Recently Dame Sara Khan, the British Government’s adviser for social cohesion, noted that the Islamic extremism she witnessed as a child has gone mainstream. Growing up in Bradford, she was shocked by the way the recently-banned Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir tried to radicalise girls and boys as young as 13[i]. As she hints, anyone who is familiar with the situation on many of England’s schools would no longer be shocked with the situation in the classroom.
Britain is a few steps behind France, where dozens of schools have been placed under armed guard after more than 130 received Islamist terrorist threats[ii]. One high-school near the city of Nantes was evacuated last week after pupils, parents and teachers received online videos showing beheadings. These videos were posted on a digital platform used as a link between staff, pupils and parents and emailed directly to teachers. Two head teachers at Paris secondary schools have received death threats in recent weeks after trying to enforce the law. Under pressure, one the heads resigned from his post[iii].
The head teacher who resigned no doubt remembers the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty by an 18 year old Chechen ‘refuge’ in 2020 [iv].
Britain maybe a few steps behind France but the refusal of its political establishment to recognise the scale of this threat ensures that before long the same fate will befall on its schools. Unfortunately the British Government refuses to publicly acknowledge the threat posed by advocates of Islamist ideology.
Islamism is a term that is rarely used by officialdom in the United Kingdom. The mainstream media too finds it difficult to use this term. Organisations like the BBC avoid linking anything to do with Islam to terrorism and instead prefer to use such euphemistic terms as extremism. Politicians have followed suit. Tom Slater, editor of Spiked reminds us of a particularly ‘cutting remark Morrissey made in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, in which 22 people, many of them kids, were murdered by Islamist bomber Salman Abedi: “Manchester mayor Andy Burnham says the attack is the work of an “extremist”. An extreme what? An extreme rabbit?’ [v].
If even in the aftermath of an atrocious terror attack a leading Labour Party politician refuses to refer to the perpetrators as Islamic terrorists it becomes evident that something has gone seriously wrong. That was five years ago! Today not even the mass atrocity committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians on 7 October 2024 is branded as an act of terrorism by the British Broadcasting Corporation.
During the days following the anti-Jewish pogrom of 7 October the BBC self-consciously avoided the word terrorist.[vi] Instead this media organisations kept on referring to Hamas terrorist as militants. One of its headlines read : “Watch: Israeli festivalgoer kidnapped by Hamas militants.” A story, written by international editor Jeremy Bowen reporting from Israel, was headlined: “Inside Kfar Aza where Hamas militants killed families in their homes.” John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, stated that the corporation would be “taking sides” if it described Hamas as terrorists, and that using the term would mean not reporting the conflict with “due impartiality”.
The British Broadcasting Corporation appears to be continually at a loss to know when the usage of the word ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorism’ is appropriate. ‘The value judgements frequently implicit in the use of the words “terrorist” or “terrorist groups” can create inconsistency in their use or, to audiences, raise doubts about our impartiality’, states the BBC ‘s editorial guidelines.[vii]
In reality, BBC’s decision to refer to the perpetrators of Hamas’ atrocity as militants means that it has taken sides. Its use of language contributed to strengthening the claim that Hamas’ pogrom was a legitimate act committed by militants.
At the time I took the view that the BBC’s refusal to describe Hamas as terrorist was motivated by its anti-Israeli sympathies. However, on closer inspection it is evident that its use of a neutral and euphemistic vocabulary is shared by numerous other public institutions and by the British political establishment. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that what is principally at work is a profound sense of moral cowardice; a fear of provoking Islamism and the communities that support it. That is why politicians like Lee Anderson or Suella Braverman, who dared to publicly warn about the threat posed by Islamism are immediately denounced ny the media as extremist or as Islamophobes. Braverman has argued that ‘Islamist are bullying Britain into submission.’[viii]. The hysterical reaction to her statement indicates that she may well be right.
The reaction to Braverman and to the very usage of the term Islamism is motivated by moral cowardice and fear. That is why on a pro-Hamas demonstration the Metropolitan police are more likely to arrest someone holding a placard that states ‘Hamas are terrorists’ than people calling for the destruction of Israel. The verbal acrobatics surrounding the words Islamism and terrorism is symptomatic of the pusillanimous character of official discourse. At times it seemed that officialdom would like to literally ban the use of the word Islamist from its vocabulary. Not so long ago the counter-terrorist police considered ditching phrases like ‘Islamist terrorism’ and ‘jihadis’ and replacing them with ‘faith-claimed terrorism’ and ‘terrorists abusing religious motivations’? That the counter-terrorist police actively considered embracing such an Orwellian vocabulary raises the question of ‘does it know what it is fighting against’?
The Vocabulary of Moral Cowardice
It is important to realise that officialdom’s craven orientation towards Islamism precedes long precedes the War in Gaza. As I noted in my study Invitation To Terror (2007), when one reads official statements about the threat of Islamic terrorism it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that their authors have been far too busy studying children’s Harry Potter books’. I noted that;
‘In these books Harry’s nemesis, the evil wizard Lord Voldemort evokes so much fear that people dare not mention him by name. Consequently they refer to him as ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ or ‘You Know Who’. At the moment officials appear to have a lot of difficulty to engage in a grown-up discussion about “You Know What”’[ix].
‘Islamism’ is the word that cannot and must not be named.
