‘Young people and women are key to tackling threat’
THERE are a number of reasons why people become radicalised. Old thinking was the more religious someone becomes, the more likely they are to be radicalised. This is wrong. One guy who went to Syria to join IS, bought himself a book called Islam for Dummies.
Grooming for ideology is the same process as grooming for sex or grooming for crime. You manipulate people, try to find out what makes them feel vulnerable, give them what you think they want – and then they become yours.
IS is effectively a gang and being part of a gang is a thrill. So thrill-seeking can be a driver. It is Jihadi-mania, like Beatlemania – boys want to be like them and the girls want to be with them.
Another factor is redemption. One in eight prisoners in this country is Muslim and quite often they are there for drug offences. Very often, they feel the way they can deal with their addiction is to find another addiction – radicalisation.
The main way to prevent radicalisation is early intervention and education.
And to do this we need to give young people a voice. Don’t concentrate on the community leaders, find the new community stars who can help us. More than half of Muslims in this country are under 25, female and from low-income backgrounds. The leaders are male, middle-class professionals. They have no idea what is going on in their own families, never mind the wider communities.
We should move away from those people and go to the women’s groups who are tackling radicalisation, sexual abuse and other issues in communities and they are doing it really, really well.
I know of little groups who are surviving on about £10,000 a year, yet they are keeping us safe. We should be funding these groups and that will have the biggest impact.
If you know your local bobby then you are more likely to share information with that person than ring a hotline. If there is less community policing, then there is going to be less information shared.
Parents tell me they don’t know where to go for help for their children. If the Government would fund it, I would like to set up a helpline for parents to ring up and get guidance and support for how they can get help with their children.
We have to think differently.