I am very much aware of the difficulties faced by people in such circumstances. It can be a dilemma for families and friends to take those steps, but what I will go on to say might reassure the hon. Gentleman to some extent.
Sara Khan is the director and co-founder of We Will Inspire, which might be an unfortunate name, given what has been said so far in the debate. The group works with Muslim women and empowers them. Sara Khan says:
“When I was growing up I was exposed to a moderate British Islam which talked about integration, active citizenship, love for one’s neighbours and it was this theological grounding that played a significant role in making many young Muslims that I knew resilient to the extremist narrative.”
She goes on to talk about a project she did:
“Earlier this year, Inspire completed a 6 week challenging extremism programme in Leeds to help educate women about the extremist threat and taught them key theological counter-narratives to extremist ideology. Many of the participants lived doors away from the homes of the 7/7 bombers and participants time and again stated ‘if I knew this information ten years ago when my children were teenagers, I would have taught them about the issues raised in this course. This is the first time I’ve been educated on such a crucial and important topic.’ These women expressed feelings of disappointment in religious and civic Muslim leaders in not providing their children with a contextualised understanding of Islam and their inability in directly challenging extremist ideas so easily available on the internet.”
When such work is done, therefore, and people feel confident in being able to rebut those arguments, it is absolutely possible to provide that kind of community assurance.