Transcript `Moderate` Muslim Public

Preventing Viable Engagement:
The Prevent Counter-Terrorism Agenda and the
Construction of a ‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
Dan Nilsson DeHanas
Therese O’Toole
University of Bristol
Outline of Presentation
• Theoretical Background: John Dewey on
Publics
• Brief Review of the PVE Agenda
• PVE and the Problematic Construction of a
‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
• Five PVE Case Examples
• Discussion and Further Questions
John Dewey on Publics
• The Public and Its Problems (1954) defines
publics as emerging from commonly
experienced problems or situations
– Publics are not pre-existing entities to ‘map’
– Publics can be mobilised or constitute themselves
– Constructing a ‘public’ creates reactive publics –
e.g., The boomerang phenomenon (Saggar 2009)
is the emergence of an unanticipated public
– Pragmatic politics finds different solutions for
different publics and situations; What works?
The Prevent Agenda
• Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) is part of
the Govt’s CONTEST counter-terrorism
strategy: Pursue, Prevent, Protect, Prepare
• The counter-terrorism strategy is spread over
various departments, including:
– Home Office
– Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT)
– Department for Communities and Local Gov (CLG)
• Prevent’s budget 2008-09 was over £140 mil
Prevent: A Localised Agenda
• Govt launched Preventing Violent Extremism:
Winning Hearts and Minds in April 2007,
through the CLG:
– Intended to be “community-led approach to
tackling violent extremism” via engagement with
Muslims
– Over 90 local authorities were identified for PVE
funds/monitoring based on percentage Muslim
– By April 2011, these local authorities will have
received about £60 million in Prevent funding
Constructing a ‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
• PVE aims to “Challenge violent extremist ideology and
support mainstream voices” – i.e., to bolster an
imagined ‘moderate’ Muslim public
• Govt views Muslims in binary terms (good and bad;
Birt 2009) and chooses from among existing Muslim
groups to shape values and create ‘moderate’ allies
– e.g., Govt has dropped (bad) MCB and fostered relations
with (good) Sufi Muslim Council
– McGhee (2008) argues this is state-led “Evilization”
• Govt also seeks to re-shape Muslim publics by creating
new bodies as its legitimate partners for engagement
and consultation
– e.g., Muslim Women’s AG, Young Muslims AG
Constructing a ‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
• Yet constructing a ‘mainstream’ or ‘moderate’
public is not simply a state-led project
• Many Muslim/civil society organisations also
operate with binary notions of which actors
are legitimately within the public domain or
should be eligible as partners with Govt
– e.g., think tanks Policy Exchange and the Quilliam
Foundation have each listed Muslim orgs/actors
that ought to be excluded
Constructing a ‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
• Problematic because Muslim public
engagement is increasingly based on an
eligibility criterion of commitment to a limited
range of values:
– e.g. ‘moderate’, ‘mainstream’; ‘not Islamist’, ‘not
Salafi’; willing to de-link violent extremism from
UK foreign policy...
• The boundaries of moderate or mainstream
are highly contested, as is the appropriateness
of invoking these as an eligibility criterion for
engagement
Constructing a ‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
“The atmosphere promoted by Prevent is one in
which to make radical criticisms of the govt is
to risk losing funding or face isolation as an
‘extremist’, while those organisations which
support the govt are rewarded. This in turn
undermines the kind of radical discussions
that would need to occur if young people were
to be won over and support for illegitimate
violence diminished.”
– Arun Kundnani, 2009 (emphasis added)
Constructing a ‘Moderate’ Muslim Public
• The PVE agenda has produced Muslim engagement:
– Some engagement has been positive/innovative
– Other engagement may be opportunistic or even
exploitative, as orgs compete for PVE’s ‘moderate’ money
• Most engagement with PVE has been reactive
– Many Muslim orgs have refused funding, or issued
statements about the problematic nature of PVE
– PVE has ‘boomeranged’ with a large negative reaction
– However, this is evidence of an emerging public to engage
• PVE is a quest for an elusive ‘moderate’ public, rather
than a public in which moderation can take place
• PVE thus tends to prevent viable engagement
• Next: Case examples of PVE, and potential way forward
Case Example: Quilliam Foundation
• Led by Ed Hussain and Maajid Nawaz, former Islamists
with Hizb ut-Tahrir who are now extremism ‘experts’
• Govt’s most generously funded PVE partner
• Equates Islamism (politicised Islam) with extremism
• Extremism is on conveyor belt towards violent extremism
• Criticises govt focus on PVE and
argues for PE approach
• A secret 2010 Quilliam report to
OSCT names Islamist/extreme
orgs that Govt should avoid
(e.g., MCB/Markfield Institute…)
Case Example: Cordoba Foundation
• Led by Anas Al-Tikriti,
a leading Iraq War critic
often considered Islamist
• Received Prevent funds
for a public debate and
invited a Hizb speaker.
Funding was then pulled
• Publishes the Arches academic journal on Islam;
hosting “Ways Forward for UK Counter-Terrorism”
• Mirror-image rival to Quilliam – Seeks to broaden
the ‘moderate’ Muslim public to include Islamists
Case Example: Radical Middle Way
• Runs roadshows for
Muslim youth, which
feature Islamic clerics and
intellectuals with ‘integrated’,
‘mainstream’ views on Islam
• Seeks street-cred through graffiti art,
youthful preachers, glossy website, etc.
• “It’s nice to hear people speak… about the middle
way and really brings home the meaning of what
that exactly is. Too often the mainstream majority
is too quiet.” – Participant quoted on website
• Selection of speakers is a more subtle approach
to delimiting who ‘moderate’ Muslims are
Case Example: Muslim Contact Unit
• A unit of the London Metropolitan Police that
built on community partnerships from 1990s
• Led until 2007 by Bob Lambert, who has since
become an U. of Exeter academic and speaker
• Partners with mosques to locate and dissuade
potential Al-Qaeda recruits
• Innovative for not using an
eligibility criterion
– i.e., Pragmatically partners with
Salafi and Islamist mosques
to be closer to the problem
Case Example: Digital Disruption
• Run by Bold Creative in Tower Hamlets
• Bangladeshi young men learn about the
power of propaganda; They create their own
propaganda and anti-propaganda videos
• No ‘favoured’ Islam
• Youth leave with skills
to apply on their own
terms against all
forms of ‘extremism’
Discussion
• In recent PVE practice, highly binary notions construct
eligibility criteria for entry into the public
• ‘Moderate’/‘mainstream’ public (and ‘extremist’ other)
are not givens, but are vigorously contested:
– RMW’s ‘mainstream’ leans towards Sufism
– Quilliam and Cordoba debate the theological boundaries of
‘moderate’ and ‘extremist’ Islam
– MCU and Digital Disruption set aside binaries for what works
• A way forward? ‘Viable Engagement’ via pragmatism:
– Let publics emerge; allow space for their creative responses
– Engage pragmatically on the basis of solutions, not on the
basis of being ‘moderate’
– Re-conceive ‘moderation’ as the meeting of varied
perspectives in open debate (c.f., RMW)
– Bring engagement under democratic (not police) control
Further Questions
• How can we discern a multiplicity of publics?
What are their interrelationships?
• When publics emerge, how does one choose
which ones to validate? Engage with all?
• When do individuals share an interest, yet not
emerge as a public? What are the underlying
issues of power and inequality?
• What are effective modes of communication
within and across publics?
• Which forms of partnership, debate, or
deliberative democracy work best in practice for
stimulating a more open public engagement?