Memorandum from International School for
Communities, Rights and Inclusion, University of Central Lancashire
(PVE 14)
1. This submission draws on ISCRI's recent
academic work[29]
specifically on the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda in England.
Key points include:
— Alienation of Muslim communities by the
single-community focus of Prevent.
— Counter-productive effect of increasing
vulnerability to radicalisation of such a focus.
— Unreliability of religiosity as an indicator
for radicalisation.
— Need for accelerated work on community
cohesion and identity as a viable tool versus discrimination
and radicalisation.
— Factors in some individuals' vulnerability:
discrimination, socio-economic disadvantage, intellectual radicalisation.
— An invigorated drive to tackle deprivation
and disadvantage reflect changes in the thrust of U.S. policy
to combat violent extremism globally.
— Need for intervention by trusted local
social capital—both religious and community with street
credibility.
— More meaningful use of credible local
social capital which is also capacity built and supported.
— The state, local authority and their
partners should provide community with advice and support but
avoiding a dominant lead in mobilising community contributions.
— Treat and present the problem of violent
radicalisation as part of the wider crime and community safety
agenda around which all communities share common ground and those
vulnerable can be targeted more effectively by credible community
intermediaries.
— Focus by the police in Pursue
rather than Prevent.
2. Evidence is provided from two principal
sources. First, a detailed and major research-engagement programme
(Community Engagement Pathfinder Programme) in London, commissioned
by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and led by ISCRI itself;
and second, academic consideration of Preventing Violent Extremism
(PVE) and associated issues from published critiques more widely.
Together this evidence reinforces significant criticisms of the
Prevent programme to date and includes some remedial suggestions.
3. The review acknowledges how Prevent
seeks to achieve substantial and productive interaction and engagement
with citizens for the purposes of prevention, as part of the government's
wider counter terrorism strategy, which is articulated in Contest
(HM Government, 2009).
4. However, ISCRI research and review would
indicate that in important respects this has been flawed in its
inception and unsuccessful in both design and implementation.
The Prevent strategy has proven unpopular and indeed, counter-productive
in alienating the very community that it seeks to engage and influence
positively, unwittingly heightening potential vulnerabilities
to radicalisation by terrorist propaganda.
5. Evidence from the ISCRI managed research
programme in London (McDonald et al, 2008),[30]
commissioned by MPS, illuminates a set of issues, critical to
the Prevent agenda. First, the source of primary data from
within affected communities themselves is particularly important,
given the acknowledged tendency on counter-terrorism research
for reliance usually on state-based perspectives and secondary
sources (Breen Smyth, 2007; Jackson, 2007).
6. ISCRI led this programme in 2007-08 in
five London Boroughs in order to get a better understanding, particularly
of Muslim and other faith communities in the capital, their needs
and concerns around issues of policing, crime and community safety.
In-depth qualitative primary data was gathered from over 1,100 local
people from Black and minority ethnic communities, conventionally
deemed as "hard-to-reach" by authorities but who took
part enthusiastically in the project through ISCRI's model of
engagement; the cohort of respondents' average age was under 30 years
with a roughly 50:50 male-female split. Respondents highlighted
violent extremism as a particular concern and in-depth testimony
was gathered on this specific issue, using community peer-led
research methods, with a model of engagement pioneered by ISCRI,
from 10 different Muslim ethnicities. In leading and supporting
the research programme, ISCRI had to overcome significant obstacles
in providing communities with the confidence, capacity and willingness
to participate in what they considered at the outset as an especially
sensitive and controversial field of enquiry for them and concerns
about involvement in a police originated project. This serves
to highlight the richness and value of the evidence derived from
those directly affected by Prevent and as a source to inform
policy.
7. Community respondents provided opinion
individually and anonymously both on factors that underpinned
vulnerability to recruitment/attraction to causes of radicalised
violence; and their recommendations for mitigating and preventing
that recruitment/attraction. Muslim respondents acknowledged the
problem of Al-Qaida influenced terrorism, at the same time as
universally condemning it.
8. Their testimony pointed to how no single
causal factor predominated and that there was no simple stereotype
of a terrorist recruit—factors can influence different individuals
in different ways but with a similar outcome. Contributory factors
to vulnerability included:
— Long-standing structural factor of deprivation.
