Expert warns NSW deradicalisation plan won’t work

The NSW Government's multimillion-dollar program to prevent radicalisation will backfire, a University of Sydney expert has warned. The Baird Government announced this week it plans to spend $47 million on combating extremism in schools. The program features training teachers and staff to identify students at risk from the start of the 2016 school year. It also includes five teams of psychologists and former principals who will be deployed to help schools respond to critical incidents. Sports stars will act as ambassadors to schools and positive role models. The scheme was developed after the Parramatta Police Station attack, in which a 15 year-old youth shot and killed police accountant Curtis Cheng. But Hussain Nadim, University of Sydney deradicalisation expert, has warned the program won’t work and will further isolate Muslim kids in schools. He said that because teachers would most likely be trained to identify at-risk children based on skin colour, name and ethnicity, the plan would lead to incidents like the experience of Ahmed Mohamed in Texas in the US – whose homemade clock he brought to school was mistaken for a bomb. “The issue is the other kids at school will have another reason to further isolate these kids,” Nadim explained. “Instead of integrating these Muslim kids, these youth, into the mainstream Australian society, you’re going to … further isolate and radicalise these kids.” Instead, deradicalisation policy should engage Muslim parents, Nadim said, as parenting generally determines the child’s worldview. Many of these parents pass highly negative worldviews of Western society on to their children in an attempt to protect them from ‘evil,’ he said. This is an attempt by parents to protect their children. But it leads to these kids becoming isolated in schools, as they are unable to reconcile their ideology with the school environment. Nadim added, however, that Muslim parents are becoming aware of the connection between teaching their kids these ideologies and radicalisation, and government should work with these parents. He suggested government get parents of radicalised children to talk to other parents in the community. For this to work, the Muslim community must become less defensive and talk about its issues publicly, Nadim said.