‘We need a reboot – tackle all kinds of extremism. The whole Prevent thing is tainted’
THE government’s response to the challenge posed by radicalisation on the streets is the Prevent Strategy. Designed to identify people at risk from extreme views, it aims to turn them away from such attitudes and relies on information from relatives, friends and community leaders. But it has lost credibility among some Muslims amid complaints about over-zealous reporting of youngsters who had made inappropriate jokes, or simply criticised Britain’s foreign policy.
“Teachers and social workers are overworked”, says Ismael Lea South Lea South, a Manchester-based community worker.
“Sometimes people are not properly trained, they have been referring people to Prevent who are not extremists. That causes a rift with the parents and community. So now, if someone is doing anti-extremism work, they are looked as a spy. We need a reboot – a drive that tackles all kinds of extremism, animal rights, far right, and terrorism, because the whole Prevent thing is tainted.”
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, a critic of Prevent, describes it as ‘toxic’ - and says it had left Muslims feeling picked on and ‘under suspicion’. The mayor has launched a commission to look into how Manchester can improve how Prevent works locally.
While extremists come from all backgrounds, a lack of integration between different racial groups is often cited as playing a role in the development of Islamic extremism. However, anti-extremism campaigner Mohammed Shafiq counters this by arguing that it was intolerance towards immigrants that led to separate communities in the first place.
“In the sixties and seventies, when my parents came here, there was a lot of racism, so they felt safer living where their relatives were, in close-knit communities,” he says. In the wake of an atrocity like the one at the Arena, it’s tempting for different communities to withdraw from each other. But division is precisely what extremists seek to exploit. Societal ‘resilience’ is critical, in the view of terrorism expert Dr Omar Ashour, of the University of Exeter. He says: “The key issue here is societal resilience, which was demonstrated very well in Manchester in the actions of the public moving on without the panic and polarisation the terrorists really wanted to force.” Radicalisation in the UK ‘goes back thirty years’, in the view of anti-extremism campaigner Dr Usama Hasan. He is a defender of Prevent, saying scores of people have quietly been saved from radicalisation and joining jihadis overseas. And he believes weapons of tolerance - like free speech - can go some way to tackling intolerance. He said: “Young people, if they’re angry about foreign policy and feel victimised as Muslims, should be allowed to air their grievances publicly, without being regarded as terrorists, and hopefully that will dissipate their anger and frustration.”