The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has just launched what it describes as a new 'toolkit' to equip schools to prevent violent extremism.
Sadly, as with so many DCSF documents, what is included in this 'toolkit' is largely a rehash (or perhaps the word should be 'respin') of what is already going on in schools. Schools are encouraged to use the Every Child Matters framework, to develop school strategies that promote critical thinking, to challenge any behaviour that harms the ability of individuals or groups to work together and to manage harmful media and internet information etc. Does the government honestly think that the overwhelming majority of schools are not already doing all of these and more - and were doing so long before Ed Balls became Schools Secretary?
The toolkit's most glaring omission is that while ostensibly seeking to promote community cohesion, it fails to provide a list of the key British values that underpin our free democratic society - such as parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc - a list which many schools would greatly value the government providing. One cannot promote community cohesion in schools, or anywhere else for that matter, unless it is clear what key shared values, one is seeking to get people to cohere to.
Instead, the only 'value' the DCSF toolkit says schools should actively promote is 'diversity'. Now tolerating other people's beliefs may well be a widely held value in British society - I would sincerely hope that it is. However, actively seeking to encourage 'diversity' is quite another issue. The latter may well be a New Labour value, but it is hardly a fundamental British value that schools should be expected to promote. In fact, its inclusion at all in this document is somewhat at odds with the toolkit's purported aim of promoting community cohesion. Promoting a list of specific British values might actively promote community cohesion by drawing people towards a common set of shared values. However, promoting 'diversity' almost by definition does the exact opposite and leads to a more fragmented society.
Frankly, the DCSF under Ed Balls' leadership seems to have got into a politically correct muddle that is in serious danger of completely losing the plot when it comes to creating community cohesion. As if to illustrate the point, at this very moment schools across England are being asked to report on their pupils ethnicity according to a new list of 90 categories that the DCSF have developed. The list includes 12 categories of 'Black' ranging alphabetically from 'Black Angolan' to 'Black Sudanese', but bizarrely no longer includes the category of 'White British' which is replaced with a range of categories such as 'White English', 'White Welsh', 'White and Pakistani' and even 'White Cornish'. I kid you not, the latter is not an ice cream flavour, it is now an official government ethnic category, something that 'White British' no longer is - at least according to the DCSF.
Now a government that is muddled is one thing, some may say that's hardly anything new! But the government's toolkit for schools moves beyond mere muddle to potentially dangerous muddle. A muddle that far from dissuading young people from extremism may actually encourage them towards it.The government's 'toolkit' advocates schools adopting 'the Oxford Muslim Pupils Empowerment Programme'. This programme, designed by the imam of Eton College and used in an Oxford secondary school, involves an imam coming into school and holding a 'confidential' lunchtime discussion group with Muslim pupils on subjects such as Qur'an, Hadith, sharia and British foreign policy, that aim 'to develop the foundations for a British Islamic identity'. One wonders quite how the government thinks that this can in any way promote community cohesion. Whilst the majority of ordinary British Muslims have little interest in political Islam or the details of sharia, virtually all imams have been trained in 'Classical Islam' i.e. the interpretations of the Qur'an and sharia that were 'fixed' in medieval times. These stipulate that non Muslims should be invited to submit to Islam and if they refuse, Islamic government with sharia should be imposed on them, if necessary by force. So, inviting imams to dig out their old school textbook on sharia and use it as a basis for discussion with young Muslims in comprehensive schools does not seem like a terribly well thought out idea...
The trouble is that the government is so focused on countering violent extremism, that it is largely ignoring the non violent Islamist agenda of many groups in the UK that have the same ultimate aims as violent Islamists - creating an Islamic state in Britain. Such groups pragmatically reject violent jihad preferring instead a strategy of 'political jihad'. The latter aims to achieve a step by step islamicisation of Britain involving for example a gradual alignment of British law with sharia and in the education sector pushing for more genuinely Islamic education in schools, first for Muslim pupils and then for all pupils. That, appears to be just what the Oxford Muslim Pupils' Empowerment Programme is doing - and which the government are suggesting that other schools should copy.
So let's just ask ourselves how effective the government's 'toolkit' is likely to be at equipping schools to counter even just 'violent' extremism, by assessing it against some real life situations found in UK schools.
