Showing Their Manhood

Here’s the real reason that the 7/7 bombers committed mass murder, according to Dr Antony Whitehead, senior lecturer in criminology at the University of Huddersfield (via b&w). It was to show their manhood:

“It’s a very understandable dynamic. Young Muslim men in the British culture experience a lot of internalised pressure to conform to the idea of manhood – the ideal of courage and standing up for yourself.

“How does that affect you if you are a Pakistani male living in a council estate with a BNP councillor and a guy with no hair shoving shit through your letterbox? Social disadvantage equals disadvantage in being a man as well. We are coming at this from the wrong angle. We are making the assumption that it’s all about Islam.”

So back in the Seventies and Eighties, when racism against Pakistani immigrants was at its height and shit-through-the letter-box stories were rife, all those young men turned into suicide bombers (makes sense, right? – throughout history disadvantaged young men have always blown themselves up to prove how tough they were), but now, when so many of them go to college, and have all the opportunities that their parents’ generation never had, they’re, um……

Hmm, perhaps this needs a little tweaking.