Clarke, Director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), reviewing the various factors that have come to light in Choudhry’s radicalization, writes about Anwar Al-Awlaki and the role of the internet in radicalization as well as the seemingly introverted nature of Choudhry’s change of persona stating:
“The disturbing questions are much harder. First, this looks like one of the few cases of self-radicalisation via the internet. Though the internet is frequently involved in radicalising and motivating Islamic extremists, it has generally been a reinforcement to what is being achieved through human networks.
“...Choudhry appears to have gone through the whole process without reference to anyone else. This is disturbing in itself but if it turns out not to be a one-off phenomenon, creates an even greater challenge for the police and security services.”
Rafiq in his response to Clarke’s article refers to Anwar Al-Awlaki writing that “…Awlaki has been given a platform by many UK organizations, often mainstream government partners.”
He adds, “Several other extremist preachers are being beamed into our homes via satellite TV and the internet, although proscribed from entering the UK in person, including Zakir Naik from India and Canada’s Bilal Philips.”
Aside from the fact that the availability of lectures and speeches by individuals deemed ‘non conducive to the public good’ on the internet and satellite TV renders the government’s use of exclusion orders somewhat moribund, Rafiq is mistaken to suppose that Awlaki’s hosting by UK organizations in the past is reasonable grounds for implying ‘guilt by association’.
It’s the sort of wide of the mark accusation that has been leveled at ELM/LMC and Osama Saeed, as we’ve previously covered here.
As Clarke argues, “We can keep Awlaki off YouTube and other easily-accessible sites but his material will always be available on the net. Al Qaeda has re-done all its communications technology in the past five years and its franchised groups of supporters will always be able to keep ahead of the authorities.”
Rafiq goes on to state:
“There is much positive in the Coalition’s approach to radicalization: a return to the clarity of Ruth Kelly and Hazel Blears’s approach as community secretaries shunning extremism of all forms, instead of co-opting non-violent extremists. But Tory party chairman Sayeeda Warsi’s intention to go to the Global Peace & Unity conference when the Conservatives had vowed not to attend again if certain inflammatory speakers continued to be invited was a worrying sign, while her plan to attend a debate in Doha in defence of the niqab, worn by a minority of British Muslims, was a huge distraction from key ideological and theological issues around radicalization.”
No surprise that Rafiq should clamour for a return to the shamefully discredited policies pursued under Ruth Kelly and Hazel Blears. Much as the Prevent inquiry undertaken by the communities and local government select committee found, the sort of nomenclature employed by government at the time with its use of arbitrary categories of ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’, or the term now in play ‘non-violent extremist’, was widely accepted to be little more than an attempt at social engineering. As the inquiry report stated:
“There is a sense that Government has sought to engineer a ‘moderate’ form of Islam, promoting and funding only those groups which conform to this model. We do not think it is the job of Government to intervene in theological matters…”
Indeed, funding received by the Sufi Muslim Council wasn’t even open to scrutiny, as revealed in this response by Lord McKenzie of Luton, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Department for Work and Pensions, to questions posed in the House of Lords by Lord Nazir Ahmed and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi on the SMC’s receipt of public funds. Little wonder indeed that Rafiq should wish for a return to the good old days.
It is disturbing that the arbitrariness of terms like ‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ should continue to be bandied about with the current employment of the term ‘non-violent extremist’ for the same ends. Terminology matters a great deal in the battle of ideas and it would seem the use of the term ‘non-violent extremist’ is but a further attempt by ‘counter-extremism’ groups like Centri and the Quilliam Foundation to monopolise the field of legitimate political engagement with Muslim groups and individuals by branding other groups with the badge of illegitimacy. It’s a familiar and tested ruse of QF and now Centri, and one which has been successfully employed in the past.
But terminology aside, what matters most are actions and with the Global Peace and Unity event attracting tens of thousands of Muslims, young and old, to listen to speakers reinforce the central tenets of Islam, faith through worship and social responsibility, it would seem Centri is up to its usual tricks in encouraging Conservative ministers to stay away by mis-labelling the actions and intentions of the GPU event organisers.
With the Home Secretary yesterday announcing the government’s review of the Prevent strand of its counter-terrorism strategy, let’s hope that the Coalition’s “positive approach” is manifest in its recognition that among “the mistakes of the previous Government” was indeed the “clarity of Ruth Kelly and Hazel Blears’s approach as community secretaries...”
Finally, it is difficult not to surmise from Rafiq’s comment the inference that the niqab is in some way a factor in the “key ideological and theological issues around radicalization.” We would recommend Rafiq read the Evening Standard feature article from last Friday and this earlier piece by Fatima Barkatullah, among those interviewed in the ES article, published in The Times last year, to read women who wear niqab reject outright the inference that theirs is an ‘ideological’ motivation. Still less one casually related to radicalization.
Furthermore, it is objectionable that Rafiq should think Baroness Warsi’s defence of the right of Muslim women to wear the niqab in Britain a ‘distraction’. Few Muslim women wear the niqab but they would not be alone in not considering the Tory party chairman’s defence of their right to do so, had she attended the Doha debate, as a ‘distraction’ anymore than similar views articulated by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, or Damien Green or Caroline Spelman.
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