Scribbling doggerel in praise of al QaÂ’eda on the back of WH Smith receipts will do no more to bring about the universal caliphate then a smartarse politics student with a Che Guevara poster in his bedroom does to further guerrilla struggle in South America.
How could we even think that a Muslim would perform jihad obligations as imposed by the founder of his cult?
Malik is just one of many millions of kids in every country around the world wrapped up in a flirtation with any variety of anti-establishment symbolism that comes immediately to hand. Mostly it stops at posting message on online talk boards, as it did in her case.
Yeah, M. Atta and the other 18 911 murderers, just acted out a fad.
Sometimes, tragically, it goes much, much further. Only yesterday, Pekka-Erik Auvinen – fascinated with both Nazism and Stalinism, it now emerges – went on a shotgun rampage through his high school in a small Finnish town, killing seven others and then himself in the name of social Darwinism.
So terror thinking is acted out?
Auvinen styled himself Sturmgeist89 on the worldwide web. Malik, for her part, wished to be known as the Lyrical Terrorist. The reason? Because, as she explained to the jury, 'it sounded cool'. At that age, what better reason can there possibly be?
I remember being an anarchist for approximately six months in 1977, after the first Sex Pistols single came out. Had the internet existed then, I might well have written up my urge to 'destroy the passer-by'.
Back in the early 1980s, I used to hang around the polytechnic bar clad in a Brigate Rosse T-shirt. These days, that might constitute prima facie evidence of the offence of glorifying terrorism.
LetÂ’s keep a sense of proportion here. Yes, I am in favour of intelligence service surveillance against violent Jihadists. But what is needed is action against real terrorists, not lyrical ones.
Just imagine how counter-productive MalikÂ’s conviction is going to prove in the struggle for the hearts and minds of alienated Muslim youth.
The paranoid determination to bust crazy mixed up kids is the first step on the road that leads to gunning down innocent Brazilian electricians at Stockwell tube station.