Dear all,
I would like to alert you to a collection of critical responses to the British government's recently revised counter-terrorism policy. The short articles have been compiled on behalf of the Muslim Council of Britain and provide an informed critique of the new Prevent strategy, all of which are worth reading if you are interested in this issue, and which can be found here: http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?p=6#more-6 <https://legacy-exchange.lancs.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?p=6%23more-6> .
A Top Down Approach
by Basia Spalek
Asks how the Prevent Strategy fares against community based and community engaging approaches and finds the government's top down strategy lacking and potentially stigmatising. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=29>
Values and Stakeholders in the 2011 Prevent Strategy
by Lee Jarvis and Michael Lister
Draws on focus group voices and findings to illustrate two key concerns with the Prevent strategy: British values and security stakeholders. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=31>
Against Compacency
by Chris Allen
Challenges the rhetoric on campus radicalism and argues that universities cannot be complacent in rejecting lazy and overly simplistic 'solutions' to preventing violent extremism. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=33>
The Failed Paradigm of Prevent
by Richard Jackson
Finds the government's Prevent thinking conceptually confused and ambgiguous and its approach to radicalisation lacking in evidence and research, and recommends that the government abandons any elements of the new Prevent strategy which seek to restrict speech and embarks instead on an alternative 'Radicalisation Programme' of engaged citizenship. Read here
<http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=35>
New Prevent: Different Is Not Necessarily Better
by Derek McGhee
Assesses the attempt to distance "New Prevent" from "Old Prevent" and its failings, and finds that while the overall message is that the Home Office under the Coalition Government are going to "do" Prevent differently to Labour, different does not necessarily mean better. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=38>
Social Cohesion and Counter-Terrorism: The Duck Test on Prevent
by M.Y. Alam
Finds that in the revised strategy the blurring of Cohesion and Prevent has become even more insidious and counter-productive. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=40>
Neo-Conservative Ideology Trumps Academic Research and Practitioner Experience
by Bob Lambert
Reviews the charge of Lambertism and concludes that in PreventThink Neo-Conservative Ideology Still Trumps Academic Research and Practitioner Experience. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=42>
Gender Matters
by Katherine E. Brown
Foregrounds the gendered framing of Prevent thinking and strategy and the instrumental use of women's issues and Muslim women. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=44>
'It is Art, Not Science': The Revised Prevent Strategy
by Darren Thiel
Argues that the new strategy does not present any evidence to reinforce its revisions and is on balance more a rhetorical act of reassurance to quell right wing press politicised critique of Prevent. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=108>
The New Prevent Strategy: Still Lots To Learn
by Fahid Qurashi
Argues that the review process has not only manifestly failed to address and redress criticism of the Prevent programme, but demonstrates in its new strategy a poor intellectual understanding of the phenomenon of radicalisation and the will to seriously tackle its main drivers. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=128>
How to Prevent Strategy
by Scott Poynting
Damningly concludes that the revised Prevent Strategy is as ideological in its assumptions as it is sloppy in its argument, and that it protests rather too much its support for individual freedoms, academic freedom, and the like, while chillingly set to undermine them. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=122>
A Step In The 'Right' Direction?
by Nigel Copsey
Argues that the revised Prevent deserves credit for recognising that violent extremism is an issue that affects white non-Muslim communities as well and acknowledging the need for more understanding of far-right extremism. It is at least a step in the right direction. Whether it is a small step or something more significant remains to be seen. Read here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?page_id=137>
Prevent Deja Vu
by Sadek Hamid
As a researcher and trainer who was engaged in the education of professionals delivering the former Prevent programme, and is well aware of its failings, Hamid concludes that the ConDem Coalition has missed an opportunity to do something truly "radical" such as addressing the criticism of the failures of Prevent. Alas, Its dejá vu all over again: with Prevent, and with the critique of Prevent . Read it here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?p=267>
Extremism, Islamophobia and Muslim Converts
by Leon Moosavi
Drawing on extensive research, dispells three myths about converts and radicalisation which underpin Prevent thinking on Islam and Muslims and citizenship more broadly. Read it here <http://soundings.mcb.org.uk/?p=281>
More contributions on way by: Marie Breen-Smyth, Rizwaan Sabir, David Tyrer, Shamim Miah, Alana Lentin, Yahya Birt, Abdul Haqq Baker, Laura Zahra McDonald, Salma Yaqoob, ...
Best wishes,
Leon
--
Leon Moosavi,
PhD Student,
Room B109,
Sociology Department,
Bowland North,
Lancaster University,
Lancashire,
LA1 4YD
https://www.facebook.com/moosavi13
http://www.youtube.com/ivasoom#g/u
http://lancs.academia.edu/LeonMoosavi
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