Memorandum from Faith Associates (PVE
40)
1. PREVENTING
VIOLENT EXTREMISM
1.1 In response to the call for evidence
Faith Associates would like the following evidence to be considered.
1.2 The Communities and Local Government
Committee has resolved to undertake an inquiry into Prevent, the
Government's programme for preventing violent extremism. The Committee
will consider the current and likely future effectiveness of the
Prevent programme.
1.3 In view of the community engagement
and development work undertaken by Faith Associates this submission
focuses on the "Increase the resilience of communities to
violent extremism" and "Address the grievances which
ideologues are exploiting" strands of the Prevent programme.
2. SUMMARY OF
SUBMISSION
2.1 The main points made in this memorandum
are:
— increasing the resilience and building
institutional capacity of Mosques to drive the community cohesion
agenda, practically, spiritually and intellectually within the
communities they serve;
— increasing the community capacity to
self regulate and strengthen and broaden mainstream voices; and
— support Muslim community institutions
to play a greater role in civic leadership and developing mainstream
service provision.
3. BACKGROUND
3.1 Faith Associates was established in
2006 to provide services to develop the capability and capacity
of faith communities in the United Kingdom and overseas, with
a specific emphasis on Muslim communities.
3.2 The work of the organisation and its
associates is predominately across the South East of England and
in the major conurbations of the UK, providing services to build
capability and capacity in Muslim institutions such as Mosques
helping improve governance and their participation in civic life.
3.3 Shaukat Warraich, the co-founder of
Faith Associates, has over the past 15 years been actively
engaged with different local communities—more recently helping
to establish local communication forums to support greater Muslim
community participation and self governance.
4. Is the Prevent programme the right way
of addressing the problem of violent extremism, or are there better
ways of doing it?
4.1 The key aim of the Prevent strand of
CONTEST is to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent
extremism. The revised HM Government guidance on Delivering the
Prevent Strategy (August 2009) re-emphasises the importance of
partnership working as being key to successful local delivery
and the role of evaluation and research to support the development
of an evidence base to inform effective practice.
4.2 Our experience to date suggests that
effective partnership working is also being delivered across government
departments and regional offices, ie Home Office; Communities
and Local Government; Children, Schools and Families; and Business,
Innovation and Skills.
4.3 The challenge of moving from single
department/service delivery to multi-agency working at national,
regional and local levels has taken time to embed. The challenge
has been taken up and our experience suggests this now provides
a good structure on which the aims of the Prevent strategy can
be realised.
4.4 The consequent local structures now
developed, ie local partnerships that include local authorities,
local police, local community and faith organisation representation,
will help ensure consistent messages on and co-ordination of local
work.
4.5 We have seen that effective local partnerships,
building the knowledge, confidence, trust and subsequent engagement
of all local partners is a pre-requisite to establishing effective
local Prevent work.
5. How robust is the Government's analysis
of the factors which lead people to become involved in violent
extremism? Is the "Prevent" programme appropriately
targeted to address the most important of those factors?
5.1 Study and understanding of the "radicalisation"
of individuals into violent extremism is relatively new. A common
definition of radicalisation is "the process in which a person
gradually accepts the ideas and subsequent methods of expressing
them". There are some key points to consider here:
— whether the ideas and narrative are within
the law;
— whether the methods to express the ideas
and narrative are violent or non-violent; and
— how the ideas and narrative further manifest,
ie in joining an organised group or an individual taking forward
a personal narrative with subsequent individual action.
5.2 The factors that will influence an individual
during this process will be multi-dimensional:
— their own personal circumstances such
as access to education, the labour market, personal or family
finances;
— their own experiences in their locality
and wider afield, from whether they are able to find a voice to
engage others with their thoughts and ideas, able to engaged with
others in discussing local, national or world affairs or whether
they, their families or friends have experienced racial, religious
or abuse;
— cultural factors such as how well they
have developed and resolved their own sense of identity, including
their faith, ethnic heritage or other beliefs; and
— group dynamics and peer influence.
