A place where sceptics can exchange their views

Monday, 20 July 2015

Countering Extremist Ideologies

Naturally, I agree with the British Prime Minister that the government and the public in general must do all they can to counter extremism and terrorism. However, I do not agree that " historic injustices and grievances" and " recent wars" should not be included as part of the solution.

We only have to look to the United Kingdom to look at the effect of "historic injustices and grievances" and "recent wars" to see graphically and tragically their effect.

The "troubles" in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1998 involved the deaths of 3,600 people. They were the result of hatred between the IRA and the UVF and UDA.  Combatants from both sides of the Roman Catholic and Protestant divide were responsible for most of the deaths and casualties. The conflict was only resolved by negotiation.

Some of the animosity in Northern Ireland remained from the 1690 Battle of The Boyne. The Protestant victory is still celebrated today by Protestant extremists, even though some of this extremism no longer expresses itself through terrorism and violence.

There has been animosity between Irish Catholics and  Protestants for centuries and this culminated in the War for Irish independence between 1919 and 1921 and the subsequent civil war after the formation of the Irish Free State. The civilian population of Ireland and the UK has got plenty of blood on its hands. Irish and UK governments have also got blood on their hands with relation to Ireland.

Thousands of citizens of Northern Ireland do not want to be British and do not want to adhere to British values, whatever they are, and they would vote to join the Republic of Ireland if there were a plebiscite tomorrow. Luckily there is no longer any terrorism  to achieve this but the whole of our society needs to be careful. The situation could easily slide back into violence if the politicians from both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland do not remain watchful.

British politicians should therefore have a full understanding of how historical injustices can play on the mind of potential terrorists; and they ignore this aspect of why people become violent to achieve political means at their peril and at the peril of the British community at large.

We do not have to look to Northern Ireland to find the causes of why young people choose violence to achieve political aims. During the Spanish Civil War hundreds of Britons went to fight in the International Brigade against fascism. Some of them were members of the British establishment and were fully imbued in British values.

To persuade British people not to join guerrilla groups such as Daesh or ISIL we must start a dialogue with all of our young people and encourage them to think for themselves rather than blindly follow an extremist or violent ideology.

We could begin this dialogue by becoming a secular state which defends the rights of  all of our citizens to become believers or non-believers. We should also withdraw state funds from faith schools including Church of England ones. If parents want to give their children a religious education then they should send them to private schools. State funded schools should teach our children to think rationally about all aspects of our society including religion and our history and to face the truth.
Why not let our children mix and why not do our best to integrate the sons and daughters of immigrants into British society rather than condemn them for having "Un-British" ideas?

We should not traduce immigrants or their children; we should welcome them  to play a full part in our community and nation.

To ignore history or to have a prejudiced view of it invites trouble. Equally, we have to tackle the grievances caused by injustice and war: these are other sources of animosity that we ignore to the detriment of harmony within our nation.

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