Deepa Kumar: The racist roots of the War on Terror

In this fascinating conversation, Arun Kundnani interviews Deepa Kumar who traces the longer historical and racist roots of the War on Terror that in the last 20 years has killed at least one million people. They discuss how Arab and Muslim communities were racialised and targeted well before 9/11 and what interests this dehumanisation served.…

For Black Panthers, Radicalization Entailed Self-Transformation

As a new generation rises up against racist police and vigilante violence, organizers are thinking through how to build a mass movement that fully engages the most marginalized. Useful lessons can be found in the history of the Black Panther Party, if one reaches beyond the imagery of leather jackets and shotguns. Susie Day’s new…

Violence comes home: an interview

ISIS’s recruits are not corrupted by ideology but by the end of ideology. More radicalisation, in the genuine sense of the word, is the solution, not the problem. After the Paris attacks, what are the logical and tragic consequences of war with no geographical limits? In this interview, published by openDemocracy, the ramifications of the…

Some of Europe’s politicians are doing ISIL’s work for them

On June 26, an ISIL-supporting gunman trained in Libya carried out a massacre on a Tunisian beach. Over the course of 47 minutes, Seifeddine Rezgui shot and killed 38 holidaymakers, including 30 British tourists. It was the worst terrorist attack targeting British civilians since the 7/7 bombings on London’s transport system a decade ago. As…

Will the UK government’s counter-extremism programme criminalise dissent?

A post-election analysis of the UK government’s new proposals to tackle extremism.   From 1 July, a broad range of public bodies – from nursery schools to optometrists – will be legally obliged to participate in the government’s Prevent policy to identify would-be extremists. Under the fast-tracked Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, schools, universities and health service…

Boris Johnson’s radicalisation myth-making

London mayor Boris Johnson’s suggestion this week that children of Islamic extremists be taken into care to prevent their being radicalised illustrates perfectly our collective failure to understand the problem of terrorism. After 9/11, so-called terrorism experts funded by governments and neoconservative think-tanks invented the concept of radicalisation to try to explain the violence being…

Radicalisation: the journey of a concept

Since 2004, the term ‘radicalisation’ has become central to terrorism studies and counter-terrorism policy-making. As US and European governments have focused on stemming ‘home-grown’ Islamist political violence, the concept of radicalisation has become the master signifier of the late ‘war on terror’ and provided a new lens through which to view Muslim minorities. The introduction…

The FBI’s ‘good’ Muslims

Community partnerships are seen by the FBI as a softer counterterrorism. But who are the partners? While these partnerships provide the FBI with another layer of intelligence, they also raise questions about who, exactly, should represent “the Muslim community” in dealings with the government – and how those dealings affect the freedom of speech and…

The wrong way to prevent homegrown terrorism

Following the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, the attempted car bomb in Times Square in May and a number of other domestic cases, including the recent arrest of a Somali-American teenager in Portland, Oregon, U.S. security agencies are sharply focused on the potential “radicalization” of American-Muslims and how to prevent it. Many…