Description
In December 2022, the Mayor of London announced ‘record funding’ for grassroots community groups to tackle extremism and hate crime. This reinforces the state narrative that ‘communities’ are ideal partners for pre-emptive counter-terrorism work and has been the driving force behind policing slogans like ‘communities defeat terrorism’. Given the amorphous nature of the term ‘community’, the shifting of security responsibilities downwards can range from nation-wide campaigns calling for mass vigilance to programmes that provide funding to charities for doing counter-terrorism work. As a result, we have seen community-based organisations (CBOs) that provide important social support, like housing advice or language proficiency courses, relying on funding from the Home Office for incorporating counter-extremism work in their daily activities. This paper will analyse the now-defunct Building a Stronger Britain Together (BSBT) programme that provided funding to CBOs for carrying out different counter-extremism activities. While the programme is no longer active, it provides useful insights into how the British state has tried to sanitise counter-terroism in the community as care-based work while perpetuating racialised surveillance practices. The programme demonstrates how Orientalist tropes are deployed to identify risks and reframe social issues like forced marriage and female genital mutilation as ‘extremist’ risks to national security. As the new UK government is starting work on yet another counter-extremism strategy, it is important to reflect on previous interventions in this area so we can be aware of the risks associated with such initiatives.
