Big Brother’s Education

The UK government has urged all British Higher Education institutions to monitor and tackle ‘extremism’ amongst student groups. Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell argues that the threat from extremism is a “real and serious threat”.

This move comes after the request in 2006 for all HE institutions to monitor and assess learners who may be involved in ‘extremist’ activities. This policy is now to spread, not only further into student activities, but also into the domain of academic practitioners, lecturers and speakers who may ‘promote or advocate… extremism’.

However, the problem as always is how exactly do we define extremism? For example, in a sociological discussion how do we dismiss the ideas of Jean Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, or ‘Che’ Guevara, all of whom advocated violence as a necessary component of social revolution? ‘Revolution is a violent phenomenon’ as Fanon once argued. Or, is this mandate aimed at the Islamic population and if so, are we not focusing upon a minority group and alienating that group from wider society? Or, are these measures aimed at all those who oppose the current world order and the dominant bloc?

The idea of urging HE staff to monitor students for signs of ‘extremism’ is preposterous due mainly to the definition of ‘extremism’ and the connotations of that term with ‘terrorism’, the latter being another undefined term. In the latter part of the 20th century the communists were deemed the enemies of the state – the equivalent to the modern day ‘extremist’ and the latter day witch. In 1980’s Britain, the Irish were the enemy ‘terrorist’ threat, being replaced in modern times by those who follow Islam. Enemies change to reflect the concerns of the dominant group; any form of powerful opposition must be crushed, as Socialism was in the 20th century, and as Islamic militarism is being in the modern day. In all, the real problem is who is the real enemy, the real extremist, the real threat to humanities’ welfare?

The cold blooded killing of innocent civilians is a terrorist act, a disgusting act, yet this should never be confused with violence engendered through the need for social change, in all with the concept of revolution. The boundaries between extremism and emancipation are becoming blurred. Let us hope that this new government initiative is aimed only at those planning to murder innocents and not all those who don’t conform to the standards of the dominant group, or even those who seek to undermine the dominant group. If such a thing occurred then the power of the elites would be absolute and without precedence in our long, bloody history.

Worst of all, this time, there could be no turning back.