|
The Government Pretends to Listen to Muslim youth |
|
|
|
Issues Explained
|
|
Thursday, 04 September 2008 |
 The Government’s so-called winning ‘hearts and minds’ strategy has now turned to the Muslim youth. It has been revealed that a select group of 16-25 years olds will ‘advise’ cabinet ministers about the mood amongst Muslim youth.
This is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed and specifically targeted at the Muslim community in order to tackle Islamic extremism.
Just recently, the last initiative – a Government “sterilised” board of Muslim theologians - was rejected outright by a wide cross section of the Muslim community. The charge being that this was a blatant attempt to command and regulate Islam in much the same way as the Friday sermons (Khutbah) are ‘hand written’ by ‘Government scholars’ in the Muslim world by despotic regimes.
The latest youth proposal needs to be seen in the same context.
Ever since 9/11 and particularly since 7/7 the Government has deliberately attacked, alienated and marginalised the Muslim youth in Britain.
John Reed, when Home Secretary, in no uncertain terms told Muslim parents to ‘spy’ on their own children followed by an instruction for universities to ‘spy’ on Muslim students. Stop and search powers, which disproportionately target Muslim youth, have been used with increasingly greater frequency. Therefore, the Government’s disastrous track record with Muslim youth exposes just how disingenuous this latest ‘hearts and minds’ initiative really is.
This orchestrated campaign has created a climate of fear, distrust and hatred against Muslim youth in Britain. No where is this more evident than on University campuses where academic staff have even been asked to participate in monitoring the ideas of Muslim youth. Furthermore, there are reports that local police ask community leaders in receipt of government money from the 'Preventing Violent Extremism' fund to spy on the ideas discussed by local youth.
Jobs are now even more difficult to come by if you are a Muslim and it does not matter that qualifications you hold or which university you have graduated from. If you make it to the interview with an overtly Muslim sounding name expect a question on attitudes towards 9/11, 7/7 or the Iraq war. Thus, with the unique exception of snooping for MI5 or ‘advising’ the Government on how to deal with Muslims, the job market is particularly difficult for Muslim youth. Recreationally, youth clubs and private gyms are not as open to Muslim as they had been once before.
The Government’s preoccupation with Muslim youth needs to be questioned though. Is there a serious binge drinking problem amongst this group? Are Muslim youth behind the surge in Anti-Social Behaviour Orders or does this rise reflect wider anti-social behaviour across the whole of society? Is gang violence, gun and knife crime particularly rife among young Muslims or is it not a very modern British problem? However, the full machinery of the Government has been launched towards young Muslims: Select Committees; working groups; focus groups; advisory bodies; tens of millions of pounds in funding; and now a direct hotline to cabinet ministers. Given limited public expenditure there clearly needs to be a realignment of Government initiatives with the plethora of real social ills in Britain today.
But perhaps the focus on Muslims is not disproportionate in light of the tens of billions spent on the failed campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Hizb ut-Tahrir (Britain) has outlined in our detailed report entitled Radicalisation Extremism & 'Islamism' : Realities and Myths in the 'War on Terror' the British Government is using the guise of vague notions like radicalisation and extremism to coerce all those, particularly the Muslim youth, that speak out against British colonialism, its Capitalist greed and its cultural imperialism manifested in its interventions if Iraq, Afghanistan.
The global revival of Islam, illustrated through poll after poll in the Muslim world and growing calls for the reestablishment of the Caliphate (Khilafah), is a growing concern for the British and American Governments due to their fear of losing control of valuable foreign resources. In response the American government has increased its occupation and intervention of the Muslim world while the British Government’s approach, as ever, more subtle, has been to weaken the revival by creating a new divide between Muslims based on a narrative to malign Islam and its values, to perpetuate the notion of moderate and extremist Islam and to seek to reform the understanding of Islam. It seeks to create a British Islam and then argue that those who oppose their narrative are indeed radicalised extremists and to get unwitting Muslims to project the debate to the Muslim world.
Notwithstanding, Muslim initiative fatigue, the new group of Muslim youth advisers will be hand-picked in line with similar types of ‘committees and advisors’ in the past. Do not apply if you question the ability of secular liberal democracy to solve the world’s problems. Do not apply if you feel British foreign policy should be secondary to your faith and belief, and do not apply if you think Muslims have grievances.
|
