Counter Terrorism News CTN Team Member 09/11/2009

Arun Kundnani clearly started writing ‘Spooked!’ with his final conclusions already firmly decided. His main arguments are only flimsily supported by the little evidence he adduces whilst other possible conclusions, often more convincing, are either ignored or dismissed out-of-hand. He then uses the accusations he makes, weakly substantiated though they are, to justify far-reaching conclusions; Prevent should abandon attempts to challenge non-violent extremism and that it would be beneficial to return to discredited 1990s models of multiculturalism.

One is left wondering what Kundwala wants, beyond attacking Prevent. He criticises it for focusing on Muslim populations, saying that it turns Muslims into a “suspect community”, and yet he condemns attempts to “map” Britain’s Muslim communities,[i] the very work that would be necessary for radicalisation to be targeted. He also condemns Prevent for creating mistrust within society[ii] and yet insinuates sinister motives behind police efforts to “foster closer relationships with local service providers” and “’promote trust and confidence’ in relation to Prevent.”[iii] He reveals some matters of concern, for example the extent to which service providers receiving Prevent-funding are required to collect information[iv], but then fails to provide evidence for this data being used as part of a spying programme. Indeed, there seems to be more confusion surrounding this matter than evidence of a conspiracy; Kundnani himself states: “Many interviewees were unclear as to who had access to the data they collected in their Prevent work.”[v]

Kundnani’s main recommendation is that Prevent should not be concerned with counter-extremism work, rather it should focus purely on “illegitimate violence to achieve political ends.”[vi] His claim is that, if groups make “radical criticisms of the government” they “risk losing funding and facing isolation as ‘extremist’” which “undermines the kind of radical discussions of political issues that would need to occur if young people are to be won over and support for illegitimate political violence diminished.”[vii] This rather vague allegation can be understood better by looking at Kundnani’s discussion of the events surrounding Daud Abdullah’s signing of the ‘Istanbul declaration’ in early 2009.[viii] By Kundnani’s description of the events, Abdullah merely signed a declaration “which called for Muslims to resist the blockade of Gaza”. He makes no mention of the declaration’s connection to Hamas and its specific support for terrorist attacks, potentially against British naval units. Instead, this case is used as an example of how an organisation “would now have to involve itself in the explicit promotion of ‘British values’” to continue to receive Prevent money.[ix] In effect, Kundnani appears to be proposing that the government should continue funding advocates of terror attacks to help prevent terror attacks. It makes little sense.

Kundnani also mentions a case where a student in a further education college expressed “extreme views” in a session meant to encourage discussion of political issues, leading to him being referred to the ‘Channel’ programme.[x] So little detail is provided by Kundnani that it is impossible to make a neutral assessment of whether this individual was a danger to themselves and others, or whether this was, as Kundnani implies, a serious infringement of this individual’s privacy and a failure to allow free political discussion. This is a serious failure and a dent to the academic credibility of Spooked!.

This is then exacerbated by him approvingly citing an interviewee who called for an understanding of terrorism as “a manifestation of a political conflict over western foreign policy or as part of a general problem of youth violence”.[xi] Kundnani supports this with a quotation from Olivier Roy, saying that terrorism “has little to do with religious practice” and “radical theology, as salafism, does not necessarily lead to violence”.[xii] The fact that Roy’s quotation does not actually support Kundnani’s statement is symptomatic of both the poor logic employed throughout Spooked! and the simplistic understanding of terrorism which it encourages. Having contradicted the idea that religion lies behind violent extremism, Kundnani assumes that the only other explanation is political grievances.[xiii] However, he entirely ignores the possibility that violence could stem from extremist ideologies which manipulate grievances to promote support for violence.

There are other matters which raise questions about the academic merit of Kundnani’s report. For example, one statement is justified by saying “as some commentators have noted”, without specifying which commentators.[xiv] Kundnani even footnotes what appear to be critiques of Contest 2 to sources dating from 2004 and 2005, long before Contest 2 was launched.[xv] Kundnani also alleges that “a significant part of the Prevent programme involves the embedding of counter-terrorism police officers within the delivery of local services, the purpose of which seems to be to gather intelligence on Muslim communities, to identify areas, groups and individuals that are ‘at risk’ and to then facilitate interventions.”[xvi] Again, evidence is lacking for Kundnani’s bold statements as he can only furnish a single example of the Prevent programme in an area being managed by a police counter-terrorism officer.[xvii] He appears to habitually over-state his case.

There are other problems with Kundnani’s approach in Spooked!, not least that his methodology focuses particularly on a single government department’s approach to Prevent, [xviii] hardly a satisfactory source from which to draw conclusions about Prevent in general, a multi-agency and inter-departmental strategy. What is worse, Kundnani spoke with only 32 interviewees, of whom just six were Prevent workers, ten were members of Local Prevent boards and six were “community workers familiar with Prevent work.”[xix] Such a limited number and range of interviewees cannot give a fair oversight of what is a very broad agenda. This is not to say that Spooked! is entirely without worth. Kundnani raises the important issue of cross-community work being replaced by work with a focus on a single group, which must undermine the cohesion agenda.[xx] He also warns of the danger of the voluntary sector becoming increasingly dependent on Prevent funding[xxi] and the risk that other groups in society become resentful of Prevent funding being focused on Muslims. One of his interviewees is quoted as asking “Why do you have to be a violent extremist to get money?” which is an undeniable apposite question.[xxii]

Thus, whilst some of Kundnani’s points are interesting and deserve discussion, many of his broader and more serious allegations fail to convince. The assumptions underpinning his report are revealed most clearly in its final paragraph where he writes of the need to build trust to counter radicalisation,[xxiii] but completely fails to mention the role ideology might have in that. He had previously dismissed ideology from consideration by saying that “An al-Qaida-type ideology does not constitute a viable alternative for all but a tiny number of individuals in Britain.”[xxiv] Whilst this is very true, it is also an obfuscation of the issue. The bombers on 7^th July 2005 were only a “tiny number” but this made their actions no less terrible; Kundnani seems not to understand basic issues surrounding counter-terrorism work. Furthermore, his report makes serious allegations of spying and making Muslims a ‘suspect community’ but fails to provide adequate evidence for them. Instead he produces what appears to be an ideologically-motivated, rather than evidence-based, attack on the concept of promoting shared values and the shift away from out-moded concepts of multiculturalism.