WHAT IS DRIVING THE <~text text="TIMES">

I went to the New York Times yesterday to read about Jayson Blair and to offer some qualified support. The problem wasn't so much affirmative action, it seems to me, as the editor's decision to, first, send him out on the sniper story without warning his new editor about his previous problems and -- and this is just ludicrous -- giving over the front page to a "scoop" that no one else had, that was vociferously denied and had never been fact checked.

On my way to the Blair story, however, I came across the following:

What Drove 2 Britons to Bomb a Club in Tel Aviv? (Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 5/11/03)

Something changed Omar Khan Sharif, sent him in a new direction, and Derby's older Pakistani population cannot begin to fathom what it was.

But the radicalization of the well-educated, thoroughly Westernized Mr. Sharif, 27--the forces that led him from Derby to Tel Aviv, where he is wanted on charges of helping to carry out a suicide bombing in a beachfront nightclub on April 30--make a certain sense to the younger, second-generation immigrants born and raised here. Mr. Sharif was angry, they say, for reasons that would be all too understandable to Muslims everywhere.

"In a way, I sympathize," said Mohammed Zahid, 23, an automobile-plant inspector with a broad Midlands accent, who was strolling down Normanton Road, near where Mr. Sharif lived with his wife and two daughters. "When you see what's happening in Israel, something comes into your mind, something just goes."

On a fine spring day on a pleasantly bustling street, such an explanation seems partial at best. As Sarfraz Bashir, 31, a college graduate in between computer jobs who was helping out at the Jamia Mosque on Rose Hill Street, put it: "In the U.K., you can have a proper job and a proper education. We have everything here — why ruin it?" . . .

"Some people take Islam deeper than others," said a young man on Normanton Road, by way of explaining Mr. Sharif's motives. He declined to give his name, but said he was 19 and an unemployed second-generation Pakistani.

"Killing people is wrong, obviously, but if he was doing it for God himself — then fair enough," said the man, checking his cellphone for the time, so he could get to the bank before it closed. "You have to be pretty brave to do something like that, to hold a bomb in your hand and blow yourself up."

Across the street, a group of hair-gelled youths in Nike and Reebok sweatsuits perched on a railing and commented on the events involving Mr. Sharif. Inside, the older proprietor of a fast-food restaurant dismissed their comments with contempt, but talk they did.

"What he's done is very good, and they won't ever find him," said Basu Hussain, 18, taking a break from his job at Lick'n Chick'n, a fast-food outlet. "We should all get together and kill all the Jews." . . .

Derby has always prided itself on the good relations between white Britons and Muslims of Pakistani descent, the preponderance of the 8.4 percent of the population identifying themselves as Asian. Although the unemployment rate among young Muslims is disproportionately high, there has been no ethnic violence of the sort that has taken place in other northern and midlands towns in recent years. . . .

Mr. Sharif grew up in the heavily Pakistani Normanton district. It is here, in a neat Victorian row house with a large garden in the back, that his father, Mohammed, a prominent businessman originally from Kashmir who owned a laundry, a kebab restaurant, and other shops, moved with his wife and six children about 20 years ago. Both parents have since died.

In a country where many immigrants stick to their native languages at home, the family spoke English among themselves and wore Western clothes, said Hamida Akhtar, 54, who lives down the street on Breedon Hill Road and was a close friend of Mrs. Sharif. "They were very respectable and nice," she said.

The family emphasized education for their children, and Omar, the youngest, was perhaps particularly privileged. Although he attended state schools (the equivalent of American public schools) in Derby for most of his childhood, between 1986 and 1988 he went to Foremarke Hall Preparatory School, set on acres of woods, fields and ponds about 20 minutes outside the city.

At 18, he enrolled in college in London, and came back transformed. He wore a beard and clothes that identified him as a religious Muslim. He prayed five times a day. . . .

In recent years, too, Mr. Sharif began spending more time with the local representatives of Al Muhajiroun, a group based at the Finsbury Park mosque in London that has several regional offices around Britain. Its leader, Omar Bakri Mohamed, told the Derby Evening Telegraph that Mr. Sharif had attended regular "ideological discussions" with the group at St. James' Center, a community center on Malcolm Street. "I first noticed him because he could understand Arabic, which he said he had studied in Syria," Mr. Mohamed told the paper.

It is a hard time to be Muslim in this country. Many Muslims are particularly unhappy about the harsh antiterrorism measures introduced here in 2000 and tightened in 2001, which give broad powers of arrest and detention and have been used too enthusiastically, in the minds of some, by a government eager to demonstrate its antiterrorist credentials.

So much to comment on, and so little stomach for it.

Let's start with the headline. Something must have "driven" Mr. Sharif to terror. He, like all members of rebellious minority groups, is, according to the Times, more acted upon then acting. Not to read too much into this, but could the Times make any more clear its simultaneous condescencion for those it identifies as victims and its contempt of the majority culture that "drives" them to terrorism. Note, however, that Mr. Blair is not given this excuse. This is not about black or white, the Times says accurately, this is about a bad acter. At least they give Mr. Blair more credit for controlling his own life then they give Mr. Sharif.

Having asked the (wrong) question, the Times then avoids answering. Mr. Sharif comes across as a middle-class kid who grew up in a nice home. What in that "drives" someone to attempted mass murder? The Derby Islamic community is presented as responsible and well-assimilated, but the youth seem comfortable with "kill the Jews" rhetoric. The Times doesn't even ask what drives them, unless it is "what's happening in Israel" ("Shalom, Rerun"), which somehow doesn't strike me as a complete answer.

There is, however, one suggestion, presented but not commented upon by the Times. Islam may have driven Mr. Sharif to murder. He may have "felt it" more deeply than other people. In college, he went from a westernised appearence to wearing robes and a beard. He may have learned arabic in Syria -- a connection the Times brings forward as gingerly and indirectly as it can. He started going to a mosque which, coincidentally, is home to a group that in the past, but not so much now, incited violence against Jews, Sikhs and Hindus. This is, in the end, a nice example of how the Times gets so caught up in avoiding trampling on sacred cows (no offense to our Hindu friends) that it ends up pointing in a direction it never intended. How can one avoid the temtation to conclude that Mr. Sharif was driven to terror by Islam?

This is nuts. Omar Sharif made his own choices, as did Jayson Blair, as do we all. Lots of young British Muslims hate Jews. Lots of young British Muslims couldn't care less. Trying to see if there is any pattern is perfectly reasonable. In the end, though, trying to show that people are "driven" to evil rather than choose it diminishes us all and, by not addressing the problem for fear of giving offense, actually delays our efforts at dealing with it and makes matters worse. This is true with Jayson Blair, whose damage to the Times could have been avoided if the paper had been willing to act responsibly. It is true of the choices made by the Omar Sharifs of the world, as well. Posted by David Cohen at May 12, 2003 2:39 PM