Counselling a Tool to Counter Violent Extremism

@Muhd Yunusa7
Jul 20, 2017 · 4 min read

More than a decade of security-based transitional approaches to combating terrorist activity and propaganda have demonstrated that these alone is ineffective. Sometimes security measures can actually damage effort to roll back the appeal and take-up of violent extremism. While such measures should be used in domestic contexts where threads are critical or imminent, failure to accompany these with robust soft power initiatives will prove fetal in the longer term. Here are some of what need to be change if we are to succeed in countering violent extremism.
1. Rethink current approaches to creating a counter-narrative.
Counter-narratives remain a key strategy in the struggle to diminish violent extremism appeal, especially for young people. Most government not accept that credible counter-narratives must be community rather than government generated. Yet many agencies have remain ambivalent about forming genuine partnerships with community organization that can develop authentic counter-narratives to reach. Greater effort is needed to promote social inclusion and community belonging for those who feel marginalized and disempowered. This involve focusing on what bind us together rather than what divide us. An inclusion narrative must acknowledge the social and political idealism that make some young people vulnerable to dimension of terrorist messaging that promise a new or better world. We must offer genuine alternatives forms of social activism and transformation which explicitly reject violence while seeking change.
2. Development of cognitive and emotional skills to deconstruct extremist ideology.
Education is a key to disrupting and dismantling terrorist ideology. In an age awash with information, media and diverse forms of knowledge, many young people struggle with the critical skills require to sift, sort and evaluate it all. These cognitive and emotional skills need to be comprehensively embedded in the curricular of schools and universities. The must be to critique and reject violence extremist ideology. Terrorist messaging does not just target the head, it focuses in increasing sophisticated ways on the heart through visual and aural communication.
Understanding the nexus between cognition and emotion, and developing in young people the understanding and the ability to step back and analyze before acting should be a primary focus of any counter-terrorism strategy.
3. Understanding the supply “chain” means targeting recruiters.
Recruiters are the middle-men and women in the supply chain of violent extremism. Counter-terrorism strategies have tended to focus on grassroots initiatives to prevent the take-up of violent extremism at community level while disrupt and degrade efforts have to concentrate on the leadership of the terrorist groups.
Focusing on remote figure heads may help score largely symbolic goal for governments and task-force. But the middle- men and women, as always are the linchpin. Without them the leaders cannot marshal the human resources to execute their strategies.
Targeting recruiters should not just be about removing from circulation as a securitization model would propose. It should also aim to undermine their influence with alternatives that speak to the deeper needs and desire of those susceptible to their influence. It is vital to work with communities to identify, understand the strategies of the disempower locally influential recruiters in order to nullify their messages and reduce their reach and appeal.
4. Use of social media more often, more strategically and more creatively
Social media outlets have been exploited by promoting online dimensions of radicalization and violent extremism. Sustained messaging and representation through social media has been lacking yet examples of effective strategies do exist. Programs such as All Together Now in Australia and Exit in Europe are leading the way in helping disengage those on pathways to extremism through social media. While in democratic
countries censorship of social media remain untenable for excellent reasons, much more could be done more nimbly and more creatively, to use social media counter-strategy. If, as some leading research has argued terrorism is a communicative act, then we need to invest seriously in challenging and disrupting its messaging using the same communication channels and strategies as @NEIEFFELLOWS is embracing multimodal communication platforms that combine Image, text, and sound to reach people to joint hand in CVE.
5. Assertively challenge media role in fostering disunity and xenophobia
Some media reporting can severely undermine the crucial message of social inclusion by amplifying xenophobia, eroding trust and promoting social disharmony. The more coverage of terrorism-related issues demonizes muslim communities at large, the more entrenched a victim mentality can become for those targeted by sensationalized coverage. The sense of being “under siege” by media is experienced by vast majority of peaceful muslim around the world. This produce frustration, humiliation and fear for those communities and can actually increase radicalization leading to violent extremism. Such coverage also encourage attacks on ordinary muslims in diaspora communities because it appear to legitimize such actions. Those who experience such targeting become more mistrustful of the democracies in which they live. This makes them less likely to cooperate with authorities even if they have important information or views to share.
The us and them narratives of much media reporting need to be confronted assertively by government as much as by communities.
REFERENCES
1. Method of conflict resolution. 2016
2. Michele Grossman (2014): Tough is not enough: Smatter ways to counter violent extremism.

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A Science Educationist, An Advocate for Sustainable Peace, Very simple and stick to veracity not Laquacious

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