Statement about the Home Office Launch of Contest v3 - the UK’s Updated ‘Counter-Terror’ and ‘Counter-Extremism’ Policy

On 4th June 2018, Britain’s Home Secretary Sajid Javid launched the latest version of its ‘counter-terrorism’ and ‘counter-extremism’ policy Contest.

It is very clear that despite many voices in the Muslim community complaining about Prevent, calling for it to be scrapped or reviewed, the government has decided not to have any debate or discussion about the policy, or about the causes of violence in the world - including within Britain. Indeed, it is clear they plan to make the environment more uncomfortable for Islam and Muslims, in line with the scrapping of multiculturalism as state policy by the Blair government and the introduction of muscular liberalism by the Cameron government.

This “new” government strategy continues to hide behind the excuse of securitisation, while in reality is targeting the Islamic identity to prevent Islam, not violence. This is evident in the way it further pushes the false narrative that the Islamic thoughts and values are responsible for violence and instability in the world, rather than the failed secular liberal ideology with its inability to harmonise people at home and its greedy and suffocating colonialism overseas.

In today’s world of information sharing the crimes of the Capitalist countries have become an obvious fact, hence their desperate and clumsy attempts to draw attention away from them, and focus negativity on what the liberal elite fear the most: that ordinary people would look to Islam as a way out of their oppression and misery.

Neither Sajid Javed nor any of his liberal colleagues are able to challenge the Islamic thoughts and values, just as they are incapable of defending their own secular values, so they resort to obfuscation and deceit, to smear the Muslim community who holds onto their Islamic identity, in spite of the daily diet of secularism being rammed down their throats by the media and educational institutions. The cowardliness of the liberals has driven them to further run from honest and open debate, to increase the enforced secular indoctrination and force-feeding to anyone who remains unconvinced of secular liberalism’s worthiness as an ideology for mankind.

Reviewing the document against the background of two decades of increasing securitisation in Britain, the following points are apparent:

1. Prevent remains a policy that is about ‘preventing Islam’ rather than violence.

2. It continues to do this by creating a climate of suspicion, and stigmatising of Islam and Muslims, under the label of a security threat.

3. The government aims to use its forthcoming ‘Integration Strategy’, as part of its security agenda. Its proposals are clearly aimed at Islam and Muslims, and include attempts to control religious education and promote a reformation of Islam to fit within a secular-dominated world.

4. Prevent remains riddled with inconsistencies, flawed thinking and vague definitions that can be easily manipulated to achieve political ends.

5. Contrary to what the policy claims, Prevent effectively silences discussions amongst Muslims on a host of important political issues in schools, universities and mosques, leaving the door open for those with sinister aims to fill the void.

6. The policy continues to ignore the role of government policies - both foreign and domestic - in creating a climate in which violence thrives. It is either ignored or belittled as ‘a sense of injustice’.

With this understanding it is imperative that Muslims make their voice heard in the following manner:

i. We must continue to make people aware of the actual agenda behind the Prevent policy, and the ‘counter-extremism’ strategy in general, as well as the forthcoming ‘Integrating Communities Strategy’ - which is more about preventing Islam than anything else. It is the British domestic manifestation of a global effort by the secular capitalists to prevent the rise of Islam, which will bring back justice to the world and end the colonial hegemony.

ii. We must widen this discussion, to expose the fact that such policies are a challenge to the Islamic identity under the cloak of a false security policy. Contrary to Islam, which does not compel non-Muslims to adopt the Islamic belief, the secular strategy is an attempt to compel citizens to believe in the secular creed, not merely to abide by its laws.

iii. We must urge others to open debate with wider society, especially those who will have been placed at the front line by the government in terms of implementing this policy - that these policies are divisive, discriminatory and oppressive. They have and will continue to damage the relationships between the affected communities and educators, health professionals, social workers and local authorities. They are a recipe for community disintegration, as has been the case in France, not a policy that facilitates communities living side by side.

iv. We must understand that the solution to this challenge to our Islamic identity is to increase the ways in which we promote the Islamic thoughts and values - not simply protect them. Islam alone offers not just goodness for Muslims to live by, but a real example to others as a much needed alternative in today’s troubled world.

Yahya Nisbet
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir in Britain