Jeremy Corbyn made some salient points in his speech, but it is all somewhat beside the point: whilst
intervention in the Umaah is used as a reason for faux outrage by many
extremists (faux, in the sense that the purpose of their terrorist
attacks and militaty incursions in Muslim countries is to invite war),
the reality of what drives/encourages/manipulates these young men to
their actions is complex and, on the whole, fed by the belief that they
have been treated as the underdog, cast-aside, used (pick your adjective
or noun). In joining a group who consider themselves elite and
everybody else as "kāfir", they are able to to feed their own sense of
entitlement, bolster their idea of personal heroism, thus allowing them
to bully, threaten, cheat and deceive with impunity. Many of these
people are more than willing to play the victim if it gives them a
weapon with which to beat the authorities/establishment/the man/the
police (take your pick), but they are amused and dismissive of those who
give in to them in this way.
Prisons are are an interesting example
of how they work - they gain control by demanding their rights, shouting
"racist", putting in complaints, harassing and ridiculing the Muslim
Chaplains, refusing to allow female officers to search their persons or
their pads, trying to claim religious exemptions from statutory
requirements. The Muslim gang is brought together by being a mix of
muscle and religious doctrine. On each wing, one prisoner will be seen
as a teacher and other prisoners (often very vulnerable) will be brought
to them for religious instruction, often fed by extremist literature
that has been smuggled into the prison -in some cases, books donated by a
Muslim charity will be of an extremist nature that nobody bothered to
properly check (although this has improved). On the wings, Muslim
prisoners set up an almost parallel community and, if they see a threat
in the form of another gang, will seek to absorb it or, if that fails,
try to crush it by using violence, often by assaults in the workshops,
during movements, in education, gym, etc., with prisoners from another
wing used to commit the assaults.
If a prisoner has been forced onto
the "numbers", they will then invite them to reapply for the main wing
if they are willing to convert. Prisoners who have self-evidently never
been Muslims in their lives argue vociferously with staff that they are
Muslim, get the Muslim Chaplain down to make their shahada, and get
themselves back on the wings. Then, they are told that, to be properly
accepted after being with the "nonces", they have to assault a member of
staff or another prisoner.
Young men with no strong sense of
personal worth are incorporated into a powerful group who, against all
evidence to the contrary, profess themselves to be the most oppressed
group of people in the prison estate and the wider country, feeding a
victim mentality which can lead to these young men becoming very
dangerous, accepting no moral prerogative beyond that laid down for them
by the group. Their morality is a mix of violent criminality and
religious extremism fed by particular hadiths and fatwas, some of the
latter declared by self-appointed teachers within the prisoner
population.
Now, quite often, when a prisoner moves to another prison
outside of the High Security Estate, he will quickly rediscover his
non-Muslim roots and avoid all reference to their past, and they will
truly be delighted to be out of the madness. Others will be moved and
remain Muslim, perhaps having found a faith that gives them a discipline
they need but learn to move away from the very warped version of it fed
to them when they first converted. Others will move and remain angry,
belligerent and violent. Others will move and be quiet but manipulative,
continuing to follow the doctrine they were fed.
Trust me - Prevent
is a costly waste of time, effort and money - it is about as effective
as the Sex Offender Treatment Programme that so many resouces have been
poured into, and does not work.
Most people look at prisons and think
that Muslim gangs are just a issue for black prisoners, they are wrong
and ignore the fact that the vast majority of Afro-Caribbean prisoners
who go to prison for long sentences are of a Christian background, but
convert quite quickly (sometimes for a sense of identity, sometimes for
political reasons, sometimes under pressure). More and more prisoners of
White British backgrounds are also converting, for similar reasons and a
significant minority of these are becoming radicalised. Whilst lots
will eventually move on and leave prison and forget their choices in
prison, some will hold onto them and bring a lot of violent attitudes
into our communities and onto our streets.
Yesterday, I visited the
scene of the bombing, only being allowed as close as the police cordon
near Chetham's School, and saw the casual nature of police officers
holding semi-automatic rifles. I went to the shrine in St. Ann's Square
which, while surrounded by film crews and edging towards the mawkish,
still had the capacity to move. Seeing young people in leg bandages from
the night make their respects is truly affecting. People were
constantly asking "How could anybody target children?"
Well
gentlemen, I think the answer, in an admittedly different setting for
the killer, lies in much that I have observed from the many years I
spent working in the High Security Estate: he could target children
because they counted as nothing compared to the rigid sense of morality
that he had been fed.
The other thing that bothered me last night, as
I stood in St. Ann's Square, was that none of the journalists are
actually asking the right questions, and that makes me bloody angry. The
politicians are not willing to deal with issues and, as I found with
those at the top in the Prison Service (or NOMS, as it was called for a
time), refuse to listen to those who try to tell them what is happening
as it does not fit into their political world-view, and then run around
asking themselves how to prevent radicalisation and the murder of the
innocent.
The Communion of Saints
I hope there's room for me.