— Persistent experience of discrimination.
— Increases in Islamophobic attacks and
hate crime.
— Causes were not always around issues
of poverty or poor integration in mainstream society.
— Frequent mention was made of two specific
tools used by extremist recruiters: a focus on perceived injustices
associated with western foreign policy; and, a focus on a perceived
distortion of the Islamic faith to suit personal and political
agendas.
9. The ISCRI programme had a strong solution
focus to the engagement programme and community participants offered
the following as recommendations for mitigating and preventing
recruitment into causes of violent extremism:
— Consistent support for an all-community
approach to the problem rather than one which even implicitly
focused predominantly on the Muslim community(ies).
— A focus on commonly held values of tolerance,
citizenship and cohesion was one which demanded an all-community
rather than a singular-community emphasis.
— The threat from violent extremism was
a criminal act that needed diffusing from what respondents saw
as inappropriate religious connotation and one that affected society
as a whole.
— The challenges and causal risk from discrimination
and Islamophobia demanded an all-community response.
— The challenges and causal risk from deprivation
and lack of social/economic opportunity also demanded an all-community
response.
— Advocacy for citizenship and cohesion
to be promoted in Islamic contexts rather than as secular concepts
and consistent with the dynamics of Muslim communities.
— Faith-based interventions to challenge
extremist messages according to different community preferences.
— Facilitation of internal debate, discussion
and involvement for all communities.
— Genuine engagement of grass roots community
infrastructure with trust and access to provide safe space and
opportunity.
10. The report was strongly critical of
police intervention as a tool for prevention of violent extremism.
The testimony stressed how trust and confidence in the police
was low, largely unmitigated by the albeit emergent "safer
neighbourhoods" programme for neighbourhood policing and
too great to be a productive or welcomed Prevent instrument,
whilst everyday community concerns about safety and policing styles
and performance still remained poorly addressed.
11. The findings also highlighted significant
weaknesses inherent in local authority, police and community safety
partnership structures for achieving meaningful and effective
engagement of Black and minority ethnic communities in the capital
in the conduct of crime and community safety policy and initiatives.
Existing structures lacked genuine representation from minority
groups and were seen as mechanisms to impose top-down agendas
rather than meet communities' own determined needs and priorities.
12. Respondents readily acknowledged the
problem posed by Al-Qaida influenced terrorism but expressed despair
at how Prevent represented public sector victimisation
of Muslims as a whole faith community, that further fuelled feelings
of isolation, vulnerability and was, hence, counter-productive.
13. Consideration of sources more widely
reinforces the thrust of these findings and their importance for
a re-assessment of Prevent policy.
14. The spectrum of opinion on community
engagement to reduce the terrorist threat is described in Birt
(2009) as alternating between two main schools of thought: a "values
based" approach that sees the Al-Qaida threat as the promotion
of theological error which needs to be delegitimised by the promotion
of partnership with Muslim moderates, stressing the compatibility
of mainstream Islam with mainstream liberal/secular values; and,
second, a "means based" approach that seeks to isolate
the impact of Al-Qaida as a socio-political movement by closer
engagement with the vulnerable by partnering those who can most
credibly work with them. The second approach highlights personal
social, emotional and psychological factors that can attract young
people to Al-Qaida. This "twin track" analysis presents
an interesting interpretation, though the two approaches should
not be considered mutually exclusive.
15. Muslim community disaffection with and
muted support for Prevent as an unpopular intervention
by the state is well documented (eg Cantle, 2009), as are reservations
from other non-Muslim communities and some local authorities (eg
Khanna, 2009).
16. Turley (2009) contends the strategy
is counter-productive in heightening the vulnerability of individuals
to being radicalised by fostering community alienation and a recurring
theme in sources is the disadvantage of a strategy that has fuelled
notions of an undifferentiated "suspect", and so demonised,
Muslim community. This reinforces feelings of alienation which
in turn prepare a "hunting ground" for terrorist recruiters
(McDonald et al, 2008a, p. 7) from evermore withdrawn,
defensive and disaffected communities.