5.3 For a government to have a one size
fits all plan of what to do to stop individuals becoming radicalised
is a task unlikely to succeed.
5.4 Our experience suggests that what may
be achievable is training and supporting those who are responsible
for the care of those in their community, from parents to faith
leaders, teachers to youth workers, in identifying those who may
be or are becoming vulnerable to violent extremism. Key is addressing
early signs of vulnerability by supporting the development of
the skills and confidence of those working with young people and
the wider community and ensuring they have access to professional
and culturally sensitive advice and support.
5.5 For those individuals that have become
radicalised and require more intensive support than services in
their local community can provide then the channel projects may
offer some answers. These are in their early stages and their
effectiveness will take time to judge, but without community centric
support and rehabilitation there will be a danger that alienation
could develop into criminalisation.
5.6 A consideration for all interventions
is ensuring cultural sensitivity and upholding the ethos of a
free society where extremist views within the law can be held
and discussed by those not resorting to violent actions—a
fine line. This broadens consideration to domestic extremism,
most commonly associated with "single-issue" protests,
for example, environmentalism, anti-globalisation or crime and
public disorder linked to extreme left or right wing political
campaigns.
5.7 For individuals, particularly young
Muslims exploring their Islamic faith, there is the critical need
for sensitivity to ensure the process of "spiritual awakening"
to their faith is supported and not seen as the development of
extremist views that will lead to violent actions. An inclusive
and broader appreciation of youth development from Mosques could
play a positive role in inspiring, motivating and channelling
spiritual zeal into positive social currency.
6. How appropriate, and how effective, is
the Government's strategy for engaging with communities? Has the
Government been speaking to the right people? Has its programme
reached those at whom it is—or should be—aimed?
6.1 This question needs to be considered
at three levels: local, national and international.
6.2 Local government and government funded
services delivering in localities are often building on community
development and engagement practice. The challenges are ensuring
the voices of a cross section of communities are heard, from elected
members or leaders of faith and community based organisations
to those involved in women's and young people groups. Where localities
do not have a broad representation of voices then this is an area
of initial and often considerable work in building the trust and
confidence of all concerned. Engagement through the commissioning
of innovative initiatives are opportunities that have been sources
of great community renewal, but this requires brave and visionary
leadership on the part of strategy or commissioning groups.
6.3 At the national level, particularly
looking at Islamic/Muslim organisations, political leadership
and financial support has been forthcoming and work is now in
progress. For example:
— the Mosques and Imams National Advisory
Board (MINAB) is now developing into a standards setting and regulating
body for the majority of the 1,400 or so Mosques and their
imams in the UK; and
— ministerial advisory groups of Muslim
women and young people have been established.
6.4 At a national level the investment
and case for sustained investment in these various channels of
engagement will be what advice is sought from the groups by government
and whether the advice given impacts on government policy and
practice at home and overseas.
6.5 Internationally, the UK has a good
reputation for supporting, through a range of means, the development
of civic participation, equalities and human rights. The recent
and current conflicts the UK and others have been engaged with
will have impacted on this reputation and resolve will be required
to bring the benefits to the localities over time.
6.6 Pulling these three domains of engagement
together in terms of how effective now and in the future they
are and will be will be a challenge for the Committee. If respectful
and peaceful coexistence in a pluralist society is the aim, the
ground has been prepared and the initial sewing of seeds done
for the Muslim communities in England to be better organised,
more confident and more participatory in civic life. How this
grows is dependent on continued government engagement over the
next 10 to 15 years and, most critically, Muslim individuals
and communities engaging and rising to the opportunity.
7. Is the necessary advice and expertise
available to local authorities on how to implement and evaluate
the programme?
7.1 The Prevent initiative is relatively
new for the majority of local authorities and has created a new
cadre of staff—Prevent practitioners—across a range
of delivery services, including community safety, education, youth
justice, youth work, community development and leisure. There
is not currently a minimum skills and knowledge set for such staff.
