been led by university students or recent graduates.”
Lidell makes a broader point, too, even with his title: “The Persistence of Bourgeois Radicalism.” Universities and colleges have long served as hotbeds of extremism:
Becoming “radicalized”—whether your bearded prophet happens to be Marx or Muhammad—is essentially code for having too much time on your hands and a sense of smug entitlement. This is the essence of university life. With three years of sleeping late, anything seems possible.
The author concludes that the best cure for such radicalism is the requirement of work. He leaves that thought to linger in the readers’ minds, letting us extrapolate upon government subsidies to increase the rolls of college student bodies.
A related fact, uncovered by previous scholars of Islamic radicalism, is that the main subsidizer of Muslim radicals in the West have been the welfare states of those countries. It seems that the safety nets of British and European states (as well as Canadian and Australian governments) have funded quite a number of terrorist cells.
Perhaps one reason America has nurtured fewer home-grown terrorists is our tougher-to-obtain “welfare.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.