Islamic Radicalisation among North Africans in Britain Jonathan Githens-Mazer This article examines how symbols of Islamic repression and massacre affect radicalisation among North Africans living in the UK. It suggests that these symbols are an insufficient but necessary cause in the larger process of ‘radicalisation’, because they provide a basis for perceptions of injustice. In this context, myths, memories and symbols of colonial repression, contemporary repression of free political expression in North African states and current perceptions of western ‘oppression’ of Islam may be perceived as rationales for ‘oxygenation’. Oxygenation here denotes exchanges among different Muslim communities throughout Britain which potentially facilitate terrorist networks. Oxygenation in turn contributes to ‘blowback’, here in the guise of perceptions among British Muslims of global oppression of the Umma, especially understood in light of the Iraqi and Afghani insurgencies. This article also explores how these symbols may be cultivated and disseminated at popular and elite levels. Keywords: radicalisation; jihadi terrorism; North Africa; Britain Introduction Both Mohammad Siddique Khan, the London 7/7 bomber and Rachid Oulad Akcha, one of the seven suspected terrorists who committed suicide in Spain in April 2004, cited the continuous perpetuation of atrocities and crimes against ‘their peoples’ as a cause of their actions—and warned that ‘If you don’t stop your injustices there will be more and more blood’ (Alonso and Reinares 2006, 180). These radical and violent Islamists justified their actions by means of a ‘religious-historical’ prism, contextualising global and local events through theo- logical interpretations full of references to current and historical injustices, repres- sion and violence against Islam. 1 This combination of religious and ‘nationalist’ understandings of the past as justification for contemporary violent and radical action is not unique to these two cases, and can be found in a variety of other cases of ‘extremism’, Islamic and otherwise (Merari 2005, 79; Githens-Mazer 2006 and 2008). This article will examine the role of culturally defined myths, memories and symbols in North African immigrant radicalisation in Britain. This is not to suggest that these repertoires of the past are the only ‘causes’ of radicalisation, but rather that they are insufficient but necessary causes for it to occur. The purpose here is not to prove definitively the link between ethno-national identity, religion and radicalisation, but rather to make a preliminary theoretical contribution with a view to a more systematic and rigorous engagement with this topic. The narrow focus here provides clear boundaries in terms of case material, so that some cultural doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856x.2008.00340.x BJPIR: 2008 VOL 10, 550–570 © 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Political Studies Association