Easter Sunday bombings shook the nation with disbelief. It was a day of sadness to see a very miniscule number of individuals from one community striking out to kill and be killed. When sons and daughters of a country take to arms to kill and maim others it is reason for shame and admittance of failure to hear voices and accommodate those voices within a democratic space.
An AP story states, “They knew the group, they knew the targets, they knew the time, they knew the whereabouts of the suicide bombers, and all of this was communicated to the Sri Lankan government.” Citizens are left asking why repeated submissions from mosques and responsible politicians providing evidence on extreme proceedings in select places of worship and places of residence of those considered radical were ignored.
The cynical view is that there was a need to turf out Muslims neighbourhoods and places of business by allowing radicalism to fester to be a reason to target the community as a whole subsequently and reduce their collective worth and electoral importance.
Muslims have been successful in the field of commerce whilst they also have very many professionals in their ranks. Anti-Muslim processes was aided and abetted for several years with a concerted social media campaign buttressed by sporadic outbursts of violence directed at Muslims in select locations. Reminiscent of the anti-Tamil push in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Suffice to say already poorer Muslims are being asked to leave rented premises, many huddle in fear and a growing sense of insecurity envelopes the community.
Reflection
We can’t and must not hold the Muslim community hostage. It’s very easy to go down the slippery path of excesses and to alienate sections of the community by hasty knee jerk responses. Let us remember Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim persons have challenged the State violently since 1971. It’s a reminder of the many fundamental flaws in the way we have conducted business with sections of our citizenry with a caveat that there was also a global context on every occasion. Conversely community leaders across the three ethnic groups have misread, been indifferent to radicalization of those arming themselves until it was too late.
New age of terror
We are in a new age of terror. The dynamics of global terror and counter terror have inflicted horrendous costs on lives, communities, economies and countries and regions as a whole. The new age of terror has its own history in the post 9/11 world. As of early 2015, Jihadi groups in Syria recruited over 20,000 foreign fighters to their cause, the overwhelming majority of who joined the ranks of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS). The Politico magazine speak of, “thousands of ISIS fighters who find themselves in post-traumatic drift. The Wandering Mujahedeen may well be the greatest danger posed by post-caliphate ISIS”.
A Hindustan Times TV interview describes the connection with Syria, the arrival of the perceived second rung leader to take over on the death of the leader leading the suicide bombers on April 21 and the location where chatter picked up much of this information. It’s indicative of the international nature of what we saw. Our response cannot be of only containment internally without addressing the external dimensions.
The Foreign Affairs magazine has this generic advice to Governments: Governments would do well to heed four main lessons from history. Governments must not forget the importance of understanding the enemy, formulating realistic goals that are consistent with democratic values, remaining flexible in the face of a threat that is unlikely to remain static, and, above all, forging partnerships based on earned trust.
My Identity, My Allegiances
The passages quoted next from the book In the Name of IDENTITY: Violence and the Need to Belong by AMIN MAALOUF, to help understand the new forms of radicalization including suicide bombers.
“My identity is what prevents me from being identical to anybody else. IDENTITY ISN’T GIVEN ONCE AND FOR ALL: it is built up and changes throughout a person’s lifetime. The apprenticeship starts very soon, in early childhood. Deliberately or otherwise, those around him mould him, shape him, instill into him family beliefs, rituals, attitudes and conventions, together of course with his native language and also certain fears, aspirations, prejudices and grudges, not forgetting various feelings of affiliation and non-affiliation, belonging and not belonging. People often see themselves in terms of whichever one of their allegiances is most under attack. And sometimes, when a person doesn’t have the strength to defend that allegiance, he hides it. Then it remains buried deep down in the dark, awaiting its revenge.
When an otherwise normal man is transformed overnight into a killer, that is indeed insanity. But when there are thousands, millions of killers; when this phenomenon occurs in one country after another, in different cultures, among the faithful of all religions and among unbelievers alike, it’s no longer enough to talk of madness. What we conveniently call “murderous folly” is the propensity of our fellow-creatures to turn into butchers when they suspect that their “tribe” is being threatened.
All the massacres that have taken place in recent years, like most of the bloody wars, have been linked to complex and long-standing “cases” of identity.
We must act in such a way as to bring about a situation in which no one feels excluded from the common civilisation that is coming into existence; in which everyone may be able to find the language of his own identity and some symbols of his own culture; and in which everyone can identify to some degree with what he sees emerging in the world about him, instead of seeking refuge in an idealised past.
In parallel to this, everyone should be able to include in what he regards as his own identity a: new ingredient, one that will assume more and more importance in the course of the new century and the new millennium: the sense of belonging to the human adventure as well as his own”.
Thwarting radicalization with strategies
The world offers full time, part time, online and practical on the job options for radicalization and terror. Merely detaining, killing or ostracizing people is not a practical solution. A quick and dirty reader of counter options is provided. See Table.
The Saudi government established a peer leader system of academicians, judges, clerics and de-radicalized individuals to disseminate government driven counter narratives to radicals. To prevent the radicalization of the masses who have not yet been radicalized but who may sympathize with the extremist ideology or do not condemn their beliefs, the Saudi government designed programmes which promoted and propagated a more judicious interpretation of religious doctrines.
Norway’s EXIT programme was aimed at supporting young people who wanted to disengage from radical racist and other violent extremist groups such as Neo-Nazis. This programme was managed by local government in collaboration with civil society to enable a successful implementation and can be paraded as a de-radicalization strategy. Singapore’s strategy to engage with minorities and call on religious leaders to denounce extremism at an ideological level and promote moderate interpretations is an example of counter radicalization [Kruglanski AW, Gelfand MJ, Rohan Gunaratna (2011) Aspects of De-radicalization. Institute for the Study of Asymmetric Conflict].
A creative proposal under counter radicalization strategy in one instance is where under the German EXIT programme when free T-shirts with the logo of skull and bones with the title ‘Hardcore Rebels’ were distributed at a concert where Neo Nazis were in large attendance; the logo and title faded after a wash and were replaced by a hidden title - ‘If your T-shirts can change, so can you [Harman S (2011) Right Wing Extremists Tricked by Trojan T-Shirts].’ Lastly, the development of course curriculum taught in schools which uphold values of nonviolence, peaceful co-existence and tolerance by United States of America, United Kingdom, Austria and Netherlands is an illustration of a basic anti-radicalization programme.
****
Death to Life
Mangala Samaraweera, the Finance Minister during the emergency debate went onto say, “all problems cannot be resolved through fire-power. Securing our common future – the future of each citizen and individual who lives in this common space that we share and call our home – requires sustained socio-economic development guaranteed through sophisticated strategic cooperation, diplomacy, intelligence, policing and law enforcement, infrastructure protection, territorial surveillance and border management. The primary security instruments of the future.
The choices are stark. Do we resign ourselves to live in segregated segments, in shreds of society, talking only with those who are similar, hiring only those in our group, befriending only the right kind of person, and creating fear against others? Do we resign ourselves to an uneasy coexistence, or do we aim for the more ambitious goal of reconciliation?
The challenge is to evolve in our nation, a more profound sense of belonging: one in which we do not merely tolerate the other, but we celebrate their differences, their culture, their language, their identities. The challenge is the paradox of being different and profoundly equal: equal in humanity, equal in individual rights, equal in our love to this our Mother Lanka.
