Haras Rafiq: Is the Government doing enough to combat Islamist extremism?

Haras Rafiq is a former Director of CENTRI, an organisation that specialises in countering extremism

It is clear that the horrific murder of a solider yesterday in Woolwich was an Islamist-inspired terror attack. A terrorist is defined by MI5 as "someone who uses or threatens action designed to influence the government...for the purposes of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause." This morning's reports suggest that the terrorists clearly made political statements after the murder - which was corroborated by eyewitness reports.  In the words of one onlooker: “they didn't run off. They just stood there as if they were waiting for the police.” 

David Cameron described the incident as "truly shocking".  But how much has he and the Coalition government done to try and combat Islamist extremism?  I have praised the Prime Minister for rightly making the distinction between Islam and Islamism.  In 2010, I urged the Coallition Government to overturn the failed policy of using extremists to combat violent extremists.  I was heartened when the Prevent review, published in 2001, pledged to implement the change I hoped for. Has it really happened?

Haras Rafiq: At long last we have a Prime Minister who rightly makes the distinction between Islam and Islamism

Haras Rafiq is a Director of CENTRI, an organisation that specialises in countering extremism.

In the wake of the rise of the Tunisian and Egypt dissent against oppressive, totalitarian regimes, Prime Minister Cameron has come out fighting against one of our own oppressive totalitarian movement in the UK – the Islamists. He is right in his analysis that the only way to tackle the growing rise of Islamist inspired terrorism is to tackle the growing phenomenon that is at the root of the problem - Islamism which has to an extent been sponsored by the state.

As a British Muslim born in the UK, hailing from parents who originally emigrated here in the 1950s, I have seen the rise of Islamist extremism first hand and experienced the tactics and strategies that have been used to promote and grow the capacity for this divisive and dangerous ideology.

It is natural when immigrant societies first move to pastures new that they tend to congregate together. With regards to Muslims, this was usually filtered further by their country of origin and we were never classified as “Muslims” – rather by the country of our family’s origin and in my case, Pakistani. Our faith was an extension of our identity, not the primary identifier.

Due to the fact that the Asian population was lower than it is currently in the UK, the school that I attended only had 5% of its students that were from Asian immigrant families and we found that this presented us with no option but to integrate with students of a different faith – something that has helped me immensely to grow both as a British Citizen and a Muslim. There has never been a dichotomy for me in being both, just as there had not been for many of the Muslim immigrants at that time in being Pakistani/Muslim, Indian/Muslim, Bangladeshi/Muslim etc and for many of their offspring the word British has been substituted for the Asian country of origin.