This is a guest post by Jamie Bartlett of Demos
David Cameron’s recent multiculturalism speech told us nothing new: that he thinks non-violent extremism leads to terrorism, that state-sponsored multiculturalism has failed – especially for those it was designed to help – and that liberal values should be more aggressively pursued.
Far from being a sop to the English Defence League, this speech was ultimately about the future of Prevent: that the government will stop working with, and giving money to, organizations that are ‘non-violent extremists’ in the hope that they might help us beat the ‘violent extremists’. As a think-tank, Demos has been associated with that position, through a 2005 pamphlet – hence this blog.
Our position has since changed subtly since to a more muscular liberal one. I agree entirely that the government – and the rest of us – should be more aggressive in promoting the best set of values anyone anywhere has yet come up with: democracy, liberty, freedom, justice, tolerance. I’ve argued that wherever I’ve been, including last night on the Islam Channel where I defended the speech.
But if this means Prevent should never work with non-violent extremists, I disagree. Bear with me on this. Prevent will probably be refocused when the review of it is released shortly. Instead of being a tangled mess of counter-terrorism, integration and cohesion, it will become more targeted on counter-terrorism/public safety. This means the police will sometimes have to work with non-violent extremists if they think it can help achieve this goal. And sometimes it can. There are numerous examples of non-violent extremists pulling people back from the brink of terrorism, and of providing the police with valuable information and intelligence. I accept some of these non-violent extremists – Islamists or Salafis or whatever – are not representative of all Muslims, and I wouldn’t want them given money to develop Madrassah classes. But that is not what Prevent is about. If non-violent extremitst can help stop terrorism in specific instances, we’d be foolish not to use that. It is tactical, not strategic.
Other forms of extremism – not the political pro-Palestine movements, but the most odious anti-democratic and anti-human rights extremism – deserve to be tackled on their own (de)merits, and not because of any relationship to terrorism.
The other concern I have is about platform sharing. Non-violent forms of extremism are part of living in a free society. Any true liberal believes that extreme and intolerant ideas should given a hearing, so that they can be dissected and demolished. Indeed, banning often adds to the appeal of radical ideas, especially those of groups like al-Qaeda that trade on notoriety, glamour, and anti-establishment status.
This means the onus is on us to expose them, because a liberal approach to debate and freedom of speech requires strong counter-arguments. It would have been far better had Baroness Warsi to attended the Global Peace and Unity conference last year, and proceeded to roundly denounce extremism. After all, freedom is not the same as agreement, and we don’t honour the dishonourable when we open the public forum to their voices. To be a true muscular liberal, you need to take the arguments into the lion’s den.
