"Almost 4,000 people referred to UK deradicalisation scheme last year", run a Guardian headline. According to the article, "Children aged nine and under were among 3,955 people reported to Channel in 2015, up from 1,681 in 2014".
The article, which is not open for comments, does not say what sort of radicalisation they are suspected of. Are they radical Christian Scientists, who have been inspired by reading Science and Health by Mary Eddy Baker, believe that everything is spirit and refuse to go to the doctor or take their medicine?
Are they Catholics, who are open to variety of possibilities for radicalisation? Boys as young as five have been known to turn a coffee table into a pretend altar, dress themselves in a piece of white, red, green or purple curtain material and play at celebrating Mass. Are they having to be restrained from absconding to join the Franciscans and insist on serving the homeless on the local soup run instead of doing their homework. Or are they aspiring Benedictines, who are spending every moment of their spare time learning church Latin and poring over the Liber Usualis, keeping their parents awake chanting the office of Matins in the small hours and Compline last thing at night, waiting only for the day they can enter a monastery as postulants?
Or are they radical Anglicans, who instead of going home after school, pester their parents to attend evensong at their local cathedral?
Then there are radical Jews - thirteen year old boys, fervent after their barmitzvahs, who wake the whole household when they get up at the crack of dawn to put on their phylacteries and say their morning prayers, whilst the radicalised Jewish girls drive their mothers mad, demanding strict kashrut in the kitchen, with only glatt-kosher food, separate plates, cutlery and pans for milk and meat, and separate sinks for washing up.
Dangerous stuff, this radicalisation.
The article, which is not open for comments, does not say what sort of radicalisation they are suspected of. Are they radical Christian Scientists, who have been inspired by reading Science and Health by Mary Eddy Baker, believe that everything is spirit and refuse to go to the doctor or take their medicine?
Are they Catholics, who are open to variety of possibilities for radicalisation? Boys as young as five have been known to turn a coffee table into a pretend altar, dress themselves in a piece of white, red, green or purple curtain material and play at celebrating Mass. Are they having to be restrained from absconding to join the Franciscans and insist on serving the homeless on the local soup run instead of doing their homework. Or are they aspiring Benedictines, who are spending every moment of their spare time learning church Latin and poring over the Liber Usualis, keeping their parents awake chanting the office of Matins in the small hours and Compline last thing at night, waiting only for the day they can enter a monastery as postulants?
Or are they radical Anglicans, who instead of going home after school, pester their parents to attend evensong at their local cathedral?
Then there are radical Jews - thirteen year old boys, fervent after their barmitzvahs, who wake the whole household when they get up at the crack of dawn to put on their phylacteries and say their morning prayers, whilst the radicalised Jewish girls drive their mothers mad, demanding strict kashrut in the kitchen, with only glatt-kosher food, separate plates, cutlery and pans for milk and meat, and separate sinks for washing up.
Dangerous stuff, this radicalisation.
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