Memorandum from Forward Thinking (PVE
49)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. This submission is based on our work
with diverse communities and grassroots organisations over the
past five years.
2. The attached dossier provides feedback
from some of the community groups whom we work with.
3. These observations do not distinguish
between Prevent as implemented by the different government departments
CLG, Home Office, CSF, FCO and Local Authorities. The community
perceptions and experiences are based on the view of the Prevent
policy as a whole.
4. Forward Thinking believes that Prevent
has contributed to a sense of alienation within communities rather
than their empowerment.
5. Prevent forms part of the governments
counter-terrorism strategy but the guidelines to local partners
encourages the connecting of Prevent with other related agendas
such as cohesion, cultural, leisure, education and youth services.
This has helped to create suspicion and mistrust within the communities
where any interaction with the state or non-state actors is seen
as information gathering or intelligence services led.
6. "Prevent" has become highly
counter-productive: it communicates, to Muslim communities, that
the only line of engagement between them and their government
concerns terrorism. Muslims need to be engaged first and foremost
as British citizens.
7. The Prevent policy raises the question
among Muslims as to whether the government is attempting to prevent
violent and extremist acts or promote a "state-sanctioned"
version of Islam.
8. Key community members whose engagement
is vital to the success of PVE are reluctant to be associated
with such policies.
9. The awarding of funds for projects by
local authorities and central government has been opaque and the
criteria on which projects are deemed effective seem unclear and
inconsistent.
10. The stigma attached to PVE funding and
its rejection by many grassroots organisations has created a vacuum
which is being filled by groups and individuals who lack any real
constituency within the communities but who are repeatedly being
awarded funding for projects that appear to have little merit.
11. There is a lack of a standardized mechanism
to evaluate the effectiveness of projects in contributing to PVE
and their value for money.
12. In communities where PVE funding has
been accepted and where Muslims and non-Muslim communities have
been aware of this, it has led to tension and hostilities between
communities. This also appears to have fuelled the far-right and
Islamophobic agenda both locally and nationally.
INTRODUCTION
13. Forward Thinking is a proactive, demand-driven,
facilitative organisation, founded in 2004 as an independent
non-denominational charity that works:
— To promote in the UK greater understanding
and confidence between the diverse grassroots Muslim communities
and the wider society including the Media and the British establishment.
— To promote a more inclusive peace process
in the Middle East.
— To facilitate a global dialogue between
the religious and secular worlds.
14. As a non-denominational, non-governmental,
multi-disciplined organisation, Forward Thinking is uniquely positioned
to provide their experience and knowledgeable assistance to Muslim
community groups who are seeking to develop and improve their
work within the community.
15. The combination of our team's knowledge
of Islam, our access to the diverse grassroots Muslim communities
at a regional and national level, our expertise in organisational
capacity building at a community level and our track record of
working with such groups over the past five years, enables us
to provide real insight about the impact of Prevent policy an
and authoritative voice about the issues and concerns of the culturally,
religiously and regionally diverse Muslim communities in the UK.
16. We understand that the Select Committee
inquiry's remit will focus on Prevent in relation to the Communities
and Local Government department and any findings will relate to
this. However we feel that as Prevent is a cross-departmental
policy that was designed to work across different departments
of government and has resulted in being the primary, and at times,
only way arms of state interact with Muslim individuals or communities,
it is important that we look at the sum of the parts of the policy
so that we do not obscure its impact.
ADDRESSING THE
INQUIRY'S
QUESTIONS
17. Is the Prevent programme the right way
of addressing the problem of violent extremism, or are there better
ways of doing it?
18. Violent Extremism as defined by Prevent
seems to focus mainly on Muslim communities, though lip-service
is paid to threats posed by animal rights campaigners, all funds
that has been administered to support Prevent has been administered
to or focused on dealing with Muslim communities.
19. This approach criminalizes Muslims and
Muslim communities by association rather than having a policy
that is based on robust facts and evidence. It's a blanket approach
that at best ignorantly lumps diverse Muslim communities together,
simplifies that nature of the threat and creates alienation and
disenfranchisement which contributes to the very threat it aims
to counter.
20. Prevent will always be a problematic
policy because in the fundamental questions of what leads people
to commit acts of violence in the name of an ideology cloaked
in a religious theme have yet to be answered by policy makers.
Please refer to Dossier item one: "Toward a Holistic Strategy
to Counter Violent Radicalisation in the United Kingdom".
