When it comes to preventing (far right) extremism, who is the “community”?

With the rise of far right extremism, there emerge particular issues in attempting to mobilise the community to ‘mount a challenge’.  Which community should be engaged with?  Does one target leaders of the EDL, Britain First, National Action?  Proscribed groups? Tommy Robinson?  Generation Identity?   Or anti-fascist groups who mount counter-demonstrations? Crudely put, would it be some choice of the “white communities?” The Prevent strategy is silent on this and this could be perceived to problematic when we talk about local engagement.  The community seems only to be engaged with when it comes to Islamist extremism, when so–called or self-styled community leaders can be identified and brought together for ‘dialogue’. But do we need honesty about who is not to be talked to or engaged with, and the criteria for exclusion or bypassing?  Presumably the criminal community is not high on the list.  The interest in preventing extremism is where the more challenging conversations are occurring, who mediates comments and averts slanging matches.

In work with schools, it is perhaps easier to identify the community, as this mostly represents the parents, family and the catchment area.  Through the students, the local community can in theory be educated around a range of issues.  One example is the work of UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools, where every child, teacher, parent, governor and member of the support staff knows and works within the Convention of the Rights of the Child.  A striking exemplar of their work was a primary school in London that mounted a project on female genital mutilation and took this out to families, aunties and grandparents in their community to raise awareness and challenge this practice.  Through active citizenship projects, students can attempt to shift attitudes around environment as well as relationships and use of violence.   In ConnectFutures work with schools we have been asking students who they would contact if they were worried about a friend who appeared to be at risk of radicalisation.  Interestingly, some would not tell the police, but they might tell parents, fellow students or a teacher.  There is still work to be done on the hugely difficult but important area of police-community engagement, in order to to build trust.

But elsewhere the term has become so huge as to be downgraded in any meaning.  All these can be blamed – or given spurious tasks in terms of what they ‘ought’ to do.  Ironically, in the Prevent and CVE spaces, we see the professionalisation of the space where more people talk about communities rather than their meaningful engagement with communities.  There can be a fear of actual engagement in case of criticism or inability to provide answers to real questions, so a preference for abstract entities to shoulder responsibility.

It would seem then that the term community should be embargoed in policy speak unless there is authenticity and clarity about the focus of communication.  It might work where the community has real boundaries and common concerns – as in the parents around a school.  It might work in strategies such as police community engagement where this does indicate a specific locality where police may have avenues to discover concerns and respond to them, and where the officers are a permanent presence rather than someone helicoptering in to run a focus group.  But it is dangerous when it is ‘imagined’, generalised and used to apportion false responsibility for what are wider or more complex problems.

Check for more details  of our resources, workshops (for students and professionals) and videos on www.connectfutures.org