Education and countering violent extremism: Western logics from south to north?

Abstract

This paper explores the way education and conflict have become entangled during the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ response to ‘radical Islam’ at home and abroad. The paper charts the complex ways that education has been deployed to serve Western military and security objectives in multiple locations in the global south and how these strategies have now returned to the ‘ West’ in the form of ‘countering violent extremism’ interventions. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of the ‘boomerang effect’ I will explore whether and how education techniques and strategies deployed abroad in pursuit of imperial interests return to the West and are deployed to monitor, control and suppress marginalised communities in a form of ‘internal colonialism’. Finally, the paper brings the two sections together in the Findings to explore commonalities and divergences.

Keywords:

• Education
• counter-terrorism
• countering violent extremism
• radicalisation
• Prevent

Notes

1. See http://www.ineesite.org/en/round-table-role-of-education-youth-urban-violence-extremism

2. See http://www.norrag.org/fileadmin/Events/PVE_Workshop_INPUT_paper_final.pdf

3. See https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/event/wp1510/

4. In this I would like to note the work of Dr Ayaz Naseem and Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, based at Concordia, for organising the ‘Symposia of Teaching about Extremism, Terror and Trauma’, held in Montreal in 2016, where a version of this paper was first presented, and where I found an open and transformative space to discuss and engage critically with CVE with a wide range of participants. See Arshad-Ayaz and Naseem (2017) for further information. I would also like to thank the two anonymous peer-reviewers for their extremely helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

5. Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (the Act) places a duty on certain bodies (‘specified authorities’ listed in Schedule 6 to the Act), in the exercise of their functions, to have ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’.This guidance is issued under section 29 of the Act. The Act states that the authorities subject to the provisions must have regard to this guidance when carrying out the duty. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance

6. See http://www.npcc.police.uk/FreedomofInformation/NationalChannelReferralFigures.aspx

7. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-35354061