British comedian tackles extremism 1 laugh at a time

It doesn't normally sound like a comedy club at the Somal Centre in south London, but when YouTube star Humza Arshad appears in front of an excited crowd of teenagers, the laughter rarely stops, particularly when he turns his comedic stylings against jihadists fighting in Syria.

"You've got certain brothers pretending to be religious because they've got a beard down to their belly button," he jokes. "And then young girls who will travel halfway across the world to marry some random terrorist with dry ankles."

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Radical Islamists, so-called jihadi brides — these are rarely seen as humorous topics.

But somehow Arshad manages to poke fun.

His message is simple: kids should should laugh at extremism, not fall prey to it.

Stemming the flow 

This distinct brand of comedy has brought Arshad into a perhaps unlikely partnership with police in the United Kingdom eager to stem the steady tide of young British citizens travelling abroad to join extremist groups like ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

British police estimate that around 700 of them have made that trip so far, while many others have been detained en route.  

The role of British ISIS fighters came to the fore when the group released videos showing the barbaric beheadings of several journalists and aid workers in 2014.

Their killer, who became known as Jihadi John, spoke with a British accent and it emerged later that he grew up in London.

The threat posed by homegrown terrorism and radicalization was more recently highlighted by the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, which were carried out, in part, by men born and raised in Europe. 

The 'anti-Jihadi John'

It's not a label he ever asked for, but some have taken to calling Arshad, who was also born in London, the anti-Jihadi John.

He regularly appears alongside police officers throughout the U.K. as they visit schools and youth centres to talk to teens about radicalization.

His partnership with the police began after years of posting comedy sketches to his YouTube channel, which has more than 67 million views.  

His videos often satirize what Arshad calls widely held stereotypes of the Muslim community.

"Young kids being radicalized — it's not as crazy as it seems."- Humza Arshad, comedian 

In one, Arshad plays a news anchor who reports that "a violent, terrorist Muslim wind" has attacked a "vulnerable and innocent garden chair" and that Muslims had forced the Queen to wear a hijab while showing an image of her wearing one of her well-known head scarves.

"Muslims are not what they're portrayed. We're normal people and our faith is a beautiful religion," Arshad says. "It's just a few misguided individuals who make us look bad."

His efforts to challenge stereotypes have helped earn him a loyal following among Muslim youth, which gives him an automatic audience for his anti-radicalization message. That's been best illustrated in a video on his channel that encourages young people to stay away from extremist material on the internet.

It's the one the police show when they give their presentations with Arshad.

"Young kids being radicalized — it's not as crazy as it seems," Arshad says. "These things do happen and it's just about having that awareness … to prevent these things from happening."

The 'Bethnal Green girls'

The problem of radicalization never seems to be too far away from the headlines in Britain.

The country saw one of its most-publicized cases earlier this year when three schoolgirls from East London's Bethnal Green neighbourhood vanished, each of them telling their families different lies so they wouldn't suspect anything was amiss.

Grainy surveillance footage then emerged showing the girls at a London airport, where they boarded a flight to Istanbul. They later surfaced in an ISIS-held area of Syria.

Their families said they were shocked, and that the girls had shown no signs of radicalization. But there was a trail of clues that had gone unnoticed by authorities until it was too late.

At least one of the girls had been posting extremist material online while reaching out to another British girl who had travelled to Syria months earlier.

Arshad knows one of the heartbroken families.

And while he had already been working with the police before the Bethnal Green girls disappeared, he says their story renewed his passion to prevent others from following the same path.

"I saw how there was so much pain and sadness involved," he said. "And when I saw that, I just don't want other people to experience it too."

Renewed vigour

That renewed vigour was on display back at the Somal Centre, just down the street from where two extremists murdered British soldier Lee Rigby in an attack in May 2013.    

Arshad spent nearly an hour talking about radicalization and cracking jokes while several officers from London's Metropolitan Police force looked on.

None of the officers would talk on the record about Arshad's impact. But his appeal to the crowd was hard to deny as he wrapped up his presentation and all the students ran up to the front of the room, eager for a selfie with him.

Although they might have been more keen to get a picture because of his status on YouTube rather than his role as an anti-extremism campaigner, Arshad is confident his message is getting through.

"When I leave each of these shows, if I've changed one person's opinion or I've put out one flame in someone's mind or in someone's heart, then I've done my job," Arshad says. "And I think I've done that."