Why we are running our campaign
More
and more people around the world are joining terrorist groups such as Islamic
State, killing innocent people, promoting hatred and adding to the misery of
the Syrian people.
They
have been drawn to do this a result of being radicalised. Islamist extremist
organisations promote a hateful worldview which seeks to destroy freedom,
democracy, human rights, and the belief that communities should coexist
peacefully. In their destructive path to boost recruitment, they radicalise
vulnerable people all around the world by perverting the religion of Islam for
their own gain. When they target individuals, they exploit identity crisis,
heartfelt grievances and other societal problems, offering “solutions” which
only serve to exacerbate all of these.
Together as a society, with people from all
backgrounds, religious denominations and political leanings, we can fight back
against this hatred. Three things are important to this:
1) Building resilience to prevent
vulnerable people from falling prey to extremism. We can do this by addressing
all the things that extremists exploit and demonstrating what makes living and
engaging in a pluralist and democratic society so great.
2) Raising awareness of
radicalisation and the actions of extremist groups that want to curb your
freedoms. We can do this by analysing extremist organisations, cutting through
their propaganda to see the truth, and understanding how they came about.
3) Promoting the best ways to
tackle extremism in an effective, responsible and proportionate way, free of
racism and anti-Muslim hatred, sensationalism and apologia. We can do this by
learning from previous successful and unsuccessful efforts to tackle extremism,
here in the UK and all around the world.
The campaign
We need
your help to raise £25,000 to help us address extremism through the medium of
film, for two main reasons. Firstly, it is clear that extremist organisations
are increasingly adept at using technology and producing professional video
content to achieve their aims of radicalisation and recruitment. Secondly, one of our main beliefs is that effectively countering extremism requires
a civil society approach - financial support from global citizens united in the
fight against extremism is a great way that our supporters can take ownership
of this with positive action.
Your
generous donations and support will help fight back against extremism by
funding the production of three counter-narrative videos, targeted at the three
areas listed above: building resilience,
raising awareness, and promoting best practice. In addition, we will also
be able to produce an educational animated video explaining Quilliam’s approach to counter-extremism
The
creation of counter-narrative videos will help towards our day-to-day work to
do the following:
-
Challenging Islamist ideology: The videos will help create effective counter-narratives which
challenge the foundations of the hateful ideology which seeks to corrupt
individuals to cause harm. Tackling the cause of extremism as a society,
the ideology which underpins terrorist actions, will help ensure a safer
environment for us all in the long-term.
-
Increasing education and awareness: Through encouraging civil society to actively engage in the
creation and promotion of counter-extremism videos we can help increase
awareness of the difference between Islamist ideology and Islam as
spiritual faith practised by over a billion Muslims around the world
today.
-
Tackling the rise of anti-politics sentiment: By coming together and actively challenging these views by
donating, sharing videos through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube as well as
other social media platforms, we can work together to promote democratic
ways of achieving real change and persuade others that joining extremist
groups won’t help.
-
Addressing grievances: Many people justifiably oppose political decisions, find
injustice reprehensible, or have experienced prejudice first hand. We
stand in solidarity with those people and want to help everyone find
peaceful, democratic and productive ways of addressing these issues,
without resorting to myopic extremist narratives that paint all such
grievances as evidence of a targeted conspiracy against Muslims.
-
Engaging communities: To effectively counter extremism, we need a civil society
approach. Vital to the success of this approach is the co-operation of
Muslim communities, who are often the first victims of terrorism, have had
their religion manipulated by the few violent extremists among them, and
live with the negative consequences of their actions. We want to promote
the active involvement of Muslims in this generational struggle.
-
Promoting pluralism: Extremists love to target vulnerable people who aren’t sure of
their place in society or of their identity. While it is completely normal
to experience an identity crisis and to be unsure of the compatibility
between nationality, religion, ethnicity and sexuality, extremists claim
that you can overcome this feeling by following Islamism. Instead,
pluralism is the only way that people can feel truly comfortable.
-
Countering extremism of all kinds: Extremism breeds extremism,
and it is unacceptable to approach Islamism through a far-right lens,
blaming all Muslims for the actions of several extremists, or by stooping
to the low level of ignorant bigotry. It is important that we show
consistent, responsible, proportionate ways of challenging all extremisms
in our society that can make real change for the better.
Additional ways of getting
involved
We
don’t want to be the only ones making counter-narrative videos. If you are
between the ages of 16-24, you can enter our #OpenYourEyes video competition.
Create a short video addressing one of the following issues:
-
Why religion mustn’t be abused to promote violence
- Talk someone out of expressing themselves through violence against
themselves or others
-
Why a multi-faith environment is positive
- Can the internet take over your life?
It
could be a monologue or a song, a cartoon, a mime, a comedy sketch or anything
else that you feel captures the imagination.
Use
your phones, iPads, cameras or any other media device.
Please
upload your film at www.wetransfer.com and then paste the link to your
film in the form on our website http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/openyoureyes/ . Film resolution should be at
least 1024×768 pixels. If you are recording the film from an iPhone/iPad or
other mobile device, try using the HDR option for best results. Be interesting.
Be bold. Be quirky. Be innovative.
For
more information, visit the competition page on the Quilliam website: http://www.quilliamfoundation.org/openyoureyes/
How your money will be spent:
The money donated will be used to create a number of professionally filmed and edited counter-extremism videos as well as equipment which will allow for the creation of in-house counter-extremism videos.
Creating effective counter-narrative videos will require videos filmed using sophisticated cameras allowing for high definition content. We will enlist professional filmmakers who are enthusiastic about film and artistic creation with experience across a number of aspects of the film industry, including directing, producing, as well as audio and visual engineering. The videos will be professionally edited, maximising the effects and reach of each counter-narrative video.
The knowledge and experience of the filmmakers used will help enrich video content produced, allowing us to capitalise on the medium of film to help challenge extremist ideology. Information is increasingly being absorbed through video content as opposed to traditional mediums such as books. Studies show that the medium of film increases understanding of issues, increases information retention, which in turn promotes civil society engagement and debate. With over 100 million users viewing at least one video online each day, professionally produced counter-extremism videos will allow us to effectively reach a worldwide audience in order to promote a long-term civil society push back against an ideology which seeks to promote hatred to undermine freedom.
About Quilliam
Quilliam
is the world’s first counter-extremism think tank set up to address the
challenges of citizenship, identity, and belonging in a globalised world.
Quilliam stands for religious freedom, equality, human rights and democracy. We
engage in innovative research, training and public messaging to do the
following:
- Challenge extremist ideology to expose the
intellectual bankruptcy of the extremist worldview
- Promote pluralism as an antidote to Islamism
- Inspire positive change so that Muslims and
others live harmoniously as citizens, not as separatist communities
Quilliam has consistently been at the forefront of
countering extremism in the UK, since we were established in 2008. Some of our
senior members of staff were formerly Islamist extremists themselves and this
personal insight into extremist organisations shapes our analysis of how to
counter the phenomenon of radicalisation. The experience of being involved in
counter-extremism and shaping policy on the issue in the last 7 years, coupled
with the academic expertise of some staff members means Quilliam continues to
be intrinsic to the debate. Our work and approach remain vitally important,
especially as the threat from extremism and terrorism to the UK and Europe is
now greater than at any point since 9/11.