Written evidence submitted by Quilliam

1. Quilliam is a counter-extremism think tank. We are an independent not-for-profit organisation based in London that focuses on Islamist radicalisation, extremism, terrorism and how to counter these phenomena. Our work involves research, outreach and advocacy and our mission to challenge the narratives that perpetuate extremism of all kinds and the ideologies that underpin these narratives.
2. This submission does not consider the whole remit of the Home Affairs Select Committee’s inquiry on Countering Extremism but instead focuses, as asked during our oral evidence session, on counter-narrative approaches.

The Islamist Narrative

3. Narrative is central to radicalisation, extremism and terrorism. In its simplest incarnation, the Islamist narrative is “Islam is under attack and we must defend it”. In terrorism, it is used to promote violence, in extremism it is used to promote values that are antithetical to human rights norms, and in radicalisation it is used to exploit vulnerable people and recruit them to the cause. This narrative is sufficiently broad to apply to populations all over the world, to local and international conflicts, and to oppose domestic and foreign policies. It is sufficiently malleable to apply to group and personal grievances, both real and perceived.
4. The Islamist narrative must be tackled as a counter-extremism priority, because failure to do so will make other counter-extremism work less effective, and operations in other spheres less effective too. We must consider that both military action in Iraq and the lack of military action in Bosnia, and indeed both approaches in Syria, were seen as evidence of the above narrative. Domestically, counter-terrorism legislation, the Prevent Strategy and personal unemployment have all been grievances that have been exploited in this narrative.
5. ISIS is currently using this broad Islamist narrative to recruit local populations, establish its predominance over other terrorist organisations, and radicalise Western Muslim populations. Having claimed to establish a Caliphate in 2014, its variation on the above narrative for local populations is “The Iraqi and Syrian governments, in cahoots with the Crusader-Zionist-Shia alliance, opposed Sunni Islam and did not provide basic services. Join the Caliphate because we will defend you and provide for you;” to members of other terrorist groups, its developed narrative is “Our Caliphate is the only effective means of defending Islam from both the near-enemy and the far-enemy;” and to Western Muslim populations, the variation on the narrative is “You are not welcome in the West because you are Muslim and it is your duty to join our Caliphate as it is the only way we can defend Islam.”
6. According to the recent Quilliam report Virtual Caliphate, ISIS publishes more than 30 unique pieces of propaganda each day, and its broader narrative can be stratified into six sub-themes: Brutality; Mercy; War; Victimhood; Belonging; and Utopianism. In this, ISIS monopolises the notions of winning (through its war narrative) and losing (through its victimhood narrative), and thereby shuts down the space for opposition to the group. Only by countering the broad Islamist narrative, and how ISIS uses it in its propaganda to radicalise and recruit, will we be able to make progress in our foreign policy priorities for pursuing peace and stability in the region.
7. Domestically, counter-extremism work in general and the Prevent strategy in particular has been accused of suffering from a perception deficit. Counter-extremism, some of which is centred on engagement with Muslim communities, or requires Muslim community involvement as part of a broader civil society response, must improve its perception if it is to be effective. But on closer analysis of this perception deficit, it is clear that there is an orchestrated self-styled Preventing Prevent lobby, which seeks to undermine counter-extremism work by fitting it to the broader Islamist narrative as detailed above, and perpetuating opposition to all counter-extremism without proposing an alternative. Thus, without exposing and dismantling the Islamist narrative first, it is clear that other counter-extremism approaches are unlikely to be successful.

8. The Islamist narrative is underpinned and reinforced by, most prominently, the Salafi-jihadi ideology. Effective countering of the Islamist narrative must necessarily engage with and challenge the Salafi-jihadi ideology. The elements of this ideology are politicised manipulations of the Islamic faith, each build on the last, take violent and exclusivist interpretations of otherwise neutral Islamic notions, claim to represent “the true Islam”, and thereby and make it more difficult for the Islamist narrative to be challenged. In particular, it considers: literalism rather than freedom to interpret scripture; governance based on this literalism; opposition to shirk (polytheism), which is considered to be anything that contests this mode of governance; Al-wala' wa-l-bara' (loyalty and disavowal) which makes a clear delineation between Muslims and non-Muslims; takfir (excommunication) which places Muslims that don’t agree with this mode of governance in the camp of non-Muslims and legitimises violence against them; jihad (struggle but interpreted as violence), which becomes the method to implement this vision of governance both defensively and offensively; Istishhad (martyrdom), which permits suicide terrorism within this interpretation of jihad as a literal declaration of faith; and an absolute moral certitude that these actions are divinely mandated and, in the case of ISIS, only permissible to be delivered by this group.

