Early September, a conference of its kind took place in the Qatari capital, Doha.
The Social and Economic Survey Research Institute (SESRI) at the Qatar University hosted a meeting of international experts on radicalisation to violent extremism where a diverse group of scholars and policymakers evaluated the existing strategies of combating radicalisation and violent extremism, and proceeded to make recommendations on how the international community can ensure sustained and efficient approaches in counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism.
Meeting under the theme ‘Quantifying Radicalisation’, the conference acknowledge that combating terrorism and violent extremism is among the foremost challenges of the modern world, where governments continue to commit considerable financial and human resources to understand the drivers of radicalisation in order to adopt the best practices in counterterrorism and countering violent extremism.
Kenya, being a frontline state in the global war against terrorism and violent extremism, was ably represented by the University of Nairobi as a partner institution and leading CVE scholars and policymakers who noted that despite remarkable progress in integrating evidence-based research into policy responses to violent extremism, many countries still face challenges in understanding the drivers of radicalisation and assessing the susceptibility of young people being recruited into violent extremism and terrorist groups.
To this end, the conference made several recommendations that included the need for collaboration between civil society players, researchers, academia, media and policymakers in disseminating knowledge and best practices on violent extremism, its drivers, risk factors and ways of observing and measuring it within a population.
For the years that the international community has grappled with the security threat posed by violent extremism, which is often blamed on Islam in the 21st century, its encouraging to see governments in the Middle East step forward and make an attempt to address this topic.
In fact, the dominant opinion in the Arab world has been that the global war against terrorism and violent extremism is a war against Islam. For this reason, many majority Muslim countries where Islam is the official religion have been quite slow in providing leadership on matters prevention and countering violent extremism, thus giving the impression that they condone terrorism.
But the Doha conference has now changed that narrative, with Qatar sending a clear message that the Muslim countries, Qatar in particular, do not condone terrorism and violent extremism.
Besides hosting this conference, the State of Qatar through SESRI and partners should seek to understand the ideological objectives and motivation of the terror networks in the Middle East and beyond.
In Africa, and Kenya in particular, poverty, diminishing opportunities for the growing youth population and identity form part of the push factors that drive young people to violent extremism. It’s encouraging that the Doha conference emphasised the need for further study of the individual and societal-level factors that serve as indicators of violent extremism. This would help to better evaluate the efficacy of existing strategies to combat radicalisation to violent extremism and to better develop and implement risk assessment tools and methodologies.
What the conference did not touch on is the role of community influencers, activists and religious scholars. This is an area that requires further studies and understanding in order to build collaboration with the broad spectrum of the society with the aim of confronting violent extremists narratives. The voices of Ulamaa from the Middle East have a potential and influence of changing the narrative globally for good. The time for those voices is now!
Having been branded a supporter for terrorist and extremist groups, Qatar demonstrated their commitment to contribute to CVE discourse as confirmed by the UNSC Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate executive director Michele Coninsx who gave a keynote address and officially opened the conference.
As ISIS and al Qaeda lose territorial control in areas ranging from Iraq and Syria to Sinai, Yemen and the Sahel, thousands of their fighters seek new sanctuaries. More than 5,600 ISIS members are known to have already returned to their home countries from Iraq and Syria alone, with authorities in 33 states reporting arrivals of fighters in the recent months.
As the squeeze on existing geographical centres of organised terror networks becomes tighter, intelligence services worldwide are striving to predict where extremist concentrations will appear next. Will it be Turkey and Europe; parts of Africa; Southeast Asia; Afghanistan and Pakistan; or some combination of the above?
While returnees present different levels of risk, one thing is clear: Regimes with higher levels of state capacity will be better able to manage whatever problems returnees pose, and should thereby suffer less terrorism than regimes whose state capacity is lower. This, therefore, calls for new thinking around the returnees question globally, including Kenya – which at the moment remains a “hot potato”.
