Backwardness is the breeding ground of terror and that is what we have to fight. – Mikhail Gorbachev
WITH THOUSHANDS OF YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN being attracted to extremist groups around the world, mainstream society is asking why and how. There is a new term that is driving fear in the hearts and minds of parents particularly in Europe and North America. It is the concept of radicalization.
Way back in the 60s and the 70s, the Black Power movement produced individuals who were called radicals. The difference was that these individuals functioned and operated at a very high intellectual level. In some instances, they agitated for and achieved a measure of reform in academia and in the status quo even though occasionally at great sacrifice.
The late Walter Rodney, who was assassinated, was considered a radical. The wearing of Afro hairstyles and engaging in more Afrocentric cultural practices were the extent of their expression of radicalization. In some countries they were seen as serious threats to peace and stability and some had to go underground.
Radicals were often identified with leftist political ideologies and as such invoked the ire of established governments. The current prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, was considered by the Tom Adams regime as “persona non grata”.
In today’s context, the term radicalization seems to have taken on new dimensions. The Oxford dictionary defines the term as the process of causing someone to become an advocate of radical political or social reform. The term is not particularly new. In that sense the Vietnam War caused the radicalization of many youth of that day.
Radicalization is the new nightmare for parents across Europe and North America. Schools in Canada are now frantically looking at ways to prevent their youth from being attracted to the deceptive lure of radicalization. De-radicalization and counter-radicalization have become new buzzwords for school systems that are seeking to adopt a prophylactic approach and to be proactive.
Robert Fiest, a global national correspondent with Global News, reports on a new school-based programme to tackle the issue of radicalization. In Calgary, Christianne Boudreau spent hours searching the Internet for her son who was radicalized to join extremists in Syria. He lost his life in the process. His mother noted that schools did drug education programmes, they did anti-bullying programmes and the like but that did not stop her son from drifting into radicalization and extremism.
European youths are leaving their homes and schools and flocking to Syria, where they are so brainwashed they declare they never want to see their parents again.
Two 16-year-olds from the Brussels suburb Schaerbeek went missing for a few hours during their school’s Easter break. They then called their parents from Turkey to say they were headed to Syria’s war zone. The mother of one of the teens flew to Turkey immediately, coming back to Belgium days later heartbroken, with no information about her son. (San Jose Mercury News.)
What is radicalization offering these young people that the school, the family and the church are not? Are we giving our youth a strong sense of belonging and attachment that keeps them loyal to the principles and precepts of mainstream societies?
When one talks to the youth on “the block”, one detects a sense of detachment and alienation. Will this too pass? Is this alienation the first phase of radicalization, with extremism being the ultimate expression of such social fallout?
Where does religion come into the picture? Are youth who are grounded in a faith easily dissuaded otherwise? The RAND Corporation in 2005 researched why young people enter extremist groups and what might be done to prevent it or to disengage members of such groups once they have joined. The RAND working paper was entitled A Future For The Young: Options For Helping Middle Eastern Youth Escape The Trap Of Radicalization. (www.rand.org)
The issue must now occupy the attention of regional governments and civil society. The alienation of Caribbean youth, for whatever reason, cannot be swept under the carpet any longer, for sooner or later it will manifest itself in its most extreme variations.
Matthew Farley is a retired secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education and a social commentator. Email principal208@gmail.com