9. Non-violent Islamist groups share the Islamist narrative that is perpetuated by terrorist groups like Islamic State and many also agree with elements of the Salafi-jihadi ideology that legitimises it, even if they disagree with the use of violence to pursue this vision (in the case of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood), consider military coups a more appropriate strategy (in the case of groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir), or believe that while violence is mandated, consider ISIS an illegitimate caliphate (in the case of groups like Al Qaeda). Lone actors and cells may also buy into the narrative and the ideology to a greater or lesser extent and be motivated to commit acts of terrorism in Western countries. While air strikes might be considered an appropriate strategy to degrade and destroy ISIS, counter-terrorism laws might be prudent to proscribe Al Qaeda, and surveillance could be considered wise to prevent attacks by lone actors and cells, these top-down approaches will be insufficient to counter the appeal of all of these groups. These will be also be inappropriate and disproportionate if seeking to counter the influence of non-violent groups that are either deemed to play the mood music to which suicide bombers dance, or more broadly considered detrimental to community cohesion. By contrast, countering the narrative that they all share and the ideology that they promote, is an appropriate, proportionate, and likely more effective way of ensuring that there is no atmosphere in which a jihadist insurgency can thrive.
10. The Islamist narrative has been normalised in the United Kingdom, and other European countries, over the last two decades due to the influence of non-violent Islamist organisations, and the foreign policy priorities of some Middle Eastern countries to spread Salafi doctrine in British mosques, madrassahs, community groups and other educational settings. For this reason, orthodox Islamic notions have politicised connotations in the minds of many British Muslims, rendering them unable to question the ideology even if they do not subscribe to the violence it is used to promote. Counter-extremism work, when seeking to challenge the Islamist narrative and Salafi-jihadi ideology, must consider the educational structures and foreign funding that perpetuate that which we must all counter.

Countering the Islamist Narrative

11. Counter-extremism approaches have predominately focused negatively on extremists or positively on those vulnerable to radicalisation, but very little on the different aspects of the radicalisation process itself, whether that is the narrative, the grievances or the identity crisis it exploits, or the ideology that underpins it. Counter-narrative approaches must fill this gap.

