The recent report by the Center for Social Cohesion is kicking off quite a storm. “Islam on Campus” stands in a line of recent reports that seek to vilify the Muslim population of Britain and place the problem of terrorism almost singularly at their door. But Muslims are giving as good as they get and refusing to be on the back foot. This, then, is the real problem for the vested interests amongst right wing think tanks like CSC and Policy Exchange. Students will not be cowered, and Muslim students are no different as the quick response on the part of FOSIS, other Islamic Societies, and the NUS, whose support is immensely appreciated, shows.

Robed in the appearance of academic objectivity, the report is nothing short of scaremongering. For example, in a list of individuals convicted under Anti-terror laws they mention the case of Anthony Garcia, who is said to have been radicalised after watching a video showing the atrocities committed in Kashmir, allegedly at an Islamic Society (ISOC) meeting. For a paper that wishes to carry out in depth analysis and provide a well-grounded case, such a flimsy point is left without comment. What does an “Islamic Society meeting” mean? No Islamic Society shows videos in its meetings, which are normally always about issues related to services and improvements. If this were an ISOC event, then it would presumably be open and advertised, and if it was a private viewing, then how does this make the Islamic Society culpable?

Instead, the report, like the majority of articles that followed its release, is deeply flawed in its logic. Take for example the list CSC produced to show that ‘in some cases, those behind [terrorist] attacks were also active in their universities’ Islamic Societies’. Firstly there is little contextualisation of what “active” here means. Were they members of the elected committee? Were they helpers? Were they attendees of ISOC events? And even if this was clear, the reasoning followed here seems to be what the American Philosopher Charles Pierce has called abductive reasoning. This works by saying: that:

1) Fact A is surprising

2) If theory B were the case, A would naturally follow

3) Therefore B

The fact that some of those apparently involved in terrorism happened to attend Universities and had contact with ISOCs does not itself establish that ISOCs are hotbeds of extremism.

Another key problem with the evidence that CSC would have us believe supports their case, is the fact that little of it can stand independent of the framework used to present it. For instance, the authors clearly state that Islamism is a notoriously difficult term to pin down, and yet continuously use it to brandish books, people, and organisations with the label. What’s more, they even take certain statistics as examples of the presence of Islamism. What it is is clearly what the authors wish it to be. So a seating arrangement for an Islamic talk, where Muslim women sit on one side of a lecture theatre and Muslim men on the other, becomes an example of “Islamism”.

For a think tank dedicated to upholding British traditions of openness, tolerance, and democracy, it is damning to have a report that uses the term “Islamism” so carelessly and rides roughshod over subtly different opinions and people. The impulse to do this is, however, a little greater than CSC itself. There is a need amongst right wing think tanks and their ilk to promote a unified folkdevil to assist in their need to create moral panics. The moral panic helps persuade others to want to draw firmer lines of belonging. In this way, the elasticity of the term ‘British’ is conceptualised anew. This narrower conceptualisation empowers a certain closet racist mentality and renders the power of definition in their hands. Once there, the terms of engagement and even discussion become theirs.

It this larger project which CSC is furthering on the back of the current discourse on terrorism. And while much of that discourse is important in understanding the dynamics of terrorism, it can, as in this case, give greater credibility to reports that ought to fall silently by the wayside. There is, therefore, a need to move beyond this report and contribute points to the discourse that will otherwise become muffled by the hype it seeks to create.

One such point is that we, the students, are positive agents of change; do not patronize us and pass the buck for a problem that arose outside universities, and in part because of the demonisation of minorities that you in the public sphere perpetrated long before anyone supposedly came preaching at our door.