The Muslim News - Under suspicion from cradle to grave

Issue 234, Friday 31 October 2008 - 4 Dhu al-Qa'dah 1423

Under suspicion from cradle to grave

During the age of McCarthyism in the US, the obvious answer was to look under beds to find would-be subversives lurking. It was a period renowned for intense suspicions of a greatly exaggerated threat that affected all levels of society despite being based on inconclusive and questionable evidence. Some 50 years on, the witch-hunt now redirected against Muslims has become much more pervasive. In Britain, the surveillance of potential violent extremists is being extended to children even as young as five years old.
According to the latest démarche issued by Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, teachers are seemingly being trained in the latest techniques of espionage. Similar guidelines were issued earlier this year to colleges and universities to spy on Muslim students and Islamic associations, albeit revised after an outcry by lecturers and academics. This comes three years after Muslim parents were told by former Home Secretary, John Reid, to keep an eye on their children as potential terrorists.
The initiatives come under the Government’s misguided Prevent strategy for countering violent extremism that have no sense of proportion – the policy criminalizes the whole Muslim community by assuming every Muslim, from five year old onwards, are potential terrorists.
Other recent Government measures have included the creation of Muslim women and youth advisory groups to ensure Government failed agenda is implemented. The Young Muslim Advisory Group, launched on October 7 is instructive. The press release from the Government led with the headline, ‘The next generation of Muslim community leaders’ meaning that the 16 to 25 year-olds would be groomed to be leaders of Government’s liking. What is not understood is that at the grassroots level, such leadership will have no credibility. Only those leadership who emerge from the community itself carry respect and are listened to. In addition, many of those young Muslims who spoke out strongly against Government policies and were cynical of such a group at the selection September meeting in Leicester, were not included.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has already spoken of extending the de-radicalisation process to the media, culture, sport and arts.
The plans of the Government on tackling, what they call, radicalization, are to be extended to every area of Muslim life, especially targeted at the younger generation and now also led by their peers. Giving evidence to the Commons Defence Committee on October 21, Security Minister Lord West warned that “to stop this radicalisation of extremists is going to take - and I get into trouble for saying this - about 30 years, I think.” After the events of 9/11, former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, originally said that the so called war on terrorism he launched with US President George W Bush would take a decade. But seven years down the road, past failures are causing Britain and the US to seek to escape from the debacle they have caused in Iraq and are also supporting talks with the Taliban as an exit strategy from Afghanistan.
Whether or not the astronomical cost of the wars has been an important contributory factor to the current economic crisis sweeping the world is a matter for debate. But domestically, it must also be admitted that the Government’s strategy has not only failed but exasperated the situation. In Britain, the security services claim that they are now having to track some 2,000 terrorist suspects, investigate 200 networks and monitor 30 plots.
Despite the reams of draconian legislation, West said he recognised that Britain could not “arrest and protect ourselves out of this problem.” But he also revealed that the Government is due to publish a new national security strategy next spring. It can only be hoped that this will include a complete reappraisal of the folly of treating Muslims only through the prism of extremism.
It is intolerable for the community to be under suspicion from cradle to grave. Asking teachers to spy on children reminds one of the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein. He used teachers, head teachers, pupils – in primary and secondary schools – and in colleges and universities to spy for the Government. But then he was a brutal dictator. What Muslims cannot understand is how can a democracy and a country that is based on respect of law and human rights, all citizens are to be treated equally and fairly, can stoop to the level of a regime like Saddam’s?
The problem is of politics. The sooner the Government accepts this, the better it would be and more successful it would be to tackle the issue of violent extremism which only a few Muslims are involved in. Searching in playgrounds will prove as futile as would checking under beds. Schools already have enough problems in dealing with real issues like bullying, knife-crime and drugs.
Muslims like other communities want equal and fair treatment rather than treatment which is discriminatory or highly prejudicial. A recent arrest of fire bombers of a publisher under terror laws is another case in point. They were held under anti terror laws for almost a week and then charged under normal armed offences, which they could have used at the time of arrest. But because they were Muslims, anti terror laws were misused to collect information. What was also disturbing about this incidence was that the police allowed the perpetrators to carry out the bombing (they were under police surveillance). Luckily no one was injured. The police told The Muslim News the reason they were allowed to carry out the bombing was that they could be caught “red-handed”.
The Government would not dare treat any other community in this manner. Muslims are a free for all. Muslims need a strong leadership who can stand up for justice and fairness.
This is not the way of ‘winning the hearts and minds of Muslims’. On the contrary, such draconian policies alienate young Muslims, making them feel treated like second class citizens and potential criminals.

Back to the front page

Editorial

Messages for
The Muslim News