The varied performance of Hizb ut-Tahrir: Success in Britain and Uzbekistan and stalemate in Egypt and Turkey

This paper studies the Muslim youth experience in Britain and Uzbekistan vis-avis their vulnerability to extremist ideologies with a specific focus on the Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), contrasting these two cases with the Turkish and Egyptian cases, which were resilient to HT. We endeavour to analyse why, while in an autocratic country such as Egypt, the HT has had limited influence on the hearts and minds of the Muslim youth, it has been more influential in a Western democracy, Britain, where moderation of extremist ideologies through democratic learning should normally take place as the political science literature suggests. From a comparative perspective involving four very different countries, the paper looks at the issues of alienation, marginalisation, discrimination, socio-economic, political and theological deprivation and the impact of the foreign policy on young Muslim minds and their resiliency or vulnerability to movements such as HT. © 2010 Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs.