How can we challenge terrorism more effectively? A new network of survivors, and family members who have lost a loved one to terror attacks, aims to ‘end the cycle of hate’. Survivors Against Terror has been founded by survivors and bereaved relatives of people killed by Islamist terrorists, in attacks by far-right extremists and by the IRA.

Sajda Mughal, who was in the next tube carriage to one of the 7/7 bombers in 2015 and has since worked to tackle extremism at the grassroots, said: “I survived the 7/7 London bombings and it changed my life. Survivors Against Terror aims to put the voices of terror survivors at the heart of debates over how to best respond to terrorism and extremism, to fight hatred in all its forms and to support families in telling their own story.”

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The project, which launched in January, also aims to ensure that families of people killed by terrorists receive ‘the support they deserve’.

“Survivors Against Terror is going to try to educate the public about how they can help. But at its heart, it will be trying to make sure that we don’t just respond to terror, we get ahead of it,” said co-founder Brendan Cox, whose wife Jo Cox MP was murdered by a far-right extremist.

Dan Hett, whose brother Martyn was killed in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, said: “We are quite diverse as a group; ethnically, politically, age-wise. What better way is there to illustrate that terrorism isn’t picky about who it affects?”

We will be trying to make sure that we don’t just respond to terror, we get ahead of it

The steering group also includes Jo Berry, whose father was killed by the IRA in the 1984 Brighton bombing; Charlotte Dixon-Sutcliffe, whose husband died in the 2016 Brussels metro bombing; Gina Van Dort, who was shot and lost her husband in the 2015 Tunisia beach attack; Mike Haines, whose brother was murdered in Syria by Islamic State; and Travis Frain, who was injured in the 2017 Westminster Bridge attack.

They will campaign on issues including: support for police and security services; tackling hate speech; and the respectful treatment of families and survivors by the mainstream media.

Rebecca Rigby, wife of murdered soldier Lee Rigby, added: “One of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do was to sit my little boy down and tell him what happened to his daddy. They have taken so much from so many people, but there are so many more that can stand up and stand together.”

Featured image: Sajda Mughal, who survived the London 7/7 bombings in 2005, photographed by Jenny Lewis

This article is featured in issue 93 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe now to get the magazine delivered to your door each quarter.

The post Terror survivors unite to tackle extremism appeared first on Positive News.

Bjørn Ihler is telling me his story on a rooftop bar in London, when a sudden burst of explosions causes the people at the next table to jump. “Just fireworks,” Ihler says with a wry smile.

It was six years ago, on a glistening blue July morning, that Ihler heard what he first took to be fireworks, cracking out across the meadows on the small Norwegian island of Utøya, where a group of young activists were gathered for a summer camp. “I was just wandering over to the food tent to get some waffles, and suddenly there was all this noise. I couldn’t understand what was happening.”

Even when he saw the man raising the gun, and the bodies starting to fall, it took a while to realise what was unfolding. “I thought: ‘They have to be pretending. This must be some kind of training exercise, or something.’ My mind kept trying to rationalise it – because the consequences of being wrong were just too immense to contemplate. Utøya is a beautiful island in the middle of the countryside in the most peaceful country in the world. If you were to pick the last place where you could imagine anything bad happening, this would be it.”

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As the horror of what was under way hit home, Ihler’s day turned into a surreal struggle to survive – running through the island’s woods, desperately seeking hiding places along its rocky shoreline, while some of his friends fell dead around him. For much of the time, he was also helping shelter two small boys, sons of the camp staff, “trying to keep them calm so they didn’t cry out, asking them what they hoped to get for Christmas, that sort of thing”.

At one point, after leaping into the lake in an effort to swim to safety, he glanced over his shoulder and found himself looking straight at the gunman. “I saw him take aim, then I felt the bullet skim just past my ear.” A few more shots followed, each missing, until the killer turned away. Eventually, the police arrived, and the gunman – a far right extremist called Anders Breivik – surrendered, leaving 69 young people dead.

Unsurprisingly, the media portrayed Breivik – who had earlier set off a huge bomb in Oslo – as a monster, as “pure evil”. But in the days and weeks that followed, Ihler realised he didn’t share that view. “I’d seen him; I knew this wasn’t Voldemort – this was a human being.” And while that might make the murders somehow more terrible, it also triggered in Ihler something approaching curiosity: what had made a human behave like this? And what might have made him behave differently?

It was the start of a journey that has led Ihler to work with former extremists – mainly on the right, but including far left and Islamic radicals too – trying to understand what drove them towards violence, and what lessons may help others away from the same path.

I knew this wasn’t Voldemort – this was a human being. I care about him as much as any other human being

He readily admits that it felt very strange to start with. “The first meeting I had was with a Canadian far right activist. We’d arranged to meet, through a go-between, in the cafe in Waterstones bookshop in Piccadilly. And I was so nervous! But then when we met, it was obvious he was really nervous too. And that helped lower the barriers.”

That first meeting led to more, and convinced Ihler that extremists – far from being demons or monsters – are humans with the capacity to change. “Before, I’d been sceptical. But seeing the shift in him made me realise it was possible.” Several years later, and the two have even become friends. “In fact, I’m now friends with quite a few people who in the past, because of their worldview, would probably have wanted to kill me.”

Ihler works with former extremists to understand what drove them to violence. Image: Jonty Herman/Initiatives of Change

Ihler has even reached out to Breivik, although efforts to arrange a meeting have got “stuck in the bureaucracy” of the Norwegian prison system. “I was hoping to do a documentary where I’d ask him what brought him to Utøya – in all honesty? He’d start off with his political manifesto, I know that of course, with all that bullshit – but maybe if we kept talking we’d get to something else. It might still happen.”

Meanwhile, Ihler has spoken up in favour of Breivik being treated well in prison. “It’s right that he’s there, of course, because he’s clearly still a threat to society. But he’s got the same human rights as anyone else. And I care about him as much as any other human being.”

The true meaning of safety

Perhaps the biggest lesson from all his encounters is that “extremists on wildly different sides actually have a lot in common. They really are incredibly similar both in their views of the world and how they think they should deal with it, and in the drivers that made them who they are”. Chief among these, he says, is a sense of isolation, of feeling under threat from ‘the other’ to the point where they lash out, almost as a kind of preventative attack. Nipping extremism in the bud means instilling an acceptance of diversity, he says. “It means being able to be comfortable with someone having different ideas from you; a different way of life from you; being able to accept that, and learn to live with it.

“Governments talk a lot about security – which usually means more military, more police, surveillance, more being suspicious of everyone. I talk a lot about safety – feeling safe in your community, feeling safe and at peace with who you are, and who your neighbours are.”

I’m now friends with quite a few people who in the past would probably have wanted to kill me

Ihler has been through more in his 26 years than many do in a lifetime. Yet on the surface, at least, he seems to wear it lightly. Bearded and well-built, he has a laid-back, friendly manner – easygoing, almost. He lives now with his Libyan wife in the Swedish countryside, but spends a lot of time in London and elsewhere, taking his message to the media, and into schools and community groups, too.

He finds schoolchildren the most receptive. “I talk about what makes people turn to extremism, and how we all share a responsibility to help them avoid going down that path. The kids really seem to take it to heart. The teachers tell me that after one of my talks, they notice improvements in the way children treat each other. There seems to be less bullying.”

For the most part, Ihler does this work unpaid, supporting himself with a job on a Norwegian news website. Recently he’s become part of Extremely Together, a new initiative set up by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, with the backing of the EU and One Young World, a UK-based charity for young leaders. It brings together 10 young people from countries as varied as Somalia, Pakistan, Germany and the UK to collaborate on ways to defuse violent extremism.

In a world where governments struggle to establish complex deradicalisation strategies, Ihler has a disarmingly simple prescription that anyone can follow. “Grab a cup of tea with a neighbour who’s different from you. Learn about each other’s lives. Just chat. It really can be as simple as that.”

This article is featured in issue 92 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe now to get the magazine delivered to your door each quarter.

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As the sun sets and the dust settles in the Borj Cedria campsite, Tunisia, groups of Girl Scouts from across the country are getting started on their summer camp activities. Among the trees a set of small white tents can be seen, encircling huddles of smartly dressed Scouts. As they sit on the floor, chatting excitedly, it’s clear these girls mean business, with some discussing gender-based violence and others focused on how to tackle extremism.

Tunisia has been described as “the biggest exporter” of jihadist fighters to date, contributing an estimated 6,000 of its nationals to groups in Iraq and Syria. There are an estimated 1,000 – 1,500 fighting in neighbouring Libya, and dozens of Tunisians fighting in Mali and Yemen.