12. Counter-narratives must be developed following obtaining an in-depth understanding of the various tenets of the Islamist narrative and the Salafi-jihadi ideology, as well as an appreciation of how it is used to manipulate the 22 different aspects that constitute vulnerability, as documented in the Extremist Risk Guidance issued for the Channel Vulnerability Assessment. Counter-narratives must respond to each of these aspects as well as more up-to-date output from terrorist organisations such as ISIS. For this reason, it is important to consider the narrative variance within ISIS’s propaganda output and target counter-narratives to this. While over 50% of ISIS’s propaganda concern the “utopia” narrative, existing counter-narratives focus on the “brutality” aspect (which accounts for less than 5% of ISIS output), and there is little suggestion that this is likely to be effective to dissuade the target audience from extremism and terrorism.
13. All counter-narratives, both online and offline, must ideally first conduct robust target audience analysis to ascertain the most appropriate message, and the most effective language, messenger, tone, and format to achieve the behavioural change desired. These aspects may be different depending on age group, gender, grievance expressed, and level of pre-existing commitment to the Islamist narrative, whether that is someone in the process of radicalisation (ranging from vulnerable, family member, empathiser, sympathiser, supporter, activist, member, violent member to dangerous member) or in the deradicalisation process (ranging from disengaged member, disenfranchised member, disturbed member, through to deradicalised former).
14. Once the target audience analysis and counter-narrative creation is complete, campaigns should consider the best dissemination strategy, again in relation to the target audience in order to improve the likelihood of achieving the desired behavioural change. This must consider the format, platform and messenger for dissemination (as distinct from these aspects in the content creation), and may consider different phases of dissemination. If they are to be effective, the challenge for counter-narratives is to penetrate the echo chambers of the various target audiences without reinforcing them, and some compromise on language and message may be necessary to achieve this.
15. Beyond countering the narratives detailed above, it is advisable that alternative narratives are developed. Counter-narratives may be seen as negatively framed and may concede ground to extremist organisations. By contrast, alternative narratives can help set the agenda and engage the target audiences by, amongst other things, promoting liberalism, suggesting the synergy between Islam and human rights, endorsing human rights- and rule of law-friendly approaches to grievances, action instead of inaction, and humanitarian responses to perceived suffering.
16. Government must be aware that its policies and actions in other related fields can have an impact on counter-extremism work in general and counter-narrative work in particular. Notwithstanding other important reasons, it is in this regard that government must: uphold human rights norms in all policy so as to maintain the moral high ground, and not exacerbate the grievances that the Islamist narrative exploits; communicate foreign policy and counter-terrorism policy clearly so as to minimise its exploitation by the Islamist narrative in the radicalisation process; consider the merits of allegiances with foreign governments with questionable human rights records and/or support for extremism and terrorism so as to be consistent in their tackling of extremism; commit to tackling extremism of all kinds, not just Islamist extremism, so that polarisation of communities does not perpetuate and the negative symbiotic relationship between Islamist and far-right or anti-Muslim extremism is systematically dismantled; and desecuritise counter-extremism policy where possible so as to ensure that domestic grievances often listed by those vulnerable to radicalisation are not magnified before the narratives are countered.
17. Different aspects of counter-narrative work will be best carried out by different stakeholders if it is to be most effective. While governments have pursued some counter-narrative work overtly themselves, they have met limited success, largely due to the existing negative perception of governments by the target audience. Government can bypass this by operating covertly, or by simply setting the strategic direction, perhaps with requisite structures, funding, training and resources, to encourage civil society to carry this out. On the other hand, some civil society responses have been poorly funded, poorly researched, and without requisite business acumen, despite having noble intentions. Technology companies have shown a willingness to invest in countering extremist narratives that use their platforms to spread extremism, but often lack the knowledge of extremism. Some of the best examples of counter-narrative campaigns have been products of public-private-3rd sector partnerships, and this is to be recommended.
18. Counter-narrative work must be consistently monitored and evaluated. For the first time, given the predominately online nature of this approach, counter-extremism work can use web-based analytic tools to evaluate its primary and secondary effectiveness. It is important that this goes beyond countering the number of impressions and views, to consider the positive engagement metrics such as likes, retweets and shares, as well as the value of these various engagements (ie whether the intended target audience has engaged with the counter-narrative). Beyond this, it is vital that campaigns are evaluated for the behavioural change they engender, and counter-narrative work must pre-emptively consider drawing a base line of expected behaviour of its target audience, as well as off-ramps and engagement with secondary material that would constitute success.
19. Both government-led and civil society-led counter-narrative strategy must learn from neighbouring problem areas such as recruitment to gangs, messaging from other extremist organisations, and strategic communications challenges in the public and private sectors in order to improve all aspects of this approach. In particular, counter-narrative work can learn from behavioural change approaches carried out by the Ministry of Defence and others in counter-insurgency strategies.
20. It is important that counter-narratives are not simply seen as an online approach. While the Internet gives new opportunities for communication, mobilisation, and evaluation (for extremists and counter-extremists alike), effective approaches will comprehensively bridge the gap between online and offline activity. There is a desperate need to apply this counter-narrative theory to other ungoverned spaces such as schools, universities, mosques, prisons and communities. It is also important to remember that not all counter-narratives are orchestrated video campaigns. Some of the most effective responses to extremist narratives have come about organically as hashtags, photos, or videos that have gone viral. So too, must we consider how broader societal responses to the refugee crisis or Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim comments can be considered effective counter-narratives. Proactive counter-narrative approaches should learn from these different transmedia examples.

Recommendations

21. Counter-narratives must focus on the Salafi-Jihadi ideological underpinnings of the Islamist narrative which protect it from all criticism. This means working with Muslim reformers to undermine the certainty of the ideology and provide alternative interpretations of Islam that are synonymous with human rights and accessible to ISIS’s target audience. These approaches must counter the aspects of the ideology detailed in paragraph 8 and offer alternatives that are firmly rooted in both Islamic values and in human rights values.
22. Government must ensure that it avoids: vilifying Islamic values or Muslims; partnering, funding or promoting those who propagate aspects of the Islamist narrative or the Salafi-Jihadi ideology; and forgoing human rights norms in counter-terrorism legislation, counter-extremism policy, foreign policy and domestic policy. In so doing, it must instead promote the liberalisation of these domains to ensure that the grievances that are exploited by extremists are not unwittingly exacerbated and that counter-narrative approaches are not derailed.
23. Counter-extremism practitioners must engage with those in the public sector, such as in the Ministry of Defence, those in the private sector, such as technology companies, those in the 3rd sector, such as counter-extremism organisations, and academics focusing on counter-radicalisation, behavioural science, and strategic communications, to build stronger coalitions to counter extremist narratives more effectively.
24. Counter-narrative campaigns must prioritise target audience analysis, behavioural change approaches, effective dissemination strategies, and evaluation techniques ahead of content creation. During campaign assembly, counter-narratives must consider finding the most appropriate message, messenger, language, tone, format, and medium for the specified target audience to achieve the specified behavioural change.
25. Promoting this approach online and offline must be a priority for this government as part of its new counter-extremism strategy. Given that it is most effectively led by civil society, government must consider helping to build coalitions and empower organisations to do this, and build the necessary capacity to contest the prowess of extremist organisations and individuals online and in other ungoverned spaces.