During the first ten months of 2015, a total of 1,355 people under the age of 18 were referred to the government’s ‘Channel’ re-education programme for ‘suspected extremists’. This compares to 466 during the previous year. Between 2012 and 2016, 415 children under the age of 10 were referred to the programme. While the government pretends that the Channel programme is built on dialogue with faith leaders and communities, this is clearly not the case – instead this ‘re-education’ forms a central part of the government’s strategy to isolate and criminalise the Muslim community under the guise of defending the country from the threat of violent extremism, targeting in particular young and vulnerable working class Muslims. Becky Fry reports.
The ‘Prevent Strategy’ was first introduced under the 1997-2010 Labour government, and, while claiming to target all forms of ‘extremism’, both political and religious, focused predominantly on mosques, university Islamic societies and, prisons with large numbers of Muslim prisoners. In FRFI 246 we reported on how on 1 July 2015 this ideological offensive became the statutory ‘Prevent Duty’; section 26 of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015 states that all employees of councils, police forces, prisons, health services and schools have a duty to exercise ‘due regard’ to prevent people being drawn into terrorism. Everyone working in public sector service provision, from leaders to frontline staff, is expected to look out for symptoms of ‘radicalisation’ and take action to notify the appropriate authority of any suspicions, based upon finding antipathy toward ‘British Values’
In January 2016 a 10-year-old boy from Lancashire was referred by a teacher to the Channel programme for misspelling ‘terraced’ in a piece of writing: ‘I lived in a terrorist house.’ Another child of 14 was reported to the programme for using the phrase ‘eco-terrorists’ whilst attending Central Foundation School in London. The Prevent Duty has produced a fear culture inside public sector institutions, particularly schools, and destroys the possibility of open discussion and debate of ideas within classrooms as teachers are forced to view Muslim students as potential terrorists.
On 19 October 2015, the government made two further revisions to the Counter-Extremism strategy. The first of these relates to so-called attempted ‘entryist’ infiltration of the public sector. The Home Office defines entryism as ‘extremist individuals, groups and organisations consciously seeking to gain positions of influence to better enable them to promote their own extremist agendas.’ This is a clear reference to the ongoing ‘Trojan Horse’ investigations into some Birmingham schools accused of spreading an extremist ideology. The revised policy not only states that any individual with a conviction or civil order for an extremist-related act will no longer be allowed to work with children, but also gives the state the power to blacklist public sector workers, who have not been convicted of anything, on ideological, political or religious grounds. While the focus, as with all of Prevent, is on Islamic ‘entryism’, there is no reason to assume that in the future this will not be used against teachers and other workers involved in left-wing political activism.
The second major revision to the Counter-Extremism strategy is Section 118: ‘Parents concerned that their 16-and 17-year-old children are at risk of travelling abroad under the influence of extremists will be able to apply to have their passports removed.’ This new addition to the strategy sits under the heading ‘helping the public to report extremism.’ This is accompanied by the ‘Extremism Community Trigger’ intended to ensure police officers fully review the reported concerns of members of public. The Home Office has also set aside £5m of funding for community groups tackling extremism.
The so-called fight against extremism within communities will now coerce 16 and 17-year-olds into the National Citizen Service. This programme was developed in the north of Ireland, wherein young people drawn from both Catholic and Protestant communities are taken on an outward-bound style holiday followed by undertaking voluntary service, while being constantly told that they should ignore centuries of war and occupation and work together ‘for peace’.
Whether this works for the state in the post-Good Friday Agreement Six Counties or not, it is unlikely to have much effect on alienated working class Muslim young people in Britain. Even measured on its own terms the whole ‘Prevent’ project is a failure so far and has not stopped 750+ British-linked individuals travelling to Syria to take part in the conflict – many of them ironically joining the same ‘jihadi’ forces which Britain is hoping will overthrow the Assad government.
The success or failure of Prevent in such terms is however irrelevant. The ‘counter-extremism strategy’ is not really directed at preventing ‘extremism’ so much as at criminalising the Muslim community and creating a culture of fear throughout the entire population. Just as in the 1970s and 1980s, the entire Irish community was targeted and criminalised by anti-terrorism law in order to frighten Irish people out of showing their opposition to British occupation of their country, today the whole Muslim community is coming under attack. Its purpose is wider than preventing terrorism; it is an attempt to reduce and tame public criticism of British imperialism’s continuing murderous onslaught on the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa.
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 249 February/March 2016
