Prevent: How far has surveillance of muslim communities gone?

[Thimble Queen]

lol i remember writing a crappy mafia shoot em up story in year 8 english class. This was around the time the counter-terrorism strategy had been made public.

They sent letters home, called parents in and everything, the amount of shit i got was not pleasant, and i did deserve to be told that fetishising violence is not fun, but i was 12 and it felt like i was being singled out for being part of a marginal group. And obviously my family were trying to accomodate to what they perceived as british values whilst talking about not selling out at the same time.

Gah. it's a mess.

That's well shit dial that's just 'normal' 12 year old boy stuff... unless you're brown, obvs.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

A couple of questions though a lot of what you say doesn't have much to do with what they think of prevent as a strategy and is more about proving they are the right kind of Muslims... which is exactly what is wrong with prevent....



What does that have to do with what they think of prevent? I'd say the majority of Muslims (and reasonable non-muslims) think that.



What does prayers not being in English have to do with radicalisation?



The thing about accepting prevent money years ago is interesting. Do you think they would still accept money from prevent today considering how widely criticised it is by both muslims and non-muslims?

It's quite normal for muslim community work to open to people from a variety of faiths and none. For example the schools and hospitals funded and built by the Aga khan are open to anyone. Admission isn't dependant on religious faith.

Just to get a bit wanky here but it's important, islamic prayers are rarely ever in english. the cermons are, but it's pretty much standard in islam to disagree with cermons. No different from any other religion.

Prayers are individual and collective at the same time, that's why Morroccans can pray with Turks, because it's a set of prescribed acts. It's very general, more imagery than anything else. Of course there are differences in these prayers between different schools of thought and generally there is a division between sunni and shia mosques but a lot of it is the same enough that in most cases people can go to different mosques, we used to have alevis come to the turkish sunni mosques and my local when i was living in north london was quite multiethnic.

i don't think it's correct to focus on the mosque so much these days, most muslims in uk today are two busy to go to the mosque every day.

 

[Thimble Queen]

Just to get a bit wanky here but it's important, islamic prayers are rarely ever in english. the cermons are, but it's pretty much standard in islam to disagree with cermons. No different from any other religion.

Yep. The most commonly spoken languages apart from English in my families mosque are Gujarati, Kutchi and Swahili but the prayers are still in Arabic. The sermons as you say are in English and some of the community stuff that goes on is conducted in Gujarati.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yep. The most commonly spoken languages apart from English in my families mosque are Gujarati, Kutchi and Swahili but the prayers are still in Arabic. The sermons as you say are in English and some of the community stuff that goes on is conducted in Gujarati.

yeh but until the 1960s the catholic church used latin throughout, so not like it's unheard of for most people to have no idea of what's being said.

 

[Thimble Queen]

yeh but until the 1960s the catholic church used latin throughout, so not like it's unheard of for most people to have no idea of what's being said.

I didn't say that it was unheard of for people not to have a clue what was going on?

In my families mosque, kids are taught, with varying degrees of success, all of the prayers and the respective meanings in English at a young age. You are expected to learn them and the meanings off by heart and to be able to recite them at services. Its a source of great pride for parents and families when little Johnny performs in front of the whole community. I do question how much children actually comprehend though and if it's just parroting. I've never learnt in full and just read the sermons in English as kid instead. Im sure it was a constant source of disappointment to my parents but climbing trees and computer games were a lot more fun.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

I didn't say that it was unheard of for people not to have a clue what was going on?

In my families mosque, kids are taught, with varying degrees of success, all of the prayers and the respective meanings in English at a young age. You are expected to learn them and the meanings off by heart and to be able to recite them at services. Its a source of great pride for parents and families when little Johnny performs in front of the whole community. I do question how much children actually comprehend though and if it's just parroting. I've never learnt in full and just read the sermons in English as kid instead. Im sure it was a constant source of disappointment to my parents but climbing trees and computer games were a lot more fun.

]

Fifa 96 and 98.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

super soakers.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

those were the days.

 

[Pickman's model]

those were the days.

