Warsi: Radicialisation must be understood

Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim to serve in cabinet has warned that the Government cannot have an effective approach towards the radicalisation of British Muslims until it has a comprehensive understanding of its drivers.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former Conservative minister for faith and communities said her ex-colleagues were fuelling the problem by “disengaging” with Muslim communities.

She added:

Let’s first of all be very clear about finding the evidence base of what are the drivers to radicalisation. It may make for uncomfortable reading but it is only when we start to have that honest conversation that we unpick what is now becoming a generational challenge.”

Warsi is right, and some of those drivers might well be on-line grooming by ISIS operatives, they may also be extremist elements within Muslim communities. But the ‘uncomfortable reading’ that Warsi eludes to might be the rise of Islamaphobia in the UK, foreign policy and rank hypocrisy that demonises those Brits who go to fight for ISIS, whilst those who fight against elements of it, such as Tim Lock and Macer Gifford are often revered and celebrated.

Doing nothing or continuing down the same path, Warsi suggests, will produce more of the same shocking results that has witnessed the teenager Talha Asmal, who killed himself in a suicide attack in Northern Iraq, or the three women who unexpectedly took their six children to Syria to join other family members.

Warsi’s comments show just how much her insight is missed in Government. The problem she had was that when she was there she was not only ignored, but too often pilloried for her views.

Sad fact is that this situation could get worse, both home and abroad, before it gets better.

The need to take our collective heads out of the sand, and understand what’s going on has never been more urgent.

Simon Woolley