Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX

AFP reports that British university lecturers and staff by wary of their Asian-looking students, especially those who are of Muslim descent:

Citing a document drawn up by the British education ministry, the newspaper said universities had been warned of talent-spotting by terrorists on campuses across the country, and of students being “groomed” for extremism.

It identifies Muslim students from “segregated” backgrounds as more likely to support extremist stances than their counterparts who are “integrated into wider society” [Yahoo News]

What alarms me about the document discussed in this news item is its utterly simplistic approach — simply identifying students who are “inclined” to extremism on the basis of “segregation” apparently forgets that Osama Bin Laden did not come from a “segregated” background.

In a day and age where nothing is what it seems, subscribing to simplistic approaches like identifying terrorists through ethnicity, or “inclination”, whatever that means, will not only be a futile approach to the defeat of terrorism, but may only encourage the moderate Muslims to adopt the way of thinking of their more extreme cousins.

And that’s exactly what we want to prevent, isn’t it?