The collapse of the case against the alleged 7/7 bomb accomplices coincided with a meeting I attended yesterday of community leaders.
The Muslims amongst them were warning that relations are becoming very strained, and they fear that government policy – in particular, the continued existence of the Prevent programme – is radicalising many young Muslims.
These leaders told me that the whole scheme created divisions between Islamic groupings, raised suspicions, provoked dangerous compromises, and worse.
Indeed, some at the meeting appeared to hope that the credit crunch would dispose of this scheme and other such programmes that have sprung up in recent years.
These are the kinds of issues that critics are raising.
The government has spattered large amounts of taxpayers’ money on this strategy. But would it ever have decided to target Jewish leaders, or Catholics, or Pentecostalists, with this stuff?
And why is a secular state spending money like this? In America it would be banned under the constitution. And almost certainly in France, too.
Finally: who can possibly have thought that setting up something called Prevent (a negative enough connotation, even in its title) would in some way encourage peace and harmony rather than patronise and alienate its targets still further?
I’m sure there others of you out there who have more positive views of this particular scheme – which is aimed after all at preventing more acts of terror killing people in our towns and cities.
Maybe if you have been the lucky recipient of Prevent monies and have benefited thereby, you can have your say? The space below is yours.
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You ask whether we would be targeting Jews or Catholics or Pentecostalists with things like the “Prevent” programme. Well there have been some Catholic terrorists in the US aimed at medical clinics, but here our problem is only Islamist terrorists. The IRA were never primarily a religious jihad.
No doubt if militant Pentecostalists started trying to blow us up, we would have to look to find ways to prevent the violent radicalisation of Pentecostalists.
Not that all religious groups – by their very nature – don’t have the potential to go rogue and start blowing people up in furtherance of the cause of their imaginary friend.
I am heartened by your claim that Britain is a secular state. I agree with you but am frequently laughed at by Americans citing our official state religion and the fact that the hereditary Head of State is also hereditary head of the sate religion and all those publicly funded religious schools. On that last one I have to concede they have a point.
The radicalisation of young Muslims is due to their upbringing and its conflict with a modern progressive culture more than anything else.
When an Muslim immigrant with traditional views settles in Britain he raises his children along those strict, and by western standards,, repressive lines.
Yet all around them they see British young people enjoying a full life they can’t. The result is very similar, even though for different reasons, than what young Black Americans felt and still feel to some extent.
When young men are reaching their sexual peak, Muslim men, who aren’t married, aren’t allowed to experience women as other Brits do, Again, all this testosterone and resentment can lead to radical views, especially with a religion that preaches its primacy over all others.
I agree with your views Jon and would also like to add the even more inportant point of how on earth could this work even if it didn’t patronise and alienate the muslim community. Seriously ? How can we stop people bombing us. We can’t. People don’t leave their bins open with empty acme TNT boxes hanging out – I daren’t overload my bin with anything anyway. (and making it illegal to take pictures of buildings?? spy cameras have been around since the 1920s. It must be a deliberate ploy by the govnt to alienate them. It can’t do nothing else and even our govnt isn’t that stupid.
I know this might seem like the bleedin obvious but I would have thought education in a general sense would go a long way in helping anybody understand the differences throughout our differing societies. A programme on radio 4 last year, beyond belief I think, mentioned the fact that a top uni in Pakistan had 3 Mosques and NO library. Well whats that all about? What do the Islamic Elders have to say about that? Is it any wonder that people become radicalised if they start off in life ignorant of the rest of the world around them!
Three Mosques and no library is a frightening ideal in a national university. Do they presume young Muslim adults haven’t got the sense about them to discuss Islam without losing their religion? No wonder they feel disenfranchised – education is a civil right in Pakistan, and they’re being denied. Well said RAB – education, education, education!
Any logical discussion of a Muslim’s or any other religion will ipso facto result in that person “losing their religion”.
I know this might seem like the bleedin obvious but I would have thought education in a general sense would go a long way in helping anybody understand the differences throughout our differing societies. A programme on radio 4 last year, beyond belief I think, mentioned the fact that a top uni in Pakistan had 3 Mosques and NO library. Well whats that all about? What do the Islamic Elders have to say about that? Is it any wonder that people become radicalised if they start off in life ignorant of the rest of the world around them!
OH! You’re my new favorite blogger fyi
The paradox is that you must give a person a comprehensive education for them to make an informed decision as to wether they want it or not. Extreme religionists of any faith do not like education for the masses as it gives to much choice and loses them power. Taliban Afghanistan is prime example. The world is far to small now to isolate whole communities in that way so we get back to education for all as a fundamental right and go forth from there.
Agreed.
My simple idea…following Robert A. Brown comments: Educating young Muslims….and this way, some of them will not be radical.
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