British journalist and investigative reporter John Ware has published an article titled “Inside The World Of ‘Non-Violent’ Islamism” that looks at the issue of Islamist ideology and its relationship to terrorism. The article begins:
March 2015 With Islamist terrorist plots now running at more than one a month, the UK counter-terrorism effort can deal only with the crocodiles that are bumping against the boat. So the Home Office is setting up a special unit that will analyse the effectiveness of government measures aimed at ‘draining the swamp’ as the Prime Minister has put it.
The Extremism Analysis Unit (EAU) will be the first of its kind in government to gather empirical evidence about the behaviour and ideologies of extremists. In some ways, this may be even more challenging than the task performed by its companion unit—the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which analyses intelligence on the terrorist threat. While JTAC’s job is to stop terrorists from killing, the EAU will analyse the extremist spectrum from its violent to its non-violent end. It will also explore the relationship between integration and extremism.
Many Muslims in Birmingham, Luton, parts of London and the old northern mill towns seem resistant to integrating into the liberal mainstream. More British Muslims have gone to Syria and Iraq than there are Muslims in the British army. I understand that officials have been unable to demonstrate that any initiatives by this government or the last to promote integration have had any beneficial impact.
The EAU will attract controversy because while it will, of course, analyse all sources of extremism, its principal focus will inevitably be on Islamist extremism, because this will pose the greatest threat to national security for the foreseeable future. “
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