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Memorandum from
( Ref Q2) 1. The Prevent agenda has achieved significant benefits by strongly encouraging a focussed drive to engage with Muslim communities. It has encouraged public bodies into dialogue with communities about issues that have been outside of their historical comfort zones, and have in some cases been previously hindered by a well intentioned but damaging false interpretation of what it means to be "politically correct" or "culturally sensitive".
1.1 As the DEMOS report of 2006 stated, there are a number of good reasons for making community engagement central to counter terrorism. For example, communities are vital sources of information and intelligence, acting in many respects as an "early warning system".
1.2 Some
agencies within the
1.3 However, some other members of our partnership believe that although there have been clear benefits of a Government led focussed drive to engage with Muslim communities, accompanied by the resource to do so, it has also brought with it some significant problems.
"The positive results of engagement with communities who face multiple disadvantage and barriers to active civil participation have been harder to achieve because the driver was Prevent. Simply put - a focus on community engagement limited to tackling terrorism can and has been met by resentment."
1.4 Although the partnership has done some excellent work in identifying some of the risks with this agenda and is working hard to overcome the mistrust some of our Muslim communities have about Prevent, there remains an ideological problem with the Government's approach.
2. Engagement driven by Prevent can be interpreted as an initiative driven by crisis rather than the core business of public bodies providing services appropriate to need, and there are questions about how sustainable the outcomes of attempts to build strong relationships can be when they are couched within an agenda that emphasises the threat posed by those we attempting to engage. As FitzGerald pointed out in 2007, "A sudden rush to engage groups primarily on issues of security in response to an immediate crisis could only expect to have limited success".
(Ref Q4) 2.1 We suggest that a focussed drive to engage with people in our society who face multiple barriers to active participation is the right thing to do and, if evidence based and effectively communicated as proportionate, would have real benefits to cohesion and merit the resources from Government to enable it.
2.2 This is certainly the case with our Muslim communities. As Beckford et al concluded in 2006; "Socio-economic indicators from the Census reveal a consistent picture of the vulnerable position of the aggregated Muslim population compared to people from other minority faith groups"
However, this has not been the rationale used to justify the additional resources provided and some of the positive outcomes of Prevent have, been achieved in spite of rather than as a direct consequence of the agenda.
2.3 One of the main risks of Prevent has been a tendency to view our Muslim communities as a single entity. Although this is less problematic in the North East than in other areas, a failure to recognise the heterogeneity of those who identify as being Muslim will certainly hamper effective engagement. There is also the danger that it could reinforce an incorrect interpretation of the principle of Ummah within our communities. A correct interpretation of Ummah can be used as an extremely powerful concept which gives Muslims a great deal of unity and puts emphasis on Muslims to act in a manner which promotes them in a positive light, not only amongst one another but also among non-Muslims. However, a clumsy aggregation of the many diverse interpretations of the faith that exist within this country by Government can lend support to extremist arguments wishing to subvert this notion in order to galvanise Muslims who may be at risk of radicalisation. Such an approach also undermines the credibility of Government attempts to reinforce the differences in its approach to Muslim peoples affected by current global conflicts with those who are British citizens. In turn, it also undermines those of us at a local level hoping to engage with angry young people only too aware of the suffering experienced by millions of Muslims worldwide, in a dialogue that enables them to better understand the "duel" identities of being "British" and "Muslim".
2.4 In its widely accepted report "Islamophobia - a challenge for us all" (1997), the Runnymede Trust identified eight components that define Islamophobia. These include: 1. Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static and unresponsive to change 2. Islam is seen as separate and "other" 4. Islam is seen as violent, aggressive, threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a "clash of civilisations" 5. Islam is seen as a political ideology and is used for political or military advantage.
2.5 It should not therefore be too much of a stretch of the imagination to comprehend how an agenda that many Muslims view as being based on - 1. a clumsy aggregation of diverse groups into a single community, 2. that is viewed as hard to reach and suspicious of the establishment, 4. based on the threat they pose and 5. driven by a perverted ideologue - could be a problem for effective engagement and viewed with some suspicion.
(Ref Q2?) 3.0 A
"single community" approach to Prevent brings an additional threefold risk to
cohesion. Firstly, as Government rhetoric becomes increasingly hard line
against those promoting violence, a poorly communicated understanding of our
Muslim communities leaves a danger of forcing our many mainstream Muslim voices
into increasingly fixed positions against the establishment. Secondly, because
our Muslim communities tend to be concentrated into certain geographical areas,
a "single community" Prevent focus (with the resources it brings - 5 times that
of cohesion funding in
3.1 This leaves Government and its local agents in an increasingly untenable position about tackling other forms of extremism. The current Government stance that issues such as far right extremism should be tackled under the grievance element of the Prevent agenda is illogical. To only address such activity because of its use by those promoting perverse Islamist ideologues serves to support both sides of the argument it is wishing to undermine. It also fails to acknowledge that the identified psychological trigger points for Al Qaeda inspired and far right extremism are identical and that extremisms, however inspired, harm us all.
(Ref Q7) 3.2 It is for these reasons that an indicator (NI35) based on "single community" is unhelpful and that - although this is a view not universally reflected across the partnership -community based approaches to counter terrorism should sit within a wider cohesion agenda
3.3 This is
not to say that CDRPs at a local level should use the breadth of the agenda to
avoid tackling intelligence led and evidenced priorities - quite the opposite.
A more comprehensive consideration of the threats of extremism within and
between our communities should instead serve to provide CDRPs with the
confidence and credibility to tackle the most contentious of issues, safe in
the knowledge that their actions can be proven to be proportionate. I would
argue that this is a more reflective description of the approach we have taken
in
We believe that such an approach, if encouraged by Government to be adopted elsewhere, would have additional benefits.
3.4 An integrated approach would help drive local discussions about how Community Engagement, Community Cohesion, Tension Management, Community Safety and Counter Terrorism agendas inter-relate at a local level. This would ensure that as well as identifying overlaps and complementary programmes of work, gaps and priorities for action would be made clear, thus reducing the risk of local partnerships loading activity towards the "easy" end of the spectrum to divert attention away from a lack of activities that although most difficult to get right, would bring with them the most benefit. It would also help to translate such complicated agendas into clear messages that can be more easily understood - and more importantly - less easily misunderstood
(Ref Q3 & Q7) 4.0 A key
issue identified during our work in
4.1 This clearer and more focussed approach to an integrated model of community risk, would also give clarity about who needs access to what information, and therefore the security clearance they require
5.0 Finally, local clarity can be either strengthened or undermined by the actions and instructions of central government. Policy documents counter signed by Ministers across Government are, although laudable in intention, not effective if the individual departmental guidance that flows from them is contradictory or uncoordinated.
September 2009
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