I've been teaching in London for ten years and in Tower Hamlets for the last three, serving a predominantly Muslim community. In 2014 the Muslim students who I teach stopped engaging in the political debate that is a vital part of any teaching practice. This corresponded with the allegations that Birmingham’s schools were being infiltrated by so-called Islamic extremists that became known as the “Trojan Horse” and resulted in OfSTED being sent in and downgrading a number of schools and advising them to follow the PREVENT Strategy. I would like to explain how this has led to Muslim students disengaging from educational debate and how this mechanism risks increasing the threat of terrorism.
At the same time as the events in Birmingham, a letter was sent to all headteachers in Tower Hamlets, offering the services of PREVENT. Headteachers in Tower Hamlets expressed their concern that PREVENT flew in the face of their inclusion agendas but fear of OfSTED compelled them to conform. At the same time the Department for Education briefed the press that there was a “Trojan Horse 2” in Tower Hamlets where the situation was worse than that in Birmingham, I have not seen evidence to support this claim but one school in Tower Hamlets, John Cass, was downgraded for the activities of some of their sixth form students on Facebook and was advised to follow PREVENT.
In 2015 PREVENT became a duty for teachers and it became my duty to report students at risk of being “drawn into terrorism” to the security services via the Police run Channel Program.
As a result of concerns for the impact that PREVENT was having on the students who I teach, I developed an academic interest in PREVENT and am now continuing this research as a PhD at UCL. My interest has also led me to be on the Overview and Scrutiny Committee into PREVENT for Tower Hamlets which has offered me the opportunity to see how PREVENT is applied across the Borough and to spend time with the PREVENT team in Birmingham to gain a more national view of the application of the PREVENT Strategy and Duty. Though PREVENT is engaged in very different ways across the two boroughs, the negative impacts have been widespread and similar.
My research and committee work has enabled me to run focus groups with students from across Tower Hamlets. These students have said that they are proud of their Borough for its diversity, the freedom to express culture and religion that they experience, community cohesion and for the opportunities for young people. However, since PREVENT has taken effect in schools, they have become concerned that it has become “difficult to practice religion in schools”; one boy (who has recently climbed Snowdon 7 times to raise money for a charity to support orphans in Myanmar) had the police called on him for praying in the park with other Muslim friends; another said, “I don’t always say what I think to adults [as I am] worried about how I might be viewed” and when I questioned them further they explained that they included their teachers and parents in the adults who they did not feel safe to speak to anymore. Finally, one young person said that, “[I am] scared to practice my religion”.
The first paragraph of the Home Secretary’s forward to the PREVENT Strategy clearly indicates that it is directed at Islam so over intervention in young Muslims lives is not surprising as I have heard it suggested in Birmingham and in Tower Hamlets that Prevent makes it a duty for all community members to report their concerns about those who are at risk of radicalisation. The definition of radicalisation having changed across the different versions of PREVENT since 2008.
That there have been two very different versions of PREVENT often goes unnoticed but I would briefly like to look into one of the significant differences. The definition of “radicalisation” in 2008 was distinct and separate from violence and terrorism yet in 2011 the strategy made “radicalisation” synonymous with support for terrorism. For those people with radical views, those desiring political change, this has had the effect of suppressing their voices for fear of being perceived as violent under the new violent definition; this was seen when the Muslim students who I serve stopped engaging in debate. However, for individuals whose desire for political change is stronger than their abhorrence of violence, the newly defined “radicalisation” draws them into a terrorist identity. PREVENT thus has the capacity to promote the threat that it purports to suppress.
This promotion of terrorism is a high price to pay for the suppression of debate (if that is what we want), particularly when I consider that in 10 years of teaching, every student with views that I have perceived as extreme has moderated their views as a result of classroom debate. I've often learned from them too. We are after all members of the same society.
The things that made my students proud of Tower Hamlets were the same things that brought me into teaching 10 years ago, celebration of diversity, the promotion of freedom of expression
community cohesion and opportunities for young people. Yet these are now being undermined by PREVENT and this is why I am joining Rights Watch (UK) in calling for a full review of PREVENT that hears from those who are affected. This will be a difficult task as those affected are already scared to speak out but they must be heard if educational opportunities are to be enabled and community safety preserved.