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The growing numbers of young people travelling to fight has become a major issue in Tunisian society. Having seen a number of boys go to fight, including family members, Les Scouts Tunisiens – part of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts – is determined to do something about it.

Leaving to fight

“My cousin left to fight in Syria. We were shocked when we heard the news,” says Girl Scout leader Khouloud, 24. “I saw him a month before he left. I could see a change in him. He was posting a lot of religious stuff on Facebook, but we never expected him to leave.

“In Tunisia, people often say poverty is one of the main causes for people leaving to fight, but I think there’s more to it. My cousin enjoyed all life had to offer. He wasn’t suffering. He was working hard. We learned he had been brainwashed. He was told he was living a life of sin and he would go to heaven if he lived a certain way.

“When he arrived in Syria, he found people were killing each other. It had no relation to our religion. He fled Syria as soon as he could, but was caught in Germany where he was placed in jail. He’s still there and we don’t know when he will come home.”

Khouloud is working with fellow Girl Guide leader Fatma, 28, to try and tackle the issue.

Tunisia now has the largest percentage of young people going to fight in Syria, including girls

Following the 2011 Tunisian revolution, Fatma witnessed young people leaving in search of what they believed was a better life.

“After the revolution, people changed within themselves. Many were unable to accept the differences in other people. To them, everything felt wrong.

“Six years on, things haven’t changed. Tunisia now has the largest percentage of young people going to fight in Syria, including girls. A large number of boys leave school early, so they can fight. Believe me when I say, they are fighting on the frontline.”

For Fatma, the issue remains a lack of education.

“The education system in Tunisia is still weak. Classes don’t tackle religion, or religious extremism, so young people have no other option but to form their own opinions. It is easy to brainwash them.”

Creative activities are an important part of the programme, say Les Scouts Tunisiens

Education is key

Together, Fatma and Khouloud, along with a host of other Girl Scouts are working hard to educate girls and boys across Tunisia about the dangers of extremism and the damaging impact it can have on their lives. Their methods include a badge programme called Spreading the Culture of Tolerance and Countering Violent Extremism.

Wahid Labidi, chairperson of Les Scouts Tunisiens, says: “When the problem of religious extremism emerged, Les Scouts Tunisiens felt it could do something about it as we’d seen a small number of boys leave. It was heartbreaking. We wanted to help young people see there were other options: they could join our movement, rather than be part of this violence. Our peer-to-peer project is going from strength to strength, and we’re working hard to empower young people to join the programme and do something positive for their community and society.”

We help young people find solutions themselves through arts and craft, or poetry and dance. It is helpful for them to put negative energy into something good

The aim of the project is to educate young people (Scouts and non-Scouts) about the dangers of engaging with terrorist organisations. It works to raise awareness of the importance of cultivating tolerance and resisting violent extremism, through activities such as open discussions and creative outlets. It is hoped more than 100,000 people will benefit from the project.

Khouloud says: “Scouts, both boys and girls, run workshops for young people in a bid to provide a safe space where they can debate these issues. A range of activities are available, dependent on age, gender and region.”

Girl Scouts in Tunisia can earn a Spreading the Culture of Tolerance and Countering Violent Extremism badge

Open space

Providing an open space for young people to discuss difficult issues is paramount, to the project, says Fatma.

“When we talk to young people during our scouting activities, they become very emotional. Some tell us how they want to go and fight, as they feel no one else can help them. We listen and tell them that if they find an activity such as guiding and scouting, it can help solve these issues.

We invite people who fought in Syria to come and talk about what life is actually like

“We invite people who fought in Syria to come and talk about what life is actually like when they leave. I’ve seen the impact it has on young people and how they react when they find out how horrible it really is. It’s good for them to make decisions based on real experiences.

“We do our best to help young people find solutions themselves. This is done through arts and craft, or poetry and dance. It is helpful for them to put negative energy into something good.”

Strength of young people

In Tunisia, and across the world, Girl Guides and Girl Scouts are making their voices heard, showing the true strength of young people, says the chair of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, Nicola Grinstead: “From targeted programmes on combatting extremism and leading projects on ending violence against women, Girl Guides and Girl Scouts are driving community development, equipping young people with the life skills and experiences they need to participate in society and building the world that we want to see for our young people and their future.”

