An international research network exploring the representation of Muslim identities in contemporary cultural discourses.

“Big Brother” comes to visit Britain’s Muslim youth

Last Updated on Thursday, 19 November 2009 18:09

In a recent report by Vikram Dodd, the Guardian’s crime correspondent, the £140 million Government funded Prevent (Preventing Violent Extremism Programme) Agenda on tackling extremism in the UK has been found to be an intricate spying programme targeting Britain’s Muslim communities. The information gathering has co-opted local councils, FE colleges, Universities and so on in a bid to protect the more ‘vulnerable’ young Muslims at risk from violent extremism. The Home Office, which administers Prevent, maintain that their intention is to work with communities and root out violent extremism and not to turn ordinary civilians into spooks. Ed Husain, of the Quilliam Foundation spoke out in favour of Prevent’s intelligence gathering anti-terror activity while Shami Chakrabarty, Director of Liberty has described it as a spying exercise which seriously curtails civil liberties. What the programme has effectively done so far is to damage relationships of trust and instead of building community cohesion it has fostered a climate of fear and suspicion. Now it seems community cohesion is to be the friendly face of Prevent. Most notably universities and FE Colleges are seen as prime places for the potential radicalisation of youth and are therefore to be monitored closely in order to prevent the outbreak of violent extremism and to protect ‘vulnerable youth’. Muslim youth who are already targeted in the police ‘stop and search’ campaign cannot it seems be trusted to experience a ‘free’ and ‘secular’ model of education. Instead they must be watched by the nation like the inmates of Channel 4s Big Brother House. Meanwhile a Muslim spokesman such as Ed Husain provides a reassuring face to the public, ‘speaking from within’, as a formerly radicalised member of Hizb-ut Tahrir, who is now committed to national security concerns. For his efforts, Prevent have rewarded Quilliam with a major grant. So it seems that in addition to the ‘crime’ of ‘Flying while Muslim’ we can now add ‘Studying while Muslim’. While Muslim representatives such as Ed Husain have landed safely, one wonders where next the security agendas of new liberalism will lead us in the ongoing War Against Terror.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/16/anti-terrorism-strategy-spies-innocents
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/oct/16/highereducation.topstories3
http://www.an-nisa.org/subpage.asp?id=307&mainid=79
Philip Hensher, ‘Do not expect lecturers to snitch on their students’, The Independent, 17 October 2006, p.31.