A couple of years ago, having just returned from aid work in Afghanistan I was temporarily working as a supply teacher in a tough inner city comprehensive school that was approximately 50% White and 50% Asian, most of the Asians being Muslims. I developed quite a good relationship with some of the teenage Muslim boys - it was a bit of novelty having a white teacher who spoke Urdu! I'll briefly relate here two incidents related to extremism that occurred. The first was when a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muhammad. 'What do you think about this sir?' came the slightly aggressive and clearly aggrieved question from a group of the lads. 'I quietly replied 'I think both sides need to act more responsibly.' What even us?' came back the aggrieved response. 'Look lads, you know that I understand what this means to you' (saying anything negative about Muhammad is the single most sensitive issue for most Muslims and bound to provoke a huge emotional response), 'but someone deliberately chose to take that Danish flag to Palestine and burn it front of the TV cameras - you can't buy foreign flags in most Islamic countries - and now innocent people are suffering, churches have been burnt down by rioters in Palestine and a Catholic priest has been shot dead in Turkey.' Their mood changed and they listened to me in silence. No one had ever challenged them with that side of the story before.
The second incident concerned one of these lads on his own. Imran had a large amount of rebellion in his general attitude and was also deeply religious. It was that volatile combination that made me concerned that he was at least potentially vulnerable to extremism. One day as I was walking around the class he said to me 'I found this verse in the Qur'an that says that we should kill non Muslims'. He didn't name the verse, but there are a number of such verses, such as Q9:29 (Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them...until they submit and pay the Jizya - a tax on non Muslims forced to live under an Islamic government).
His comments raised an important issue. Namely, that throughout Islamic history there has been both a peaceful Islamic stream and also a violent stream. Both of these are based on a whole range of Qur'anic verses - the violent stream emphasising verses such as Q9:29 quote above and the peaceful stream emphasising verses such as Q2:59 that encourage Muslims to have peaceful relationships with Jews and Christians. Historically the overwhelming majority of British Muslims have followed the peaceful stream, However, the internet access that has become widely available in the last 10 years has resulted in many young British Muslims readily finding material produced in other countries, where less peaceful interpretations of the Qur'an are more prevalent.
So, would the government's toolkit have dealt with either of these situations? The answer is almost certainly 'no'. I was only able to respond to the first situation because I had specialist knowledge of Islam gained through living and working in Pakistan and Afghanistan for a number of years as well as a PhD in Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. Few teachers, even RE specialists have anywhere near sufficient expertise in Islamics to deal effectively with such issues. In fact, many RE teachers are not even aware of the fact that historically Islam has from its very earliest days always had both peaceful and violent streams - both drawing their inspiration fro the Qur'an.
A more effective 'toolkit'.
So, what should a future Conservative government plan to do? I would suggest that it should provide a 'toolkit' of effective guidance that would genuinely help schools - both those with significant number of Muslim pupils and those with a predominately non Muslim intake. I would suggest that this 'toolkit' should contain at least 3 elements that are currently missing from the 'toolkit' that Ed Balls has just provided for schools:
1. It should draw up on a cross party basis and then circulate to schools a list of British values that are central to our free democratic society - such as parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, one law for all, independence of the judiciary, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, no imprisonment without the right to trial by jury, loyalty to Britain, sovereignty of Britain as an independent nation state and British citizenship conferring both specific rights and responsibilities. Unfortunately, as I demonstrated in an article this past summer, the present Labour government has in the last few years actively undermined at least 50% of these historic British values.
2. Provide schools with a regularly updated list of extremist organisations - both racist groups such as the BNP and organisations that have produced Islamist literature or made pro Islamist statements. Currently many schools both those with large numbers of Muslim students and those in almost entirely white monocultural areas struggle to know which organisations they should avoid inviting speakers from, not accept donations of library books from and should block student access to their websites. Whilst this would require ongoing monitoring by the DCSF, as a first step I would suggest that any school should avoid inviting speakers from and block access to the websites of the following organisations - all of which academics have identified as having either published or distributed Islamist literature or have a significant Islamist orientation in their ideology or leadership: the East London Mosque, Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), Finsbury Park Mosque, Hamas, Hizb ut Tahrir, Interpal (an Islamic aid agency long thought to have links to Hamas), Islamic Forum Europe, Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), Supporters of Shariah (SoS), The Saved Sect, UK Islamic Mission (UKIM), Young Muslims Organisation (YMO), Young Muslims UK (YMUK)...(This list is not exhaustive)
3. Give examples of ways in which Muslims can be persuaded away from extremist ideologies such as Islamism. One of the best examples of this is the innovative new RE agreed syllabus which Birmingham Local Education Authority started using last month. This starts from a list of 24 shared values such as 'caring for others', 'living by rules', 'being loyal and steadfast', 'being fair and just' - then looks at what each religion, including Islam says positively about these values. As such it positively encourages Muslims (and others) to follow a peaceful, rather than a violent path in life.
