‘Contest and Cohesion’

Friday, 17 April 2009 09:43

Our Kingdom, part of the OpenDemocracy network, carries a piece by Eric Randolph, editor at Complex Terrain Lab, on the government’s Contest 2 strategy and the perils of handling social cohesion within counter terrorism.

Randolph writes;

‘The new Contest strategy draws a line between ‘un-British’ views, such as the advocation of sharia law or opposition to British foreign policy at the beginning of a spectrum, and terrorist incidents at the end. In short, counter-terrorism has become embroiled in a far wider discussion about social cohesion. But while the rationale appears sound, there are inherent dangers in tackling questions of social cohesion within counter-terrorism policy. ‘

‘The dangers of the new Prevent agenda, is when it goes beyond an interest in such overt support for violent jihad, and turns its attention to all those who “scorn the institutions and values of our parliamentary democracy, dismiss the rule of law and promote intolerance and discrimination”. The government is right to challenge these views, but a counter-terrorism strategy is not the place to do it. An association is being drawn between those who promote certain unpalatable ideas, and terrorists. It implies that ideas are to be challenged not simply on the basis of their content, but as a result of their association to terrorism. And once such an association has been sanctioned, it can have worrying implications. ‘Are you a homophobe? Are you also a Muslim?’ Two positive answers there, and you now fall within the remit of Contest Two without the issue of violence even being broached. ‘

‘The government is keen to present their task as a ‘battle of ideas’. But it treats ideas as if they exist in an objective vacuum. It makes little effort to understand how fundamentalist ideas came about and what they mean to those that hold them. ‘

‘Efforts to draw young Muslims back into society’s shared values are laudable, but this is necessarily a long-term project ill-suited to the short-term priorities of a counter-terrorism policy.

Instead, the discourse about social cohesion needs to happen away from that about terrorism. It should be considered an end in itself, rather than a weapon against terrorism. And the glaring hole in the government’s discussion is its failure to discuss the role of the press....Islamophobia remains rampant in Britain’s mainstream press. Muslims are continually identified either with terrorism or as culturally incompatible with the British way of life....A study by students at Cardiff University found that two thirds of Muslim-related articles published in the mainstream press between 2000 and 2008 focused on Muslims as a threat, a problem, or both. For example, the idea that Islam is dangerous, backward or irrational was present in 26% of stories. The shrieking reaction of the tabloids to a tiny handful of protesters at a recent army parade in Luton shows that little has changed in 2009.’

‘The Cardiff study showed that stories about Muslims have increasingly been focused on their perceived failure to assimilate into British society. It consistently fails to see its own role in this process – the effect of constant negative caricatures appearing on front pages across the country. The worrying thing is that Contest Two bears the hallmarks of the press narrative – unproblematically tying social alienation to terrorism, without concern for the message this sends out. ‘

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