UK: Whitehall draws up new rules on language of terror

[Harold Schiffman]

Whitehall draws up new rules on language of terror.  Phrasebook
designed to avoid blaming Muslims for extremism

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Monday February 4, 2008
The Guardian


A new counter-terrorism phrasebook has been drawn up within Whitehall
to advise civil servants on how to talk to Muslim communities about
the nature of the terror threat without implying they are specifically
to blame. Reflecting the government's decision to abandon the
"aggressive rhetoric" of the so-called war on terror, the guide tells
civil servants not to use terms such as Islamist extremism or
jihadi-fundamentalist but instead to refer to violent extremism and
criminal murderers or thugs to avoid any implication that there is an
explicit link between Islam and terrorism.

It warns those engaged in counter-terrorist work that talk of a
struggle for values or a battle of ideas is often heard as a
"confrontation/clash between civilisations/cultures". Instead it
suggests that talking about the idea of shared values works much more
effectively. The guide, which has been passed to the Guardian, is
produced by a Home Office research, information and communications
unit which was set up last summer to counter al-Qaida propaganda and
win hearts and minds. It shows that the government is adopting a new
sophistication in its approach to counter-terrorism, based on the
realisation that it must "avoid implying that specific communities are
to blame" if it is to enable communities to challenge the ideas of
violent extremists robustly. The new lexicon of terror surfaced
briefly last month when the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, made a
speech on counter-terrorism declaring violent extremism to be
"anti-Islamic".

But the internal Home Office guide shows just how far a new official
language, to use when talking about terrorism, is being developed.
"This is not intended as a definitive list of what not to say but
rather to highlight terms which risk being misunderstood and therefore
prevent the effective reception of the message," says the Home Office
paper. "This is not about political correctness, but effectiveness -
evidence shows that people stop listening if they think you are
attacking them." While the leaked Whitehall papers show a new
sophistication in the government's approach to talking about terrorism
they reveal that their profiling of those most likely to prove
vulnerable to violent extremism remains very vague.

They also reveal the crude criteria under which the communities
secretary, Hazel Blears, is distributing £45m over the next three
years for local communities to build resilience to violent extremism.
In the first year the funds will only be distributed to areas with a
Muslim population of more than 4,000 based on 2001 census data. "This
data is now 6-7 years old and given high population growth in Muslim
communities is likely to be fairly out-of-date," says the internal
Whitehall correspondence adding that each qualifying local authority
will receive a fixed minimum allocation with increments dependent on
the size of its Muslim population. The limitations of this crude
population approach suggest there is only a very limited official
understanding of the geography of violent extremism in Britain.

Officials admit this approach will mean that six areas currently
funded for tackling violent extremism will not meet the criteria from
April. That would include, for example, Crawley which was home to
three of the five men convicted over the Operation Crevice plot to
bomb the Bluewater shopping centre, in Kent, and the Ministry of Sound
nightclub in London. A separate joint Home Office/ Communities
Department paper on the strategy to prevent people becoming or
supporting violent extremists suggests a disturbingly vague
description of those being targeted: "There is no single profile of
those most susceptible to these factors but they are likely to be
young (generally younger than 30) and male (although the number of
women who support and participate in violent extremism is
increasing)."

The same paper stresses that "grievances which ideologues are
exploiting" to make new recruits should be addressed where they are
legitimately based. It says: "No perceived grievance can justify
terrorism. But where concerns are legitimately expressed then we must
be prepared to debate them. "We are committed to better explaining
existing policies, such as the UK's foreign policy, refuting claims
made about them in the language of violent extremists." But it adds
that where concerns are "legitimately based we must be prepared to
address them." However, it makes clear that this does not mean changes
in British foreign policy but using existing programmes to tackle
inequalities and unemployment of the Muslim community in Britain. The
"global opportunities fund" and overseas aid programmes would be used
to "help address the real grievances of people in key countries
overseas which can increase their susceptibility to the extremists'
message".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2251961,00.html


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