Girl Scouts at the Borj Cedria camp in Tunisia

Fatma and Khouloud say the project is having a huge impact – and they’ve never been prouder to be part of the movement.

“Running this project has taught me so much,” says Khouloud. “It’s particularly important to me given what my cousin went through. When I meet young people feeling troubled, my advice is to talk to your family and your friends. It’s important to think about your decisions. Once you vocalise them, they might change.”

Angela Singh is communications manager for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts

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Many in far right movements across Europe and beyond believe their time is coming. Despite voters rejecting far right candidates in elections this year in France and the Netherlands, this type of extremism continues to bubble away below the political surface. June alone saw the attack on worshippers leaving London’s Finsbury Park mosque; police in Germany reporting a surge in hate crimes carried out by right wing extremists; and the success of a crowdfunding campaign that aims to block boats carrying refugees crossing the Mediterranean.

They might be a fractured mix of people with racist, misogynistic and antisemitic views, but extremist groups can be tempting to those who feel left behind by life and society.

Nigel Bromage is co-founder of Exit UK, an independent organisation that helps people leave far right extremism. He used to front a violent neo-Nazi organisation and so knows all too well the techniques that recruiters use. “I’ve worked with young people who are simply lost or from fractured homes and looking for love, understanding and compassion. Extremists manipulate these things to get people involved,” Bromage tells Positive News.

The Exit movement began in Norway in 1997, followed by organisations in Germany and Sweden. Now, there are at least eight groups worldwide, from the US to Germany, providing support for neo-Nazis who want to leave. And governments increasingly recognise the role that ‘formers’ have to play.

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So how does it work? “It’s tailored to each client,” explains Robert Örell, director at Exit Sweden, “but it can be very practical: helping people get rid of tattoos, move house, get a job or to attend meetings with social authorities. We also offer emotional support in a non-judging environment. My background means I can understand these people, why they joined, and they trust people with similar experiences. I know it’s possible to change. I can help people make the same move.”

In the past 20 years, the Exit movement has become much better equipped. Frequent international meet-ups allow the sharing of the ‘science’ of deradicalisation: what is it that makes people vulnerable to the grip of extreme groups?

“I know it’s possible to change. I can help people make the same move.” Illustration: Sébastien Thibault

ExitUSA, which is run by an organisation called Life After Hate, sows the seeds of doubt in extremists’ minds. “We use social media to deliver our messages and videos to a very tight demographic, our ideal target audience, based on their Facebook likes, music and groups,” explains Tony McAleer, executive director of Life After Hate.

“A lot of it hinges on triggering disillusionment. People might say this ‘great’ stuff about life in the movement, but I know from experience that if you’re disconnected from your humanity, a lot of things in life aren’t going to be functioning. We use messaging such as ‘don’t get fooled like we were’.

“When people are in the honeymoon phase of being in these groups – because they are incredibly powerful – there might be nothing we can say to change their perspective. But that will change. I say to people: ‘When you realise how dysfunctional it is, you get tired and burned out, and your relationships suck, I will still be here. I’ll wait for you.’”

From Sweden to the US, read first-hand accounts from four ‘formers’ who are now using their experiences inside neo-Nazi movements to help others

Main image: Illustration by Sébastien Thibault

This article is featured in issue 89 of Positive News magazine. Become a subscriber member to receive Positive News magazine delivered to your door, plus you’ll get access to exclusive member benefits.

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Robert Örell: radicalised when barely a teenager, now a bridge from neo-Nazism back to Swedish society

Robert Örell (pictured) is director at Exit Sweden, an organisation helping people disengage from radical groups. After becoming involved in neo-Nazi groups when he was very young, Örell became disillusioned with the movement. He co-chairs the Exit working group of the European Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network

“I had a lot of trouble at school and was searching for something to explain why I had all these problems. The white power movement had a simple and easily digestible answer: it was due to our multicultural society. I had my first contact when I was 12 or 13 and I started engaging when I was 14. I directed all my rage there.

“Initially it was a lot about being a tough macho man: drinking and fighting a lot. But then I started to read more about the ideology, too. I began exercising lots, trying to become this elite kind of person we were always talking about. But the movement was full of broken souls who drank a lot and got into trouble.

Do we really want to exclude people because they’ve done wrong? Is it because they’re evil, or because of circumstances?

