David Cameron was right to point out, during a speech in Slovakia on Friday, the responsibility that families and communities have to detect and counter the radicalisation of young people by the so-called Islamic State (Isis).
But this is the same responsibility that they have to deter their younger members from joining anti-social gangs or falling into the clutches of cults that offer similar attractions of identity and belonging. The Government also has to do what it can to make it less likely that this will happen. The Prime Minister described Isis as “one of the biggest threats the world has ever faced”, which, although an exaggeration, reinforces the need for all sectors of society to counter its influence.
One problem with the Government’s response to date has been its over-emphasis on the security aspects of its policy, such as legislation to prevent the departure of potential Isis recruits, or the denial of their right to return. The basis for this legislation is an assumption that anyone who goes to join an extremist group active against Bashar al-Assad or the Iraqi government is by definition a domestic terrorist in waiting. This is obviously not the case. There is so far no public evidence that Isis has dispatched someone to commit a terrorist attack in a Western country, although it has encouraged supporters who cannot travel to Syria to do what they can at home. This may change in time, but for now the focus of direct Isis activity remains a regional one.
There is little to suggest that Talha Asmal, for example, would have returned to Dewsbury or elsewhere in the UK to kill his fellow citizens, had he not blown himself up in Iraq as part of the Isis campaign to retake Baiji. The same lack of intent is likely with the Dawood sisters from Bradford. Their decision to take their nine children off to Syria to join their brother is a tragedy for their families – and especially for their children – but it is unlikely that they did so with a plan to train as terrorists. They seem to have wanted to emigrate.
As far as the UK is concerned, addressing the motivational factors that cause these apparently normal and well-adjusted men and women to take a one-way ticket to the “caliphate” is more a social policy challenge than a security policy one.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/we-cannot-destroy-isis-we-will-have-to-learn-to-live-with-it-10334244.html