7.2 From our experience, with particular
reference to the engagement of Muslim communities within a locality
to build resilience, staff require the understanding of cultural
complexity, sensitivity to the nuances of engaging with the range
of formal faith and community organisations and informal groupings
such as women's groups and youth groups. Key to their success
is their ability to build the trust and confidence of local communities
to effectively identify needs and work with them in meeting identified
and mutually agreed outcomes.
7.3 The majority of local implementation
we have seen is often driven by the multi-agency approach to the
delivery of Prevent. To establish, implement and evaluate Prevent
funded programmes takes time and the nature of the evaluation
is often short term outcomes related. For example, the local engagement
of women and young people through positive services/activities
that meet identified local needs. The medium term (say three to
five years) outcomes of projects—build the resilience of
communities and reducing the threat of individuals becoming radicalisation—will
in all likelihood only be known by the intelligence/Police services.
A key concern is the short-term nature of funding support for
activity to be embedded in a sustained way that can ensure the
medium term outcomes are achieved.
7.4 Are the objectives of the "Prevent"
agenda being communicated effectively to those at whom it is aimed?
7.5 Our overall experience to date is "no"
in response to this question. For Prevent there remains substantial
suspicion and concern that it is no more than asking community
members to "spy on each other". To take communities
from this starting point to an understanding of what positive
engagement with Prevent can achieve requires a range of strategies
from engagement on a one-to-one basis with leaders of local faith
institutions and community organisations and then the opportunity
to present and engage in discussion with community members across
the spectrum of local Muslim communities in each locality.
7.6 Muslim communities are focussed on
a range of issues linked to treatment in the media following 9/11 and
7/7, the reported rise in popularity of the far right, foreign
policy and its effects in home country or region—from Iraq,
to Gaza, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
8. Is the Government seeking, and obtaining,
appropriate advice on how to achieve the goals of the "Prevent"
programme?
8.1 We can add no comment other than our
response at six.
9. How effectively has the Government evaluated
the effectiveness of the programme and the value for money which
is being obtained from it? Have reactions to the programme been
adequately gauged?
9.1 Concerning evaluation please see our
response at seven.
9.2 On value for money we do not have the
evidence to offer a judgement. A consideration here will be identifying
what similar activities could value for money be benchmarked against?
9.3 The assertion we can put forward is
that the Prevent activity being funded has the potential to build
resilience, civic participation and reduce the risk of alienation
and radicalisation. With the Muslim population of England likely
to be between 4-5 million at the next census (2011), the
positive engagement and provision of services can only help build
a more cohesive society for future generations.
10. Is there adequate differentiation between
what should be achieved through the Prevent programme and the
priorities that concern related, but distinct, policy frameworks
such as cohesion and integration?
10.1 In addressing this question in our
work we present community cohesion rather than being "related"
as part of a continuum. Effective local and national work on community
cohesion and inclusion will identify opportunities for targeted
Prevent work based on the assessment of need in each locality.
10.2 Further we would suggest that the
work of organisations such as the recently formed Equalities and
Human Rights Commission will become increasingly important in
celebrating effective inclusion practice and identifying areas
for greater focus.
11. RECOMMENDATIONS
FOR ACTION
11.1 From our experience we propose the
following recommendations for consideration by the committee for
inclusion in its report to the House:
— for the government to promote yet more
vigorously security, justice, participation in democracy and opportunity
for all;
— for all to work towards resolving the
political conflicts and injustices which lie at the root of the
anger, frustration and despair which breed the foot soldiers of
terrorism;
— for all promoting socio-economic and
human development; including continued work on eradicating poverty
which exacerbates conflicts and addressing gender, youth and child
issues;
— continued emphasis is given to inclusive
education;
— continue working towards diminishing
the growing trend of intolerance and discrimination against Muslims
by fostering dialogue and comprehension through intercultural
and inter-faith working and projects;
— targeting resources to develop expertise
and specialism's to increase community resilience and help to
strengthen community institutions;
— developing contingency planning for the
intergenerational exchange and handing over of community assets
in order to direct and foster greater civic participation and
developing community asset mainstreaming; and
— institutionalising standards based community
development which fosters greater inclusiveness.
September 2009
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