17. The validity of treating religiosity
as a reliable indicator of radicalisation or a lack of patriotism
are also notions challenged by recent international research (eg
Alvensleben von, 2008; Change Institute, 2008; Gallup Inc, 2009).
Similarly, Hillyard (1993) and Sen (2006) have reinforced the
damage from single-community approaches and limiting, narrow definitions
(often faith-assigned) of community identity.
18. The need for Prevent to move away from
an exclusive focus on the Muslim community towards a greater focus
on community cohesion is a theme tracing through the progression
in the recent literature (eg Cantle, 2009; McDonald et al
2008b; Turley, 2009). The preference for accelerated cohesion
activity (eg Thomas, 2009) is based on a number of factors.
19. These include:
— disquiet by some (including Muslim and
non-Muslim communities and local authorities) at an inherent moral
injustice of a single community focus;
— public policy contradictions (eg Thomas,
2009; Turley, 2009) of a Muslim-specific focus in Prevent within
a longer-standing community cohesion agenda; and
— the unintended stimulus a single-community
focus gives to discriminatory attitudes against Muslims, and fuelling
hate crime, Islamophobia and right wing extremism (eg McDonald
et al, 2008a).
20. Community cohesion is seen as a relevant,
focused and sharp tool in the reduction of those vulnerable to
extremist radicalisation and recruitment. One of the consequences
of such a change in emphasis would be for less exclusive concentration
in Prevent on Muslim youth and more on accelerated community
cohesion work with all communities. Addressing hate crime across
all communities would also be a measure to tackle extremist radicalisation.
21. The rationale for an emphasis in Prevent
on a single "suspect community", and resulting attempts
at what is seen as clumsy social engineering, have been challenged
in various sources.[31]
The "values based" approach (Birt, 2009) is sometimes
seen as unjustified religious/civil interference with communities,
based on flawed assumptions about vulnerability through their
Islamic faith per se (see para17).
22. However, critiques variously acknowledge
that some individuals are indeed vulnerable in Muslim and other
communities. Three factors interlink and help explain this vulnerability:
— discrimination: Islamophobia has already
been mentioned earlier in this submission; other communities can
also be affected by a singular focus in Prevent on the
Muslim community, hardening attitudes amongst white communities
(eg Thomas, 2009);
— socio-economic deprivation and disadvantage:
the emphasis needs to focus on recognising and identifying genuine
need and tackling disadvantage, marshalling[32]
efforts in education, training, skills development, access to
employment for purposes of social justice rather than for purposes
seen as disproportionate, intrusive community surveillance; and
— protection against intellectual radicalisation:
commentaries agree on the influence of a persuasive ideology in
the radicalisation process (eg Burke, 2007) with Al-Qaida's objectives
couched in religious language and imagery. Sources assert the
uncertainties about identity, shared especially by Muslim young
people, as a risk factor in vulnerability to radicalisation and
terrorist recruiters. Antidotes lie both in the provision of opportunities
to debate, explore and understand issues about faith and identity
and also to discuss controversial foreign and social policy in
inclusive community contexts (eg Thomas, 2009).
23. Recent announcements from the United
States government (eg Assistant to President Obama for Homeland
Security and Counterterrorism) point also to a revised policy
for combating violent extremism which emphasises the importance
of addressing socio-economic issues:
addressing…upstream factors [economic, social,
political] is ultimately not a military operation but a political,
economic and social campaign to meet basic needs and legitimate
grievances of ordinary people (Brennan 2009, p. 8)
24. Addressing these factors as tools against
violent extremism came through strongly and consistently in ISCRI's
Pathfinder Programme, funded by the MPS (McDonald et al,
2008). Islamophobia and hate crime featured as notable community
concerns, nurturing resentment and vulnerability to radicalisation,
were persistently under-reported and ineffectively communicated
to the police and authorities because of community perception
of flaws in and the concept of third-party reporting mechanisms,
for example.
25. Sources variously stress the value of
virtuous religious intervention in intellectual discussion and
de-radicalisation processes. Indeed, the need to engage and foster
the Islamic faith and a better understanding of the religion in
these processes is seen as a pivotal remedy.
