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flickr.com/ Ministry of Defence
In
2014, more than 207 people were arrested in Britain for terror related
offences. In August, the terror threat level was raised from
‘substantial' to ‘severe' by the Home Secretary, Theresa May.
The decision was made primarily because of developments
in Syria and Iraq where security services believe more than 500
British-born Muslims have been radicalised and travelled to the Middle
East to join ISIL.
However, that figure, according to researcher and Syrian
political activist Danni Maki could be three times greater. ISIL and
other terrorist groups in the region are still using the internet
to coax and convince many young people to leave Britain and become
terrorists, and the greatest threat that remains to people in the UK is
when those that have been radicalised return.
No one is born a terrorist, because terrorism is a process,
not an event, according to counter terrorism expert Hamed El-Said.
Therefore he believes it can be reversed. However El-Said believes the
process of countering radicalisation has been ignored and current
counter terrorism programmes in place are, in his view, inadequate.
His book, 'New Approaches to Countering Terrorism', is dedicated to the theory of counter radicalisation and de-radicalisation. "My
concern is that countering radicalisation was deliberately ignored.
Anti-Americanism, anti-Western sentiments have been on the rise
since 9/11. My fear and disappointment is that we in the West did not
want to assume any responsibility for our policies in the region," he said.
The book states that terrorism is a crime like all other
crimes. However violent extremism, according to El-Said, is confined
to a small minority of fringe groups and individuals who take matters
into their own hands and who are radical enough to commit acts
of terrorism.
The rhetoric surrounding the so-called war on terror in the
wake of attacks in Britain and America has, according to Hamed El-Said,
Professor in International Business and Political Economy at Manchester
Metropolitan University, led to the stigmatisation and negative
labelling of Muslim communities, which has backfired in the fight
to counter violent extremism.
"This only contributes further to the marginalisation
of Muslim communities in the West. As long as we keep neglecting the
root cause we will never defeat terrorism. So far we haven't been able
to win the war on terror and it continues.
"In many cases it's actually got worse, there are more
radicalised individuals around the world and there is more violent
extremism in different parts of the world. We need to shift gears and
change our policies and focus more on discrediting their approach and
defeating their strategy. We need to be able to convince their followers
that theirs is the wrong approach".
Professor El-Said believes that: "as long as there are
injustices in the world, there is imbalance in the world and we need
to deal with that if we are really genuine about undermining terrorism".
But it's not just about addressing inequality, imbalances
and injustices. To truly counter terrorism and violence extremism,
individuals who have been radicalised must know that there is an exit
strategy.
"We need to encourage individuals to leave terrorism
behind, we need to give them an opportunity to get out of terrorism and
go back into real life — and we're not really doing that.
"If we don't provide them with an alternative path
to leave terrorism I'm afraid we won't be able solve terrorism. Counter
terrorism and de-radicalisation needs to become part of a larger reform
of packages that deals with the reasons, if not we're going to talk
about this subject for a long time to come".
In response to the number of British Muslims who have left
Britain to join ISIL, the rhetoric surrounding countering extremism has
ramped up in Britain and led to further scrutiny of the British
Government's counter extremism strategy, 'Prevent', which has been
in place for ten years.
Hamad El-Siad's book ‘New Approaches to Countering Terrorism' is to be published in January.
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