A special ‘deradicalisation' programme which monitors the lifestyle of Muslim children as young as seven exposes the extreme paranoia that has pervaded British society. The law has shunned all logical social procedures by even recruiting schoolteachers to spy on pupils in the classroom. This extreme method, termed by civil liberties groups and Muslims as a ‘Big Brother' tactic, has been rightly criticised.
It is safe to say that the mission to deter people who have supposedly been drawn into forms of religious extremism in Britain will not make much progress because the government has yet to grasp which influences they wish to alter. In addition, the British authorities have not offered an alternative model of what they stand for as a society beyond the esoteric references to freedom and democracy. The monitoring of infants, therefore, definitely does not fit into such an approach. In essence, the authorities are creating more innocent victims by meddling with the system.
Rather than targeting specific communities and monitoring Muslim children, perhaps the authorities can achieve better results by taking a closer look at the deficits in their own contemporary culture. It will give them an insight into who is the actual radicalising influence.