26. Such intervention is dependent on the
involvement of local community figures with religious and street
credibility (eg Lambert, 2007); the use of trusted community intermediaries
rather than organisations and groupings that may alienate the
same communities by their status as being created and controlled
by the state, centrally or locally (eg Ghannoushi, 2008); and
an opportunity to debate and share issues of concern on an all-community
basis. The "means based" approach to Prevent, outlined
in Birt (2009) finds expression here.
27. The use of genuine, grass-roots social
capital of communities, including the Muslim community, is crucial
in confronting threats of radicalisation. International studies
(eg Change Institute, 2008) assert the generic value of vibrant
"civil society organisations", themselves providing
alternatives to violent radical narratives, and often enjoying
understanding of the issues and access across dense, local, horizontal,
social networks. The autonomy of such civil organisations is crucial
to their community credibility and effectiveness. McDonald et
al (2008b) also assert the value of such organisations and
individuals articulating to Muslim audiences issues of cohesion
and citizenship in the context of Islamic teaching.
28. This can be undermined by "risk
averse" authorities who have turned away in the main from
engaging with progressive yet stigmatised local groups (eg Lambert,
2008) who actually themselves condemn terrorism (eg Salafi and
Islamists) in favour of those deemed "moderates" but
who lack credibility and the knowledge (often religious) to counter
Al-Qaida propagandists. Work with communities by trusted grass
roots practitioners, including women and young people, is crucial.
29. Aspirations by local authorities to
acquire more influential roles (eg Turley, 2009), to lead initiatives,
to control agendas and deploy funding to augment their own internal
capacity, rather than that of credible and more effective community
organisations, work against efforts to engage wider community
support against radicalisation.
30. Consideration needs to be given to community
preferences for a different balance in partnerships: state bodies
such as local authorities and their partner agencies should provide
support and expertise in advisory but not in lead capacities that
are so obviously dominant (eg McDonald et al, 2008). This
imbalance in the community-state power relationship has been a
factor in the unpopularity of the Prevent strategy and
programme with such communities hitherto.
31. Finally, and importantly, the process
of violent radicalisation needs to be treated as an act of criminality
perpetrated by individuals who may be either, vulnerable, malevolent
or both; rather than as a social deficit of a whole community
deemed to require disproportionate, social engineering by the
state. Rather, the problem should be seen as one important issue
of crime and community safety amongst several community issues—
an issue that can be identified by the community itself (eg Keane,
2008) amongst other concerns and needs, and around which all communities
can find common ground.
32. From review and consideration of a wide
range of sources,` Prevent as currently constructed, remains
a government programme, conceived and applied centrally without
community consultation or mandate and which is inherently contradictory
in its objectives and methods to engage community support in the
prevention of violent radicalisation. Such a centrally imposed
programme steepens the spiral of silence whereby a Muslim community,
often already disaffected and withdrawn, is made to feel even
more isolated and disengaged from mainstream civil society, thereby
increasing its vulnerability to the risks of violent extremist
propaganda and sympathy.
33. Indications from government to widen
Prevent's brief to include forms of extremism other than
Al-Qaida influenced terrorism (eg RICU, 2009) are positive steps
forward but evidence as presented points to the need for other
significant changes too. Tensions persist between "values"
and "means based" approaches and how they have been
applied but careful consideration now needs to be given how to
better appreciate and engage the integrity and contributions which
can and need to be made by Muslim communities:
trusting the talents, know-how and insights
of British citizens who happen to be of the Muslim faith will
prove to be invaluable (Birt, 2009, p. 57)
34. The brief from CLG Committee requests
reference to be made in submissions to seven specific questions.
In light of the detail provided above, our summary response to
these would be as follows:
(i) Robustness of government analysis of factors
leading to recruitment into violent extremism:
The causal link between recruitment and underlying
socio-economic conditions leading to vulnerability seem to have
been included but not emphasised adequately by government in its
approach, preferring to focus on security and religion. Problems
of discrimination, hate crime, deprivation, identity and the impact
of an unpopular foreign policy need greater emphasis. All these
factors make the vulnerable more susceptible to ideologies of
violence and add to feelings of disconnection from the state and
a government failing to meet needs.