“I started to rethink who I wanted around me. Is this really the ‘Aryan elite’ that’s going to rule the country after the revolution? I think this comes to a lot of the extremist groups: they have utopian ideas but they are never called to reality-test their vision for society. What type of people will you have around? How will you organise society without all of the people you want to exclude?

“We started Exit Sweden in 1998. Because of my own experiences, I can identify with a lot of the stories I hear. I also know it’s possible to change. We call formers credible messengers – we are able to bridge the gap between neo-Nazi groups and society.

“Why should society help these people? It’s a relevant question. But who are we to decide that somebody is unchangeable or that they deserve to be completely excluded? I know just how powerful the process of radicalisation is. It’s a moral value to me: do we really want to exclude people from society because they’ve done wrong? Is it because they’re evil, or because of circumstances?

“Now, I want to put my experiences to good use. I get such satisfaction from seeing people leave these movements and build totally new, healthy lives.”

Robert Drell, director at Exit Sweden

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Tony McAleer: the former white supremacist who realised the power of compassion

Tony McAleer used to be a skinhead recruiter and an organiser for the White Aryan Resistance. As well as committing acts of violence, he was found to have contravened the Canadian Human Rights Act by spreading messages of hate. But becoming a father in his 20s changed everything. He is executive director of US-based non-profit Life After Hate and also works as an inspirational speaker.

“When I was 10, I walked in on my dad with another woman. It was very confusing and made me incredibly angry. I went from being a straight-A student to getting Cs. My parents and teachers decided they would try to beat the grades into me.

“The bullying strategy I’d devised was ‘befriend the bully: become the bully’. And so I became friends with two guys I met at a punk concert and we started to build up the skinhead scene. Being able to walk down the street and generate fear was intoxicating.

“Someone asked me once: ‘Tony, how did you lose your humanity?’ But I didn’t lose it: I traded it for acceptance and approval until there was nothing left. Part of my great shame is not only the violence I did, but that I should have known better, having experienced powerlessness myself. Now I believe that the level to which we’re willing to dehumanise others is a mirror to how disconnected from our humanity we are inside.

The level to which we’re willing to dehumanise others is a mirror to how disconnected from our humanity we are inside

“At 23, I found myself in a delivery room, being handed a baby girl. She hadn’t yet opened her eyes and I knew that my face was the first picture her brain would ever take. Suddenly, I had to make decisions for someone else. Kids don’t see self-loathing; they see us for the magnificent human beings that we all are. I was able to open up my heart and allow it to thaw over time. Now, I carry healthy shame. I loathe the things that I did but I don’t loathe me.

“There was nothing available for me when I left: I stumbled through the wilderness and luckily found a way out. Now, I can help somebody who is a few steps back to be less lost. It’s about compassion and forgiveness but it’s important to have both with boundaries.

“The pain and the loneliness when you’re in the void, having left but not yet re-entered mainstream society, is huge. As Martin Luther King said: ‘Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.'”

Angela King: from violent skinhead to rehabilitating other Americans

Struggling for a sense of identity as a teenager growing up in Florida, a group of skinheads made Angela King feel welcome for the first time. After receiving a six-year prison sentence for her part in the armed robbery of a Jewish-owned shop, she went on to leave the movement and achieve a master’s degree. King is co-founder and deputy director of Life After Hate.

As a young person, I faced bullying, had low self-esteem and was socially awkward. A girl three times my size started a fight with me, ripping my shirt open in front of the entire class. From that point on, I felt that if I was the one doing the bullying, I could never be humiliated like that again. Neo-Nazi skinheads seemed the perfect fit because they were often angry and often violent, just like me. I’d been taught racism and homophobia as a child and felt that I had finally found the place where I belonged.

I felt that if I was the one doing the bullying, I could never be humiliated again

Sometimes women follow a romantic partner or relative into the movement. And then they are placed in conflicting roles: they’re expected to take on traditional women’s roles but also to be strong activists and willing to carry out violence. I’ve seen and, experienced, abuse and violence within these movements: domestic violence, sexual violence and emotional abuse.

When the Oklahoma City bombing happened, I realised it was done by someone with the same beliefs as me. I couldn’t see myself committing that level of violence, especially against children, so I made a decision at that time to leave the group and the lifestyle.