The fear of naming Islam is the outcome of officialdom’s confusion about its place in the world. Since it lacks clarity about what it stands for it finds it difficult make sense of opponents like Islamists who are very clear about what they are about. Confusion invariably begets insecurity and a reluctance to tackle the problem. Anyone watching the British police’s reaction to Islamist protestors will note its lack of confidence in managing the situation. One of my source, who is an ex-copper explained to me that the police is actually scared of confronting Islamist demonstrators.
In my research I attribute officialdom’s reluctance to confront Islamism to its crisis of meaning. As I explain below this phenomenon was already far too evident during the War on Terror that erupted after 9/11. Back in December 2006 it was reported that the Foreign Office had advised Government ministers, ambassadors and officials to stop using the term ‘war on terror’ and similar provocative terms as ‘they risk angering British Muslims and generating tensions in the wider Islamic world’.[x] That the name designated to define this global conflict could be perceived as a liability and so easily dispensed with was symptomatic of a mood of unease about using words that might offend adherents of Islam.
Not long after the Foreign Office issued its new speech code some Government ministers fell in line. In April 2007 Secretary of State for International Development, Hilary Benn asserted that the term war on terror was a really bad idea. ‘In the UK, we do not use the phrase "war on terror" because we can't win by military means alone’, he stated.[xi] This less than accurate statement about the official rhetoric used during the first 6 years of the war sought to evade the issues. As everyone knows, wars are rarely won by military means alone but that does not stop the protagonists from calling it a war. If it is not a war than what is it?
At the time a few critics of the policing of language by the Foreign Office noted that it smacked of a cowardly refusal to face up to a serious threat to the West. ‘Rather than identifying Islamism as the ideological enemy of democracy, government and commentators alike used “terrorism” as a euphemism to avoid naming the real threat and thus linking violent anti-westernism to elements in the Islamic community’, they argued.[xii]
Across the Channel, the European Union demonstrated that it too wished to abolish the I word. Guidelines issued by EU officials in April 2006 on the question of what words to use to describe the enemy suggested that European governments should avoid the term ‘Islamic terrorism’ in favour of the Orwellian sounding phase ‘terrorists who abusively invoke Islam’. The invention of this term was part of the project of cobbling together a ‘non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation’.[xiii] The authors of the guideline claimed that ‘Islamic terrorism’ was ‘too emotive a phrase’ by which they meant that it would be resented by most Muslims. Their alternative may well be non-emotive, but it was also confusing and unclear. Karen Hughes the then U.S. Undersecretary of State also used ‘non-emotive’ jargon. ‘It’s difficult to know what to call the ideology that we’re up against because it is a perversion of Islam’, she noted. In the end she decided on the non-emotive but diffuse term ‘violent extremist’.
The confusion displayed by officials about the use of language is influenced by a wider sense of defensiveness and confusion towards Islamic culture. One small bt significant manifestation of this climate of disorientation was the instruction issued by the Learning Teaching Scotland to pupils and teachers advising then not to stare at Muslims. ‘Staring or looking is a form of discrimination as it makes the other person feel uncomfortable, or as though they are not normal’ it warned.[xiv] Such self-conscious regulation of speech and behaviour exposes apprehensions that that are further compounded by a reluctance to acknowledge them in public. Today the term Islamophobia is constantly invoked to shut down anyone who dares raise the mildest of criticism of the role played by Islamists within western societies.
Those who refuse to publicly acknowledge the challenge posed by advocates of Islamist ideology believe that appeasement is the most sensible way of dealing with it. In reality they are guilty of morally disarming society and undermining the capacity of the public to deal with a real threat to their way of life. It is only a matter of time before many of Britain’s schools will be caught up in a battle for the soul of young children and the challenge of protecting the young from the influence of Islamist idealogues could no longer be avoided. That is why we need to talk about Islamism and use the I word. Such a discussion would help clarify the distinction between Muslim and Islamist and help focus attention on those who are intolerant of the values and ways of Western society.
[vii] See ‘Editorial Guidelines; Guidance, Terrorism, Use of Language When Reporting’, www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/edguide/war/mandatoryreferr.shtml , March 2007.
[x] ‘Christmas Terror strike “highly likely”’, The Daily Telegraph; 11 December 2006
[xi]BBC Politics On Line; 16 April 2007, ‘‘Benn criticises 'war on terror'’, 16 April 2007.
[xii] Jones, D.M & Smith, M. (2006) ‘The commentariat and discourse failure; language and atrocity in Cool Britannia’, International Affairs, vol.82, no.6. p.1083.
[xiii] ‘”Islamic terrorism”, too emotive a phrase says EU’, The Daily Telegraph; 12 April 2006.
[xiv] Jason Alardyce & Abul Tahel ‘Don’t Stare at Muslims says advice to schools’, The Sunday Times; 15 April 2007.
Of course you are right about the responsibility of ll - but there is a distinction to be made between those in power who create the condition that is ripe for appeasement and the rest who feel powerless and confused about how to react
![By Frank Furedi Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown (First 1st Edition) [Hardcover]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fca1675aa-d1db-48df-a355-e64f06440aef_318x500.jpeg "By Frank Furedi Invitation to Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown (First 1st Edition) [Hardcover]")
Unfortunately the Left is not the Left anymore. It suffers from amnesia and does not remember what it once stood for.
Of course you are right about the responsibility of ll - but there is a distinction to be made between those in power who create the condition that is ripe for appeasement and the rest who feel powerless and confused about how to react