DAR AL HARB-U.K.: "I WAS INTERESTED IN READING UP ABOUT AN EXTREMIST GROUP BECAUSE I THOUGHT, 'YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT' "

Extremism is going unchallenged
by Shiraz Maher

Government efforts have no impact

We shouldn't be equivocal about it. Since the events of 9/11, Britain has faced a unique and unprecedented threat from al-Qaeda against our society, citizens and way of life. It is not overstating the case to say that we have been under constant and sustained attack, more so than any other country in the western world. More startling, however, is the realisation that every one of those plots has involved our own citizens: invariably men born and raised in Britain, whose experiences have been shaped, not by the madrasas of Lahore, but by the mullahs of London. And, in that sense, the government's attempts to engage young Muslims have been woefully inadequate so far.

In October last year I broadcast a documentary for the BBC's Panorama and travelled to inner-city Bradford to meet a group of young men and women aged 14-18 at the Khidmat Centre, which provides young Muslims with a space to socialise away from the mosques. This is the key demographic the government has identified as being particularly vulnerable to extremist recruitment. But, more than two years on from 7/7, and after £6m had been spent on a "Pathfinder" scheme for preventing violent extremism, no one in the group was successfully able to rebut even the most basic extremist ideas, when asked if they could do so. One of the participants told me, "I was interested in reading up about an extremist group because I thought, 'Yeah, that's right.'"

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Pertinent Links:

1) Extremism is going unchallenged