21. Prevent places a disproportionate amount
of responsibility for citizens' security on communities and their
local authorities. This is particularly problematic when local
communities do not engage with their constituents on a faith basis
and therefore do not know who their "Muslim Constituents"
are. In addition, traditionally many Muslims communities particularly
recently settled communities are unengaged with local authorities
either by choice or due to structural inequalities.
22. 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?
23. Prevent's five objectives to address
the causes of radicalisation which are believed to lead to radicalisation
seem clear enough but their practical implementation become problematic
when:
24. "Supporting mainstream voices"—the
diversity of Muslim voices and opinion makes it difficult to define
"mainstream" voices. Although there is general agreement
on the principles and spirit of Islamic practice there is great
linguistic, cultural, theological, regional and denominational
diversity. In addition, from the communities' perspective, "supporting
mainstream voices, has become a euphemism for apologists for government
and those who are seen to be too close to government.
25. "Disrupting those who promote violent
extremism and support the places where they operate"—here
there is the unintended risk of shutting down public debate and
freedom of speech, particularly since communities feel that it
is unfairly targeted as the Muslim community. Similar measures
have not been seen again far-right groups and others. Some communities
have become afraid of talking about any issue relating to theology,
foreign policy and politics for fear of being accused of promoting
the "wrong ideology". This has the knock on effect of
driving those who wish to recruit and incite violence to do so
underground away from the communities' gaze and leadership who
may have an influence in curbing such practice. In addition, this
creates a vacuum where such views and ideologies go unchallenged
because their people are afraid of being wrongly accused of promoting
violent extremism or because they are unaware of it going on in
the community and therefore cannot address them.
26. "Supporting individuals who are
vulnerable to recruitment or who have already been recruited by
violent extremists"—our interactions and feedback from
communities, particularly that in Dewsbury has illustrated that
there is a real lack of expertise and best practice in this area.
The quality of services and access to support is not uniform across
the country and in some cases is extremely poor leaving vulnerable
individuals at greater risk. Again the interaction with the state
is always avoided by communities and individuals simply because
there is a lack of trust and understanding.
27. "Increase the resilience of communities
to violent extremism"—a vague statement that has resulted
in a variety of projects being funded from interfaith singing
to playing football and media training. Again there is a lack
of consistency of standards and application.
28. The two supporting objectives of: "Developing
supporting intelligence, analysis and information and improve
strategic communications" are reasonable in themselves but
when Prevent is mixed with agendas of community cohesion, empowering
communities and includes departments such as DSCF, Youth Justice
Board, prisons, health and UK Border Agency this feeds to the
already existing sense of mistrusts and defensiveness within communities
leading in some cases to paranoia and the use of conspiracy theories
as a prism of understanding policy and government action.
29. Please refer to paragraph 3.2 in
Item two of the dossier which gives the perspective of a community
group in Birmingham.
30. 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
31. Prior to the tragic attacks of 7 July
2005, the government's interaction with Muslim communities was
through a select number of organizations that did not reflect
the diversity of the Muslim communities in the UK. This is exemplified
by engaging with umbrella organisations like the MCB. However,
there has now been an extreme shift so that organisations like
MCB and those who seem to be critical of government on issues
whether it be domestic, foreign or cohesion and security policies
are in some cases actively excluded from consultation and dialogue.
32. It is also clear that government departments
and associated bureaucracies find it extremely difficult to access
and engage grassroots communities and those with authentic constituency.
There is the initial obstacle of knowing where to go and also
developing relationships that are based on trust and mutual understanding.
This therefore creates a vacuum of grassroots voices and those
who can affect real change (whether small or significant) on the
ground. Engagement is therefore with individuals, representatives
and national organisations who do not fully reflect the age, gender
and generational profile as well as the cultural and theological
diversity of the Muslim community in the UK.
33. Very often the people and advisers engaged
by government are disconnected from the realities of those very
vulnerable individuals and communities the government is trying
to reach. This may be simple due to the fact that the most vulnerable
are more likely to be isolated and hidden from mainstream society
and state institutions. Therefore the information gained, analysis
made and solutions offered are not targeted, accurate or engage
the people who need the most help and support.
34. Recognising this gap in engagement and
understanding Forward Thinking has over the last 18 months
devised a programme of community engagement with the OSCT team
in the Home Office where new inductees to the department take
part in a 1.5 day visit to a community in either the south
east, the Midlands or Northern England to meet with grassroots
groups, activists, Imams, women, young people and professionals
living in the Muslim community to learn from them about their
lives, concerns and issues of they face in education, the workplace,
wider society etc. It has proven to be a successful mechanism
of learning and trust building on both sides. Neither CLG nor
FCO have a similar programme of engagement with communities.
