Today Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary announced a £12.5 million package to tackle Islamic extremism. However, the measures are fatally flawed because the government has failed to understand - let alone define - exactly what constitutes 'Islamic extremism'.
Jacqui Smith and the rest of the government persist in talking about extremism as a 'distortion' of the teachings of Islamic theology. So, when Jacqui Smith and other government ministers speak about Islamic extremism, they are effectively defining Islamic extremism' as being 'extreme' in relation to Islam in general, rather than as being 'extreme' in relation to British values of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality for all under the law etc.
This difference - which the government has repeatedly failed to recognise - is absolutely crucial, as for historical reasons the majority of British Muslims follow a peaceful tradition of Islam that emerged in the Indian sub continent in the mid nineteenth century. Consequently, although most British Muslims are largely unaware of it, some of their views differ significantly from certain of the emphases of classical Islam (i.e. the interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith that were 'fixed' by Islamic scholars in medieval times and now taught in virtually all madrassas). In classical Islam the imposition of an Islamic state with sharia on non Muslims - if necessary by means of military jihad - has historically been a core belief.
The government's new policy to tackle 'Islamic extremism' involves sending imams into schools. However, virtually all imams are trained in classical Islam (the dars-i-nizami curriculum taught in almost all madrassas linked to the Indian sub continent has remained unchanged for centuries).
So, what the government's new strategy is actually doing ...is to introduce potentially vulnerable children in schools to imams, who in other contexts are quite likely to be teaching beliefs such as the need to introduce sharia into the UK and support for jihad overseas that in relation to fundamental British values such as democracy, freedom of speech and equality for all under the law - are frankly extremist.
This all stems from the government's failure to even understand, let alone define exactly what 'Islamic extremism' actually is.
This failure of the government to define 'Islamic extremism' as 'extreme' in relation to British values - rather than in relation to Islam in general - is not simply utter incompetence. It has also allowed Islamists, some of whom this government has appointed as its own advisers, to claim to be 'moderates' because there are people more extreme than them. It has also led the government to appease Islamist groups in the UK. Most fundamentally however, this failure of the government to even grasp exactly what 'Islamic extremism' really is - leaves Britain profoundly vulnerable.