 

[Thimble Queen]

dialectician round our house it was gauntlet and spellfire. Me and my sister used to make 'music' on the Atari. Proper haram.

 

[J Ed]

IMO it's clear that Prevent has problems to the extent that it is no longer really viable but if people were really serious about 'Preventing Prevent' and getting rid of it then they would come up with an alternative to it.

The comments of the current NUS president, for example, show that there seems to be a dearth of ideas on what an alternative to Prevent would look like.

NUS president Malia Bouattia: ‘Political activists are being demonised’

“I would propose looking at the state of our foreign policy. And we’ve cut every space of constructive engagement, like youth centres. Cost of living’s increased, employment prospects are low, access to university is becoming ever harder. Even if people have accessed higher education, they’ve accumulated vast amounts of debt. And have they had a positive experience, being forced to engage with content that doesn’t relate to them, and perhaps is psychologically destructive? When we look at the incredibly Eurocentric curriculum, where people don’t see themselves in what they’re studying, and can’t relate to it, and feel that their European counterparts hit the ground running, they can’t see themselves advancing in the subjects."

Some of this is just nonsense stuff, a mish mash of cobbled together of serious issues which do not directly lead to terrorism and her own personal hobby horses which apply exclusively to university humanities students, and exposes a total inability on her part to look at the world in anything other than a parochial university student way.

I'm not claiming that I have the right answers either, if any are even possible given the forces that have been unleashed by Western foreign policy, but it seems to me that both Prevent's advocates and critics are getting it wrong.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

i remember when i tried to get mum to buy me the Shaggy album. She probably found it really confusing at the time.

i will never forget that.

 

[Pickman's model]

IMO it's clear that Prevent has problems to the extent that it is no longer really viable but if people were really serious about 'Preventing Prevent' and getting rid of it then they would come up with an alternative to it.

you often hear this sort of thing - yeh this is shit but what's your alternative?

why should people affected by a policy, be it the poll tax or prevent, have to come up with an alternative?

 

[Pickman's model]

i remember when i tried to get mum to buy me the Shaggy album. She probably found it really confusing at the time.

i will never forget that.

yeh. why should she have to *buy* it for you when with a bit of jiggerypokery she could have downloaded it for free?

 

[ManchesterBeth]

yeh. why should she have to *buy* it for you when with a bit of jiggerypokery she could have downloaded it for free?

because i didn't have a computer at the time.

This was around 00/01 time.

 

[J Ed]

you often hear this sort of thing - yeh this is shit but what's your alternative?

why should people affected by a policy, be it the poll tax or prevent, have to come up with an alternative?

I'm not saying that they have to in order to criticise it they have to come up with an alternative, as I have done myself in the past and will continue to do so (and in fact I am doing here!), but if we want to move forward politically and get rid of it then it seems to me that in this case it would be a good idea to be able to articulate what an alternative to Prevent might look like.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm not saying that they have to in order to criticise it they have to come up with an alternative, as I have done myself in the past and will continue to do so (and in fact I am doing here!), but if we want to move forward politically and get rid of it then it seems to me that in this case it would be a good idea to be able to articulate what an alternative to Prevent might look like.

it might look like trying to incorporate people into society instead of trying one's damndest to alienate them. it doesn't have to be an alternative to prevent as such, more an alternative to the entire mindset which thinks the best way to deal with radicalisation is to take some aspects of counterinsurgency theory and incorporate them into domestic policy.

 

[J Ed]

it might look like trying to incorporate people into society instead of trying one's damndest to alienate them. it doesn't have to be an alternative to prevent as such, more an alternative to the entire mindset which thinks the best way to deal with radicalisation is to take some aspects of counterinsurgency theory and incorporate them into domestic policy.

Yes, and what decent person could disagree with that? Part of the problem though is that even if a government were elected/came to power by some other means tomorrow that was fully pledged to do exactly that then Daesh would still be grooming teenage girls online and you still need some sort of strategy to deal with that in the immediate term alongside your long term strategy to create a more cohesive society.

