The giving of empty advice

Press reports last week informed us that the task force of Muslim advisers, appointed by the government after the July 7 bombings, had reported back with its recommendations concerning the prevention of extremism. One of the points highlighted was this:

The report concluded that British foreign policy was a "key contributory factor" in spurring British Muslims to extremism.

The report, which has been sent to me, is long, and I haven't read it all, but what it actually says about British foreign policy is less than illuminating. In Chapter 7 ('Tackling extremism and radicalisation'), this figures as one of the 'key issues' - thus:

4. British foreign policy - especially in the Middle East - cannot be left unconsidered as a factor in the motivations of criminal radical extremists. We believe it is a key contributory factor.

Here, later in the same chapter, are the pertinent recommendations:

a. The government should learn from the impact of its foreign policies on its electors.

b. The radical impulse among some in the Muslim community is often emotionally triggered by perceptions (sometimes true, sometimes false, sometimes exaggerated) of injustices inherent in Western foreign policies that impact on the Muslim world. The government should better explain Britain's role in the world, and highlight avenues of legitimate dissent. Criticism of some British foreign policies should not be assumed to be disloyal. Peaceful disagreement is a sign of a healthy democracy. Dissent should not be conflated with 'terrorism', 'violence' or deemed inimical to British values.

One is bound to conclude that members of the task force felt comfortable giving out a few anodyne generalities, or that they aren't saying everything they might want to, or both.

For the government to 'learn from the impact of its foreign policies' is, no doubt, a good idea, but what should be learned can itself be a matter of some controversy, so by itself that generality doesn't take you far. The tip, too, that the government 'should better explain Britain's role in the world' may be seen as well-meant, but who can imagine or pretend that it was a lack of explanation (for the intervention, say, in Iraq) that alienated those said to have been alienated by it? Then, 'highlight[ing] avenues of legitimate dissent' seems to me to be a piece of empty phrase-mongering: that these avenues exist and what they are is not a secret. And the same goes, in this context, for the sentences...

Criticism of some British foreign policies should not be assumed to be disloyal. Peaceful disagreement is a sign of a healthy democracy. Dissent should not be conflated with 'terrorism', 'violence' or deemed inimical to British values.

As if the real problem that the task force was having to advise on revolved around any one of these things: accusations of disloyalty for no more than 'criticism'; the frowning on 'peaceful disagreement'; the conflating of dissent with violence, and so forth.

If I were the recipient of the report, I'd be mighty disappointed with this aspect of it. But I'm not, so that's OK.