December 2011 - Editorial: Roots of violent radicalisation
Published on Tuesday, 13 December 2011 00:02 Written by Gerry Gable
The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee held a day-long conference in December on the Roots of Violent Radicalisation, as part of its inquiry into the same subject. As editor of Searchlight, I was invited to address a workshop on the seriousness of the threat from the far right, together with three colleagues – Michael Whine of the Community Security Trust, which protects the Jewish community, and two academics who specialise in researching and analysing the far right: Dr Matthew Feldman of Northampton University and Professor Nigel Copsey of Teesside University.
Well over 100 delegates and speakers took part. They included MPs, academics, senior police officers and others in the criminal justice system, local authority representatives, voluntary sector workers and overseas delegates, all involved in some form or another in preventing, analysing or dealing with the consequences of violent radicalisation. In line with the majority of participants, the speakers on our panel all showed a degree of dissatisfaction with the Government's Prevent strategy, notwithstanding its revision in 2011 to address extreme-right terrorism as well as the threat from al-Qaeda and like-minded groups and individuals.
There have been some positives. Some of the MPs on the Committee had succeeded in getting recognition of the threat posed by the current troubles in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, which have been building over the past three years, likewise the danger from the English Defence League, albeit very late in the day.
On the other hand, language in the Prevent strategy around real or alleged threats from Islamic extremism is still feeding the less responsible elements in the media which pick up and run with it in lurid headlines. And no attention is paid to the growing number of far-right groups springing up in the wake of the fragmentation of the British National Party.
One of the keynote speakers was Reverend Jesse Jackson, the US civil rights leader. He went away with a copy of Searchlight's report on far-right terrorism, Lone wolves: myth or reality?, as well as the latest issue of Searchlight and a copy of Far-right.com: Nationalist Extremism on the Internet, published jointly by Searchlight and the Radicalism and New Media Research Group at Northampton University. Rev Jackson was familiar with Searchlight's fight against fascism over the past nearly 50 years, both in the UK and in conjunction with US anti-fascists.
Rev Jackson gave a fighting address to the conference, which was held at De Montfort University with the support of the Barrow Cadbury Trust. A very successful day was rounded off by Dr Dipu Moni MP, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, who spoke about her country's experience in fighting for its freedom at a terrible cost.
The Home Affairs Committee will publish its report early next year and the debate around Prevent is likely to continue.
Beyond the BNP
The BNP has not gone away but the far-right threat is now dispersed over several organisations. Searchlight is committed to investigating, analysing and reporting the more serious developments on the far right. Over the past two months we have highlighted the growth of the New Right Club and Iona London Forum. These groups have developed their connections with extremists in other countries, inviting them to their meetings and in turn travelling abroad to further their cooperation.
Another danger comes from the English Defence League. Its thugs bring terror to communities with their protests, and a growing number of its members are collecting convictions for crimes of violence, including one who was jailed in December for ten years for deliberately setting fire to a mosque in Stoke-on-Trent, but behind them are wealthy ideologues involved in a wide-ranging, international, anti-Muslim network. These links were revealed in an exposé published by Unite Against Fascism, a few days after a first-rate investigation by The Sunday Times on 11 December. We report these developments in this month's magazine. Searchlight is continuing to work with journalists and media researchers internationally to uncover the full extent of the links between British fascists and their counterparts in other countries, including with the Norwegian fascist gunman Anders Behring Breivik.
But it is not only the far-right organisations that bring extremists to Britain. Searchlight can exclusively reveal that the School of Oriental and African Studies, which is part of the University of London, has invited Jacques Vergès to take part in a public debate on international justice in February. Vergés, known as the Devil's advocate, is the lawyer who not only defended the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and all manner of other notorious mass murderers at their trials in court, but seeks out and associates with nazis and antisemites.
On the same day as the Home Affairs Committee conference on 13 December, a fascist in Florence shot dead two Senegalese men and wounded three others before killing himself. The following day the police in Rome rounded up five far-right militants who were preparing to carry out assassinations of high-profile political and community leaders as the first step in a revolutionary war. Fortunately they were caught before they could carry out their attacks, unlike the Florence fascist and of course unlike Breivik. As Searchlight has often demonstrated, all these far-right terrorists and would-be terrorists, including several in the UK who have been caught before they could carry out their plans, are in contact with each other. They are certainly not "lone wolves".
It is all this ongoing work by our small team and the developing stories that have caused the delay in publication of this month's magazine, for which we apologise to readers. However whatever the publication date, Searchlight has as always brought readers the most important up-to-date news from behind enemy lines and our analysis of it. For the nearly 50 years of its existence Searchlight has been intelligence-led and will continue along this path.
On the back page of this magazine is a financial appeal for much-need support to further our work of gathering intelligence and analysing it, and to maintain publication of the magazine, to directly damage Britain's fascists and keep our readers informed.
Last but not least, we wish our readers all the best for the new year.