Note: Since having an enlightening conversation with Holly Hughson, I see I am missing some key pieces in the below. One in particular is what narratives might be useful to reach the young women who go to Syria seeking to practice their faith more openly and purely. Updates to article to come.

I began this essay thinking I could tie together thoughts prompted by this conversation on atheism and religion with some of the tensions in the current conflict in the Middle East. I was wrong in the specific. The administration is partly right. It’s not about religion but about the void it fills in people; a void created by the circumstances in their lives and the messages they receive from the outer world. We musn’t forget that, because we are alive, death is always with us. Whether we consciously acknowledge this or not, we know it in the depths of our bones. We are life and the next stage of our journey involves a passage through death.

We can counter the seductiveness of these cults who play and prey on the deeps of human fears and perverted curiosity with narratives of life which bring the light of hope and redemption into the inner worlds of darkness to which these cults preach. Their actions are a call to the fight for the community of peace. Halting the supply of human capital and the spread of their contagious violence is as sound a strategy as any in this battle.

Being neither a Muslim nor having much knowledge of Islam, I cannot speak to the specific words which will best reach those vulnerable in their own cultures/countries or those alienated by the ‘culture’ of the state to which flight from war, oppression, economics, or simply life brought them. But I can offer some tactical options for the couching and deployment of same.

Shame is not an option. Neither is solely quoting scripture. The core of these messages must reach the core of humanity in others: mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, reminding them of the people who care about them and for whom they care; reminding people of their link to the great chain of humanity that spans millennia upon millennia — we are all survivors; let us help each other survive what comes — the subtext of such a message.

While this approach may work for some, others require outreach of a different sort — narratives of belonging, of welcome, of not being alone in one’s struggles. As someone who once lived in a city plagued with gang violence, the resonances are eery and apt. Also necessary are stories from those who have killed/worked for but escaped a gang or cult clutches, have seen the futility, experienced for themselves the endless cycle of violence such orgs breed. The ones who cannot be reached — the truly sociopathic — are a problem for the security services at home and the military abroad.

Whatever the message may be, the visuals must be powerful and compelling. There is no cinematic trick to this, framing is partly a technical endeavor, easily taught; same with composing visual content. In conjunction with the essay, I’ve tweeted hitRECord to see what they think and if they might join this fight.

Due to the proliferation of technology, everyone can be a filmmaker. Seeding new narratives might be enough; crowdsourced films will ensure relevance and can encourage participation through contests. Some great pieces in and of themselves will likely come out of it but so will bits that a good editor can weave into a compelling whole. The sheer number of entries such contests are likely to produce are a boon as well. Let’s flood the channel.

Radio shows are an option as well. Not VOA but something with roots closer to home, like locally-sourced broadcasting. More seeds to plant and fund as propriety allows.

Community and youth organizations do much to ameliorate gang violence. Perhaps there are models there that states and other entities may use in addition to the methods of communication discussed above. I think this is what the administration was getting at, but clearly it is not enough, just as messages are not enough without the follow-through of improved community infrastructure.

Another way the community of peace may contribute to the fight is to help states stop creating more violent offenders and planners by finding alternatives to torture. The appeal to basic human instincts made by the communities from which these offenders spring goes further in the cause of finding the truth than queries by ‘enemies’ with pain and discomfort at hand. Again, there are always ones who community cannot reach, who must likely make answer under duress and may never be given their freedom. But unless there is something wrong with the underlying statistics of the human world, their numbers are so very few compared to the many for whom redemption is an option.

There are many things active communities of peace can bring to the fight against terrorism. Sometimes just a hint of structure or organization are all that is necessary.