By Asad Mirza, New Age
Islam
19 August
2024
In A Welcome And Novel
Move, The United Kingdom Government Is Planning To Treat Extreme Misogyny As A
Form Of Terrorism. However, The Approach To Handle The Issue Raises Concern As
Relating It To Terrorism, May Lead To Further Complications.
The UK Home
Secretary Yvette Cooper issued an order last week to review the country's counter-terrorism
strategy to address violence against women, identify gaps in the current laws,
and study emerging ideologies. According to the daily The
Telegraph this move will put violence against
women in the same bracket as far-right extremism.
Under the
proposal, it would be compulsory for school teachers to refer students they
suspect of extreme misogyny to the government's counter-terror program. The
local police will assess anyone who is referred to the program to see if they
display signs of radicalisation and need to be de-radicalised.
Speaking
with The Telegraph, Cooper criticising the policy adopted by the previous
Conservative government’s on Prevent strategy stated, "For too long,
governments have failed to address the rise in extremism, both online and on
our streets, and we've seen the number of young people radicalised online grow.
Hateful incitement of all kinds fractures and frays the very fabric of our
communities and our democracy."
Cooper
further added, "Action against extremism has been badly hollowed out in
recent years, just when it should have been needed most. That's why I have
directed the Home Office to conduct a rapid analytical sprint on extremism, to
map and monitor extremist trends, to understand the evidence about what works
to disrupt and divert people away from extremist views, and to identify any
gaps in existing policy that need to be addressed to crack down on those pushing
harmful and hateful beliefs and violence."
This comes
after a senior police official warned last month that social media influencers
like Andrew Tate could radicalise youth into extreme misogyny in the same way
terrorists draw in their followers. Earlier last month, the UK's
National Police Chiefs' Council released a report on violence
against women and girls, calling it a "national emergency."
The review
could mean teachers will be legally required to refer pupils they suspect of
being radicalised to Prevent, the government’s counter-terror programme, amid
concerns that online influencers could radicalise teenage boys in extreme
misogyny.
According
to the Cambridge Dictionary, misogynist refers to showing feelings of hating
women or a belief that men are much better than women.
Prior to
existing as a legal duty, Prevent was introduced in 2005 by the then
Labour government as a policy targeting the Muslim community in the wake of
9/11 two years earlier. The strategy took on a more formal form in 2005,
post-7/7.
Cooper has
previously said the last government’s counter-extremism strategy was nine years
out of date. She believes the review will lay the foundations for Labour to
deliver on its manifesto promise of preventing people from being drawn towards
hateful ideologies.
It comes
after a decade of warnings from the police and former government advisers about
the need to address the rise of hateful extremism and the proliferation of
dangerous material online.
Last week Dame
Sara Khan, who was
Rishi Sunak’s independent adviser on social cohesion and resilience until May
this year and acted as a counter-extremism commissioner under Theresa May and
Boris Johnson, told the Guardian last week said that the Tory government had
left the UK wide open to far-right violence by ignoring red flags and stoking
fires with a culture war agenda.
Now here
rises the question that whether the government is focussing on spread of
misogyny or spread of terrorist ideologies or the increasing menace of social
media, used to incite hate. All three issues require different approaches to
tackle them, and by clubbing them together the Home Secretary might be adopting
the same approach as was used by the Conservatives to strengthen the Prevent
strategy. And further there are chances that instead of making the society more
cohesive it may lead to further disintegration and spread of hate.
The
Guardian reports that since riots broke out across England, last month, after
disinformation circulated about the stabbings in Southport that left three
girls dead, at least 72 people under the age of 18 are believed to have been
charged with related offences. By the end of Thursday last, at least 460 people
had appeared in magistrate’s courts in connection with the disorder.
Officials
will assess “the rise of Islamist and far-right extremism” alongside
“ideological trends” that have gained traction including extreme misogyny. The
scheme also aims to assess the causes and conduct of radicalisation of young
people online and offline.
BBC
reported that it is not clear how long this "rapid review" will take.
It is one of several policy reviews Labour has announced since coming to power
in July, including the Strategic Defence Review, spending review and a review
of the National Curriculum.
Critics argue that some reviews are a proxy
for actual action, but Labour has pointed out that there has been no new
Counter Extremism Strategy since 2015, and that an assessment of new and
emerging threats is overdue.
For some
years there has been concern around "Incel culture", an online
movement of mainly young men who describe themselves as "involuntarily
celibate" and blame women and "alpha males" for their problems.
Though the
Labour move is welcome, yet the approach adopted towards ‘misogyny’ does not
look well thought out. Corelating misogyny to terrorism or radicalisation looks
taking the matter, rather too far and the approach to handle it also becomes
questionable.
Prevent
critics have long been saying that the strategy focuses on just one community
i.e. Muslims alone and further no tangible benefit seems to have accrued from
adopting this approach, rather it has siloed the Muslim community much more.
Further,
the spread of misogyny is a sociological problem and the main culprit for its
spread is the online platforms. So, it would have been better if the government
had taken a rather holistic view of the problem and instead of taking the
reported cases to the police, they would have been dealt through counselling
efforts at the school level itself.
Further the
government needs to handle the rising menace of social media’s influence rather
more seriously and make efforts to bring-in a law regulating it sooner and make
it tougher for hate spreaders to use the medium for the spread of their
nefarious ideologies.
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Asad Mirza is a New Delhi-based senior
commentator on international and strategic affairs, and a media consultant.
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