Thanks to Robin Richardson for forwarding the following extract which I think contributes to our discussion on this blog about the Prevent Strategy and its impact in Brent.
Unintended consequences of
counter-terrorism legislation
Extract from Living with Difference: diversity, community and the common good,
the report of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life,
published on 7 December 2015.
______________________________________________________________
8.22 Counter-terrorism legislation and
strategies are a proper responsibility for all governments and have rightly
been a priority in Britain and other western countries since the outrages in
New York (2001), Madrid (2004) and London (2005). More recently, major
atrocities have included murders in Woolwich (2013), Paris (2015) and Tunisia
(2015). Governments have a clear responsibility to prevent such outrages. Also,
as with the whole spectrum of crime and disorder, they have leadership tasks in
relation to fear of terrorism, and to fostering security not only as objective
fact but also as subjective feeling. According to the Pew Research Center,
between 2011 and 2015 the percentage saying they are very concerned about
Islam-related extremism in their country increased by 38 percentage points in
France, 29 points in Spain, 21 points in the United Kingdom, 20 points in
Germany and 17 points in the United States.[1] Within the overall pattern of public
opinion in Britain it has been found that fear of Islam-related terrorism is
higher amongst older people and people living outside London, and in particular
parts of the electorate.[2]
8.23 The
ways in which anti-terrorism policies operate in practice can have, however,
unintended consequences. In particular, significant numbers of citizens may
come to feel they are viewed as Other, namely as people who do not truly belong
and cannot be trusted, 'them' rather than 'us', suspects or potential suspects,
not ordinary citizens with the same values as everyone else. Counter-terrorism
policies and measures may then not only fail to achieve their objectives but
actually may make matters worse, such that both terrorism and the fear of
terrorism increase, and both security and sense of security are diminished.[3]
At the present time it is Muslim communities in Britain that are most directly
and obviously affected. All people, however, are of course affected by
increases in fear and feelings of insecurity, as also all people in a society
are affected by the ways in which majorities and minorities see and approach
each other.
8.24 To
decrease the danger of unintended harmful consequences in counter-terrorism
measures against Islam-related terrorism, the following five points need to be
carefully considered:
a)
The
government needs to engage with a wide range of academic theory, research and
scholarship about the nature and causes of terrorism. Amongst other things,
this means it should encourage and promote, not seek to limit, freedom of
enquiry, speech and expression, and should not loosely use words and concepts
which scholarship shows to be controversial and unclear. Such words and
concepts include 'ideology', 'radicalisation', 'extremism' and 'Islamism'.[4]
b)
The
government needs to meet and engage with a wide range of Muslim groups and
organisations, and to show that it understands, even if it does not agree with,
the views about the nature and causes of terrorism that they hold. It cannot
otherwise gain the trust and confidence of significant opinion leaders, and
therefore cannot otherwise rely on their support and assistance. Their support
and assistance are essential, however, if counter-terrorism strategies are to
be successful. In its selection of organisations with which to engage the
government must guard against the perception that it is operating with a
simplistic good Muslims/bad Muslims distinction, or between ‘mainstream
moderates’ and ‘violent or non-violent extremists’.
c)
There is
no causal or inevitable link between conservative or orthodox theological and
moral views on the one hand and propensity to violent and criminal behaviour on
the other. Nor, more fundamentally, is there a simple, one-way causal link
between a worldview, ideology or narrative on the one hand and specific actions
and behaviours on the other.[5]
d)
There is
no simplistic us/them distinction or clash between western or Enlightenment
values on the one hand and the values of other cultures, countries and
civilisations on the other, nor between Christian values and those of other
religions.
e)
Political
leaders should seek not only to promote debate and deliberation about the
causes of terrorism but also to challenge misunderstandings and negative
stereotypes in the population at large and in mass-circulation newspapers –
they have a duty to lead public opinion, and not only to reduce fear and
insecurity in the majority population but also to give principled reassurance
and moral support to groups and communities which feel vulnerable to violence
or discrimination.
8.25 These concerns were well summarised in the
September 2015 report of Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation. The
report listed 15 issues raised by the government’s new measures on countering
extremism and commented that the issues matter because ‘they concern the scope of UK discrimination, hate speech and public order
laws, the limits that the state may place on some of our most basic freedoms,
the proper limits of surveillance, and the acceptability of imposing
suppressive measures without the protections of the criminal law’. The
report then issued the very important warning that ‘if the wrong decisions are
taken, the new law risks provoking a backlash in affected communities,
hardening perceptions of an illiberal or Islamophobic approach, alienating
those whose integration into British society is already fragile and playing
into the hands of those who, by peddling a grievance agenda, seek to drive
people further towards extremism and terrorism’.[6] There is
a severe danger, to put the same point in different words, that the vision of a
society at ease with itself, sketched at the start of chapter 3 of this report,
and frequently referred to throughout the following chapters, will be harmed
not helped by government action. It could be harder not easier, as a
consequence of government action, for the citizens of the UK to live with their
differences. It is essential that forthcoming proposals on countering extremism
should be scrutinised with the maximum possible care and amended accordingly if
appropriate, and that subsequent operations when they are enacted should be
monitored with a very high degree of diligence.
Bibliography
Anderson,
David (2015) The Terrorism Acts in 2014:
report of the Independent Reviewer on the operation of the Terrorism Act 2000
and Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006. London: Williams Lea Group.
Choudhury, Tufyal and Helen Fenwick (2011) The impact of counter-terrorism measures on Muslim communities.
EHRC Research Report no. 72. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Christmann,
Kris (2012) Preventing Religious
Radicalisation and Violent Extremism: a systematic review of the research evidence.
London: Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.
Francis,
Matthew (2012) ‘What causes radicalisation? Main lines of consensus in recent
research’, Radicalisation Research,
24 January. http://www.radicalisationresearch.org/guides/francis-2012-causes-2/
Hickman,
Mary J, Lyn Thomas, Henri C. Nickels and Sara Silvestri (2012) 'Social cohesion
and the notion of suspect communities: a study of the experiences and impacts
of being suspect for Irish communities and Muslim communities in Britain', Critical
Studies on Terrorism, 5/ 1, 89-106.
Home
Office (2015) Counter-Extremism Strategy.
London: Home Office.
King,
Michael and Donald M. Taylor (2011) ‘The Radicalization of Homegrown Jihadists:
A Review of Theoretical Models and Social Psychological Evidence’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 23/4,
602-622.
Poushter,
Jacob (2015) Extremism Concerns Growing
in West and Predominantly Muslim Countries: Worries Especially Widespread in
Western Europe and the U.S. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.
YouGov
(2014) ‘YouGov Nato’. https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/1hdxa38zho/InternalResults_140801_NATO_W.pdf
Notes and references
[1] Poushter (2015), p. 2.
[2] A 2014 survey of 2,083 British adults
found that 79 per cent of respondents deemed Islamic terrorism to pose an
important threat to the country (rising to over 90 per cent of Conservative and
UKIP supporters and those over age 60). 46 per cent of respondents thought the
threat posed was critical. YouGov (2014).
[3] See, for example, Mohammed
(2015); Hamid (2015).
[4] See Harris, Bisset and
Weller (2015).
[5] For reviews of various
proposed models of radicalisation which highlight the multiplicity of factors that
can be involved, see, for example, Francis (2012); Christmann (2012); King and
Taylor (2011). The Radicalisation Research website produces and collates
research on these issues, http://www.radicalisationresearch.org/.