Stefan: after being part of violent clashes with far left, homosexual and immigrant groups, Stefan (not his real name) decided the neo-Nazi movement was ultimately devoid of meaning and left it behind

Grappling with complex social questions, Stefan found understanding and belonging in the Swedish far right movement. But it wasn’t to last. The non-judgmental ethos of Exit Sweden helped him to renounce his views, and turn his attention to contributing to society instead.

“I was active for nine years, from 2006 and 2015. At first, I was active in the movement but I wasn’t a member of an organisation. Later, I joined the group which was the largest of its kind in Sweden at the time: the National Socialist Front. I was quickly given more responsibility, and more of a role.

“I’ve always been someone who has thought a lot about societal issues. When I was at school, aged 16-18, there was a lot of interest in political alternatives. But I didn’t find anything in the mainstream parties that explained how we could build society in a new way: on a new foundation. So I searched outside of the mainstream.

“My ideas didn’t feel like they were ‘against’ other people – it wasn’t built primarily on hate – but more on preserving the idea of a Swedish social foundation. I wanted a strong society, and I think it’s a deep human response to be fearful about things – or people – that are ‘new’ or different.

“Violence was not the primary drive for me, but it was always present. We ‘legitimised’ it by the idea that we must be prepared in self defence. I was involved in about 25 confrontations within two years: stabbings and assaults. These were usually with extreme left wing groups but immigrant groups too and homosexuals: anyone that we considered a threat to ‘core family values’.

“I was busted for having a knife on me which is illegal in Sweden. But violence is what strengthens the group: it makes you feel tighter together, and then this sense of strength escalates into new fights.

I want people to be able to be part of society together: to find a sense of community, togetherness and belonging

“At first, my ideological commitment to the group was very strong. But in about 2013, I started to feel a shift. I realised that the race issue simply wasn’t as important as I had previously thought. I also started studying and while at university, came into contact with two elderly men. One was a political activist from Uruguay, and the other was from Somalia.

“As we got to know each other, I realised there were lots of similarities in what we identified in society as problems. I started to accept that if people are facing these similar problems in three very different parts of the world, this is probably more of a global challenge, not related to the previous explanation I had formed.

“By the time I got in touch with Exit Sweden, I had already left the movement. But I wanted to make a definite shift in order to disengage and reflect on what I’d done and been part of.

“There were no demands: it didn’t feel like attending Exit was a punishment. It felt open and non-judging. I was able to adjust at my own pace. I felt listened to, and that helped me to change. Talking openly about my experiences has helped me to make the shift.

“My personality had been very linked to the political ideological environment of the Nazi group. I learned that ‘this was good’ and ‘this was bad’. But now I’m open to thinking about things in new ways. I talked to my former history teacher about perhaps coming into the school to talk to his class about my experiences. I want to help people understand. I want people to be able to be part of society together: to find a sense of community, togetherness and belonging.”

Read our feature Leaving hate behind: the global movement of former neo-Nazis who are helping others renounce extremism

Image: Exit Sweden

This article is featured in issue 89 of Positive News magazine. Subscribe to receive Positive News magazine delivered to your door, plus you’ll get access to exclusive member benefits.

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Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Microsoft have joined forces to launch the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. It follows accusations that the tech giants have failed to block violent extremists and propaganda on their platforms.

Earnest advocates of free speech, the companies have long struggled to balance the principle of a free and open internet, with calls to remove and prevent the spread of terrorist content.

Terrorist groups have taken advantage tech services’ accessibility and wide reach to spread messages of hate and violence

Announced this week, the ‘solutions-focused’ forum will see companies collaborate on best practice policies, investigate tech innovations that could help detect extremist content, and form information-sharing partnerships with governments and organisations, including the UN.

The companies involved in the forum say in a statement that they hope to: “identify how best to counter extremism and online hate, while respecting freedom of expression and privacy”.

Terrorist groups have taken advantage of the tech platforms’ accessibility, reach and ability to easily share information, in order to attract new members and spread messages of hate and violence.

It comes as authorities around the world become increasingly impatient with the lack of effective action. Last year, White House officials called a meeting with Apple, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft on the subject. British prime minster Theresa May recently vowed anew to punish tech companies that fail to take sufficient action on terrorist propaganda.