 

[Thimble Queen]

it might look like trying to incorporate people into society instead of trying one's damndest to alienate them. it doesn't have to be an alternative to prevent as such, more an alternative to the entire mindset which thinks the best way to deal with radicalisation is to take some aspects of counterinsurgency theory and incorporate them into domestic policy.

This isn't some kind of socialist utopia, ya know.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yes, and what decent person could disagree with that? Part of the problem though is that even if a government were elected/came to power by some other means tomorrow that was fully pledged to do exactly that then Daesh would still be grooming teenage girls online and you still need some sort of strategy to deal with that in the immediate term alongside your long term strategy to create a more cohesive society.

yeh? it's not simply about bringing muslims into things, it's about working to alleviate the cirumstances which lead to young women being so vulnerable.

 

[The39thStep]

how does it safeguard those being drawn into things like daesh?

There are studies of Prevent and caseload examples on line .

 

[The39thStep]

A couple of questions though a lot of what you say doesn't have much to do with what they think of prevent as a strategy and is more about proving they are the right kind of Muslims... which is exactly what is wrong with prevent....



What does that have to do with what they think of prevent? I'd say the majority of Muslims (and reasonable non-muslims) think that.



What does prayers not being in English have to do with radicalisation?



The thing about accepting prevent money years ago is interesting. Do you think they would still accept money from prevent today considering how widely criticised it is by both muslims and non-muslims?

It's quite normal for muslim community work to open to people from a variety of faiths and none. For example the schools and hospitals funded and built by the Aga khan are open to anyone. Admission isn't dependant on religious faith.

What are the right kind of Muslims ?

 

[Pickman's model]

There are studies of Prevent and caseload examples on line .

Yeh? Cos there is evidence of active targeting of those caught up in D'aesh.

 

[bimble]

yeh? it's not simply about bringing muslims into things, it's about working to alleviate the cirumstances which lead to young women being so vulnerable.

Good idea. How to stop young women being so vulnerable - any ideas? Or young men even, who have a much higher suicide rate ?
Everybody knows about the rocketing numbers for self harm in this country lately, the kind of self harm that gets recorded in government stats because they came in to be stitched up or pumped out by the hospital, ever rising.

Where's the attention to the link between self harm / suicide rates amongst young people and how come at the same time they are mysteriously increasingly ready and willing to die for a cause, or an idea, even if its just a nihilistic end times vengeful idea, something they read about online, a desperate sort of dream of common cause and making your life mean something.

That is what 'prevent' is really about ultimately isn't it, if we're honest, its about preventing a particular sort of politicised / meaningful suicide which takes other people with you.

 

[Thimble Queen]

What are the right kind of Muslims ?

It would be polite to answer my questions first. I should have written 'right kind of muslims'. You know that I meant though. We are the ones that adhere to 'British values' and aren't terrorists!

 

[The39thStep]

It would be polite to answer my questions first. I should have written 'right kind of muslims'. You know that I meant though. We are the ones that adhere to 'British values' and aren't terrorists!

Have to come back to the rest of your questions tomoz. You mean those who agree with those values that we ( the working class left and others ) fought for ie democracy, against women's oppression, for trade unions, against homophobia , the right to free speech. The very values that the Islamacists , their fellow travellers CAGE, and the terrorists reject?

 

[The39thStep]

Yeh? Cos there is evidence of active targeting of those caught up in D'aesh.

It's a preventative scheme so those caught up in Daesh are probably a bit far gone. The increasing return of jihadists now that Daesh is being defeated will be another problem .

 

[Beats & Pieces]

If it relates to the topic I would certainly like to read it - im in a constant lit review situation!

I'd be quite happy to exchange suggestions for further reading material etc - pm me if you are interested.

 

[IC3D]

dialectician i did a painting of the crucifixion of Christ surrounded by nazi storm troopers rabbis and priests for my GCSE art coursework that almost got me suspended, I wouldn't overthink it. I hung it on my wall for a couple years ​

 

[Pickman's model]

It's a preventative scheme so those caught up in Daesh are probably a bit far gone. The increasing return of jihadists now that Daesh is being defeated will be another problem .

so contrary to what you said it does not safeguard those caught up in daesh