This week Jacqui Smith, home secretary, announced provisions for three hundred new ‘anti-terrorist’ cops to investigate terrorist plots and counter radicalisation in the Muslim community.
I don’t think that it is really cool for the main liason between the ’state’ and muslim communities to be the police: that’s a sure fire recipe for alienation.
Rather than helping to reduce radicalisation amongst muslim minorities, the home secretary’s plans can only encourage it. More than any other group in UK society, our muslims are currently the target of vilification and criminalisation on a massive scale. Creating a specific police unit to deal with the muslim ‘problem’ risks giving legitimisation to the behaviour of a radical, criminal minority; it sets them up as a recognised group in opposition to the state, much like the IRA. The government does itself no favours by marking muslim minorities out as anti-establishment.
No-one likes the pigs, really. Especially people who already disproportionally find themselves at the sharp end of the ‘justice’ system. Radical muslim groups are already beginning to acheive a certain level of romantic appeal amongst wider disaffected sections of society. Witness the high proportion of converts among those implicated in terror plots. These converts frequently seem to be young black men who, already alienated from mainstream society, find solace and community in the revolutionary rhetoric of muslim radical groups.
Rather than using the coercive tools of the state to combat radicalisation, the community at large needs to work provide other options for disaffected members of society to make something of themselves.
Filed under: Uncategorized , islam, muslims, police, terrorism, UK
