Is terrorism more driven by identity than extremist ideology?

How do you define, in the context of free speech, extremism? Is extremism a belief, opinion or world view beyond arbitrarily defined societal norms or merely an exaggerated response or attachment to a given ideological position? The general view is that extremism is the former:

“Extremism is the vocal or active opposition to our fundamental values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and respect and tolerance for different faiths and beliefs. We also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremist.”

This comes from the UK government's counter extremism strategy, a document that gives rise to the much-criticised Prevent strategy which "...explicitly makes a causal link between ideology, extremist thought, and extremist actions." The criticism of Prevent has, in the main, been that it appears to (unfairly) target Muslim communities but there is a strong defence for the Home Office here since, not only are the majority of UK terrorist incidents associated with Islamist extremism but the proportion of Muslims identified through the programme has been falling:

The published figures also suggest the Home Office has developed more sophisticated methods of categorising risk. This has implications for improving relations with British Muslim communities. Previously, the Home Office relied on four categories of concern: “Islamist extremism”, “right-wing extremism”, “other extremism” and “unspecified”. Now a new category has been created: “mixed, unstable, or unclear ideology”. This increased willingness to consider disparate or uncertain motivations coincides with a reduction in the proportion of Islamic extremism referrals – down from 61% in 2016-17 to 44% in 2017-18 – and offers the grounds for tentative optimism.

The problem with Prevent (and other anti-extremism strategies) is, however, rather deeper than just the perception from one or other community that they're being targeted. The programme assumes that extremism is the result of radicalisation - “grooming and exploitation by terrorists” as the UK's security minister, Ben Wallace put it. The problem, as conflict expert, Dr Mike Martin observes is:

This understanding of the role of belonging should be considered alongside the facts that an overwhelming majority of those with extremist thoughts, far more than 99%, do not commit violent actions. What’s more, extremist thought, even were it adequately definable in a society that values free speech, is a very poor predictor of violent action. Defining extremism in this way lumps the supposed thinkers of extremism together with those targeted by the government for their criminal activity – actors of extremism.

Martin goes on to suggest that, because we have terrorism cause and effect in the wrong order (terrorists use extremist ideology to justify their violence rather than the ideology being the reason for that violence - this applies as much to animal rights violence as it does to Muslim terrorism) the Prevent strategy, far from reducing terrorism actually risks creating terrorists:

By seeking to find and punish those who harbour extremist thought, the actions of the government cause people to question their place in British society, when they might not have done so before. In short, it creates or exacerbates a crisis of belonging, even where one might not have existed.

I'm not entirely convinced by Martin's argument but it is (unlike the Prevent strategy) grounded in some good science and should be given due consideration. We need also to consider why it is that the government is so specific about some extremism ("right-wing" and "Muslim" but not "left-wing" or "vegan") as if only some ideologies are linked to terrorism. Which is odd given the long history of left-wing violence and the current spate of attacks founded on veganism or animal rights.

Two things strike me about Prevent's weakness (and Dr Martin's argument) - first that radicalisation may not create terrorism but it does provide a home for terrorism, and second that the boundary between terrorist and non-terrorist crime is very blurred especially when we come to individual acts of violence such as the murder of Jo Cox MP. For the first issue, however, we cannot be selective about ideology - it's perfectly possible to see how, in the current febrile Brexit environment, how pro-EU "extremists" could commit acts of violence (the doorstepping of Jacob Rees-Mogg gets ever closer to this, for example). Which brings us to the free speech question - who is defining what we mean by extreme. Is having a FBPE hashtag extremist?

In the second instance - when is violence classed as terrorism - we have to start with some sort of political or politio-religious rationale for the violence. So the man who murdered Jo Cox, because he appeared to have a political motive, is a terrorist whereas the man who killed Andy Pennington, aide to then Cheltenham MP, Nigel Jones, was not a terrorist because his motive was personal rather than ideological. The question Dr Martin poses is whether our distinction between these two murders is artificial. Jo Cox's murderer used extremist ideology to rationalise his act of murder leading to us seeking out radicalisation (literature, websites, far right organisation) as the problem rather than more personal motives.

I'll finish with Dr Martin's conclusion because it speaks to this very problem, to the personal rather than to the organised exploitation of people through radicalisation:

Globalisation, and particularly immigration, has detached people from the groups they once belonged to: their families, their ethnicities, and their nations. The modern world can be a profoundly lonely place. If individuals feel that they don’t belong, they are more likely to reach out for extreme ideas that will fill that vacuum, offering them a sense of identity.

It seems that our sense of identity - and the feeling that this identity is being denied or excluded - has more to do with terrorism than ideology or the promotion of ideology.

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