How youngsters are drawn into radical Islam

SIR – My heart sank when I read that the Government intends to base the proposed Commission for Countering Extremism on one from the past, the Commission for Racial Equality. As a vehicle for the eradication of racism, it failed dismally, as I found when deputy chairman of the Thames Valley Police Authority and representative on diversity for the National Association of Police Authorities.

Nor do I understand references to radicalisation. My visits to prisons (as a JP) in the late Nineties revealed overwhelming evidence of young convicts being persuaded to embrace radical Islam.

One young man told me: “If you convert to Islam you get better food and more time out of your cell.” My understanding is that this is still so.

Passionate young people can, not surprisingly, be converted to a radical concept that is not embraced by the broad base of society and which would convert the world to a place in accord with the new values, however warped.

Fortunately, many young people take up teaching, caring for people (NHS), catching criminals (police) or fighting to protect our country (Armed Forces) as a positive channel for their desire to improve the world.

Radicalisation (for want of a better term) is not a virus you pass on. It is indoctrination in a set of beliefs at a time when a channel is being sought for energy, either physical or mental. This cannot be solved by government and others sitting around with groups pontificating about their own beliefs.

People need boundaries. They need to know that failing to comply with these boundaries will result in their rejection by society. Adolescents’ energies need to be put to positive use, resulting in acceptance and reward.

The current emphasis on accepting people who do not share society’s values cannot continue without segmenting that society. If individuals do not wish to accept the values of a culture (whether or not they were born into it), they should leave permanently. Those who fight for a cause dedicated to the destruction of vulnerable people should not be accepted back into the society they wish to destroy.

Hayling Island, Hampshire