(ii) Effectiveness of government strategy
in community engagement:
Rarely do genuine and trusted local community
groups, who can reach and influence those most at risk and the
young and vulnerable, appear engaged. Instead, the strategy appears
to communicate through a "values based" approach with
the whole Muslim populace as an undifferentiated and stigmatised
social grouping (causing resentment); or, it establishes, or is
guided by "arms length" entities the government itself
has created but which in the main have poor local credibility
and lack genuine community understanding and relevance. Despite
often good intentions, bodies such as the Young Muslims Advisory
Group, Muslim Women's Advisory Group, Quilliam Foundation and
Sufi Muslim Council all share these disadvantages.
(iii) Advice and expertise availability to
local authorities on implementation and evaluation:
The social capital of trusted local community
groups needs to be engaged and supported more intensively. Evaluation
through NI35 fails to deal with Prevent interventions
that in the main struggle to reach the truly vulnerable, rather
than the "whole" community.
(iv) Effective communication of Prevent
to those at who it is aimed:
Communication about Prevent tends to be
construed as a government initiative that unfairly and disproportionately
targets the "Muslim" community as being "suspect"
about which intelligence needs to be gathered overtly in projects
or covertly through the recruitment of informants.
(v) Government benefiting from appropriate
advice:
See point (ii) above. Advice seems to have derived
from those with poor local community understanding and credibility,
often promoting their own kudos, personal reputations or agendas.
(vi) Effectiveness of the programme:
See point (iv). and generally.
It is accepted that engagement of communities
is needed to tackle the terrorist threat and cannot be tackled
by military means alone. However, Prevent has not hitherto
been effective in recognising and engaging the integrity of domestic
Muslim communities in these efforts which will be crucial to success.
(vii) Differentiation between Prevent, cohesion
and integration:
Terminology is not merely decorative but crucial
for the development of a successful approach which can more effectively
address the upstream factors that underpin future risks of violent
radicalisation:
— Improvement can be achieved by treating
such risks as part of a crime and community safety agenda (alongside
other concerns by many communities affected by, eg gun crime,
gang crime, drug related crime etc). This can be an effective
approach in targeting policy at vulnerable young people, at risk
of being criminalised (eg BASIAN, 2009);
— The labels of PVE and Prevent
are largely unhelpful and the problem of radicalisation into violence
needs articulating more in terms of crime and safety, rather than
as an assumed (and unproven) social deficit within a so-called
single community;
— Accelerated work on community cohesion,
addressing discrimination and hate crime would help counter risk;
emphasis on tackling socio-economic deprivation should also be
reinforced but, as with cohesion work, not as part of a Prevent
agenda (or using its terms and perceived objectives to gather
intelligence as part of a hidden agenda) but as one trying to
meet genuine community needs and aspirations on a just and equitable
basis;
— Some aspects of Prevent, especially
the identification of individuals at risk, would be more helpfully
articulated as Pursue objectives. This would mean the police
moving away from Prevent work where their roles are viewed
suspiciously by communities, seen as seeking to recruit informants
and gather intelligence and, hence, counter-productive in alienating
the very community whose support the Prevent strategy seeks
to achieve. Conflation of the police's role in Pursue with
Prevent may also damage the police's neighbourhood policing
efforts and integrity.
35. Such adjustments would allow local communities
themselves—their social capital—to contribute much
more effectively to addressing some of the causes of such intentions
and acts of criminality, and with greater fairness and enthusiasm.
An approach is needed that recognises genuine need for certain
individuals to be protected from violent radicalisation, alongside
addressing structural socio-economic problems of broader vulnerability,
acknowledging the integrity of the wider Muslim community(ies)
and engaging their social capital (religious and community) properly
in the strategy without stigmatisation.
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29 References are cited in this submission to provide
supporting evidence of key points which we hope prove helpful,
rather than a distraction to the flow of the narrative. Back
30
Reports enclosed with submission to CLG Select Committee. Back
31
The flaws in a single community focus also find echoes a decade
ago in the Macpherson report (Macpherson, 1999) and its concerns
about racist stereotyping and discrimination within state services,
together with the statutory requirements of the Race Relations
(Amendment) Act 2000 by public authorities to promote good
race relations and combat institutional racism. Back
32
Often referred to as "mainstreaming". Back
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