We hope to identify how best to counter extremism and online hate, while respecting freedom of expression and privacy

This is not the first time that a move has been made to tackle the problem however. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft launched a similar initiative in December; a database of unique digital fingerprints known as ‘hashes’ was established so that any content flagged and removed by one company could simultaneously be removed by the others.

Facebook already has software to attempt to pre-empt the publishing of extremist content, but critics say that terrorists have found ways to continue to post. Facebook has even been criticised for exposing the personal details of its content moderators to suspected terrorists.

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A minority of young people from countries worldwide are becoming radicalised and joining extremist groups. The latest figures from The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) estimate that 20,000 foreigners have joined the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, one fifth of them from western countries. More than 700 British people have travelled to Iraq and Syria to fight for ISIS, according to police. At the same time, terror attacks continue to shake the world, with almost 300 incidents in 2015 alone. Events such as the Brussels airport attack in March dominate our headlines and social media feeds, making ‘foreign’ threats suddenly feel close to home.

Radicalisation’s causes are diverse and interconnected. In the Middle East, political instability, aggressive intervention by western powers, the absence of platforms for expression, and lack of employment opportunities, are among the factors that turn young people towards extremism. Not simply being a religiously motivated phenomenon, it has social, political and environmental influences.

Over the past five years of armed conflict in Syria, more than 250,000 citizens have lost their lives and more than 11 million have been forced from their homes. The country faced extreme drought between 2006 and 2009, which contributed to social unrest and ultimately the violent uprisings against president Bashar al-Assad in March 2011. The civil war has resulted in the disintegration of infrastructure in Syria, making the prospect of joining militant groups for employment opportunities, economic support and physical protection more attractive to some, as the Obama administration has argued.

In the west, some suggest that radicalisation is linked to a struggle for identity, fuelled by rhetoric on immigration, terrorism and freedom of expression that is increasingly alienating sections of society. Young British Muslims “are living inside a moral panic that has been constructed by the government and the tabloid press that depicts British Muslims as the un-British, violent, irrational and terrorist ‘other’,” Aminul Hoque, a lecturer in education at Goldsmiths University of London, argued in a column for academic journalism website The Conversation. “British Islam is actually a peaceful, spiritual and very ‘British’ community,” wrote Hoque. “The vast majority of people attracted to the ideology of terror, violence and murder suffer from deep social alienation and are psychologically disconnected from mainstream society.”

While the idea of rehabilitating extremists returning from groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida has been largely dismissed by western governments, Denmark believes this is could be an effective means of reducing radicalisation. A three-year pilot scheme called the Aarhus Model aims to help those who return from the Middle East to reintegrate with society, as long as they have not committed a crime under Danish law. A group of municipal employees from Copenhagen and Aarhus have been trained to support participants, who volunteer for the programme.

Away from formal politics, community groups and independent organisations are doing important work in the fight to resist and combat extremism. We spoke to experts conducting research in this space, activists working on the ground and individuals who have experienced radicalisation first-hand.

To combat radicalisation, the first and most important step would be to change western foreign policy, which pursues military and political intervention in Muslim majority nations. Second, there is a need to increase religious literacy so that western populations and in particular media and policymakers have a better understanding of religious belief. Third, that measures are taken to prevent Islamophobia and antisemitism in the west. Fourth, to increase interfaith and religious-secular dialogue and to challenge the faith position propounded by violent extremists. Fifth, to follow the Danish model in allowing extremists to return to Britain and be mentored.

The current barriers to all these initiatives are: a governmental denial that western foreign policy is a contributory factor in radicalisation; a view that all those radicalised are irrational and have to be killed or imprisoned rather than be rehabilitated; a lack of trust between government and mainstream Muslims and their organisations; and a lack of trust between mosques and Islamic centres and their communities when they are engaged with government counter-terrorism initiatives – which are rightly perceived to be targeting the Muslim community alone.

Lee Marsden’s research specialisms include religion, security and US foreign policy. He is author of six books including For God’s Sake:  The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy  (2013, Zed Books), and was a co-convenor  of the BISA US foreign policy working group between 2010 and 2013.

At Rand, our role in the space of countering violent extremism is to perform research and analysis to help direct future operations and help assess and improve current operations. When it comes to people joining groups like ISIS and al-Qaida, there is a very strong ideological and theological component, and therefore the US voice on this topic is not the most persuasive.