35. A recent report by the Tax Payers Alliance,
published on 8 September 2009, provides comprehensive details
of spending on Prevent showing how much each organisations received
individually in the financial year for 2006-07, 2007-08 and
2008-09. The data reveals that Manchester City Council had funded
only two organisations with its PVE budget, with one receiving
a total of £125000 of tax payer's money. Surely the
Muslim communities of the metropolitan city of Manchester cannot
be reached through only two organisations. Similarly in
Dudley, only one Muslim organisation received PVE funding
totaling £260,801.00 over a two year period. Can it
then be accurately stated that Dudley L.A reached out widely and
effectively to its Muslim constituents?
36. Is the necessary advice and expertise
available to local authorities on how to implement and evaluate
the programme? & Is the Government seeking, and obtaining,
appropriate advice on how to achieve the goals of the "Prevent"
programme.
37. The Local Government Association has
produced a document aimed at local authorities and local councilors
which provides a guide to Prevent and its practical implementation/implication.
Whether this has been of any assistance is unknown.
38. As PVE funding is administered to local
authorities through Local Area Based Grants, the reporting and
evaluating feedback given to central government is not as robust
or thorough. Local authorities are then vulnerable to misunderstanding
and confusion with regards to implementing and evaluating Prevent.
In some cases this has resulted in PVE funding being channeled
towards cohesion projects.
39. Implementation and evaluation requires
sound knowledge of the Muslim communities and constituents in
the local authority. The plethora of consultative and research
organisations employed by local authorities to "map"
Muslim communities in the locality suggest that even the most
basic knowledge about the ethnicity and social profile of the
local Muslim communities is unknown. This not only hinders engagement
but results in weak and superficial implementation and evaluation.
40. As a result of this knowledge deficit,
local authorities have tended to fall back on long term partners
and stakeholders for advice, guidance and implementation of projects,
whose traditional expertise has been in race, equality and diversity
work. Though some of this is relevant to Muslim communities, on
its own it is not adequate to understand the national and local
nuances of the Muslim communities.
41. The remainder of the enquiries questions
are quite similar and are linked. We have therefore chosen to
list them below and provide the following response:
42. Are the objectives of the "Prevent"
agenda being communicated effectively to those at whom it is aimed?
43. 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?
44. 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?
45. The government's own guidelines state
that "local Prevent partnerships should make connections
between Prevent and other associated and related agendas. Local
partners can give Prevent work different titles, but irrespective
of the way Prevent is presented, it is vital to retain a focus
on the Prevent objectives." Page five, Delivering the Prevent
Strategy: An updated Guide for Local Partners, HM Governemnt August
2009. This clearly illustrates the confusion that has arisen and
the potential lack of transparency when engaging with communties
under the Prevent agenda.
46. Please refer to Items three and four
in the dossier that provide feedback from two community leaders
who are Christians working with Muslim communities in Bedford
and Luton and their experience of how the wider community has
reacted to Prevent; the lack of clarity on whether Prevent money
can be used for cohesion projects and the communities' perceptions
of the objectives of Prevent resulting in further isolation and
intra-community tension.
47. Item five of the dossier is a letter
from a prominent Muslim leader in Batley that discusses his experience
of a PVE funded event and the community's perception about the
mistrust of PVE funded projects and lack of effective evaluation
of such projects in reaching the objectives of Prevent.
48. Paragraphs 3.5 and 3.6 in
Item two of the dossier also provide a regional perspective of
effectiveness, evaluation and related agendas of cohesion/integration.
RECOMMENDATIONS
49. Engagement with Muslim communities at
a grassroots level must be a priority.
50. Engagement must be inclusive of the
diversity of the Muslim communities in the UK. It must incorporate
the multiplicity of voices, theological, ethnic, linguistic, gender,
generational and political backgrounds. Selective engagement has
not worked in the past and will no bare fruit in the future.
51. Preventing violent extremism must not
be the only driver for engagement with Muslim communities.
52. A paradigm shift in engagement is needed,
form one that perceives communities as harbering potential terrorist
and therefore dealing with them as a 'problem' to seeing them
as valuable and worthy tax-paying citizens who are integral to
the democractic health of the political system.
53. Prevent policy should not target communities,
rather individuals who have or could potentially commit criminal
and violent acts.
54. The under investment in Muslim communities
must be tackled without creating tensions between other faith
and community groups and away from the Prevent agenda.
55. Empowering impoverished communities
should be seen as worthy in it self rather than dependent on the
extent to which disadvantaged communities can help the state do
its job of protecting citizens.
September 2009
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