I do not think that people are joining ISIS because they have anti-American views or in response to US foreign policy. They are joining in part because they like the vision that Islamic State is offering them: a utopian Islamic society. Some may also feel a sense of alienation in the west. Because the US cannot effectively or credibly talk about Islamic theology, it is difficult for its message to be successful in  this space.

That puts the onus on local communities and organisations to do the lion’s share of work on this. There is a role for the US in helping those organisations achieve their objectives to the extent that they want US or international help. There is also a role for international organisations such as the UN’s Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund and Hedaya in Abu Dhabi, who can work with and support local actors in this space.

Todd Helmus’s research focuses on countering militant recruitment and reducing popular support for terrorism and insurgency. He has served as a policy advisor to the US government in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Tunisia, we have lived for years under dictatorship and censorship, so people have suffered from a lack of safe space in which to express themselves. For some people, when such a safe space does not exist, they resort to violence as a means of expression and can be easily manipulated. After studying in the UK, I decided to come back home to Tunisia in 2011 and contribute to the establishment of a debate programme with Young Arab Voices – the first of its kind, and still now the largest debate programme in the Arab region.

The idea behind it was that we would bring the young people who have lived their whole lives under censorship and dictatorship, and offer them the chance to express themselves. We wanted to channel and direct that freedom of expression in a way that is logical, tolerant and peaceful, in which a difference of opinions can be accepted. If you’re debating, you’re confronting different views than yours, but in a safe and respected manner.

Over the last four years, we have held training workshops all over Tunisia, in universities, high schools, cultural centres and youth clubs. We introduce participants to debating techniques and mentor them to become better debaters in the topics they feel are most important. Sometimes we ask them to take stands that are different from their own, encouraging them to defend a view they do not agree with in reality. We also hold debates competitions and public debates around once a week.

Samar Samir Mezghanni is a Tunisian children’s author and a PhD candidate in Middle Eastern studies at the University of Cambridge.

We combat radicalisation and extremism on as many levels as possible – through conducting research, working with governments on policy-making, on the ground, grassroots projects and spreading positive messages.

One of the most exciting projects we’re working on at the moment is within our creative arts department. This part of Quilliam turns our previous research and learning into messaging, and we’ve been using social media very actively to do this. Our #notanotherbrother campaign went viral and attracted half a billion impressions in its first seven days through YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. This campaign was an enormous success and was nominated for three Direct Marketing Association Awards last year.

This year, we’re planning to have a six-week Quilliam creative season. This is about taking all the knowledge and using all available types of art, campaigning and marketing to take all of this resilience building and countering extremism to the masses and mainstreaming it. We’ll be doing a play called Generation Jaded that is written by an award-winning writer, events around London, conferences with experts, a concert at a big venue and the Quilliam summer ball at the end of it. We feel this is a crucial part of building up a civil society coalition against radicalisation.

Quilliam is a British thinktank dedicated to countering and reversing extremism, particularly Islamism, through policy, engagement, education and research. The organisation acts as an advisor to the UK government, and regularly produces studies and reports.

AVE is home to hundreds of former violent extremists and survivors who work either daily or in their spare time to stem the flow of individuals into violent extremist groups, or to help those that are involved in these groups to disengage when they are ready.

Our members work across different ideologies, from the US to Indonesia and everywhere in between. Two of our members have been core to the classroom programme Extreme Dialogue. Students watch video stories of former extremists and survivors, and are led by their teacher to discuss the challenging issues that are associated with radicalisation.

Other AVE members use Facebook to identify at-risk groups, through key demographics such as age, location, interests and group memberships. They matched five former far-right extremists and five former Islamist extremists and used Facebook’s Pay To Message function to intervene. Over 60 per cent of the messages sent were seen by the recipient, and there was a high rate of sustained engagement for many cases. The project has indicated that achieving a long-term adjustment in behaviour may be possible, when trust is built.

The power of former extremists and survivors in countering violent radicalisation is unequivocal. They have been there, done that, seen it.  They know what works, and their experiences reverberate in the individuals they are helping.

Against Violent Extremism is an online network made up of former extremists and survivors  of violence working to counter violent extremism across the globe.

Illustration by Studio Blackburn

The post Resisting radicalisation appeared first on Positive News.

Abuja, Nigeria – On a long, barren road in north-eastern Nigeria, Hafsat Mohammed, squeezed into a public minibus, saw the gunmen materialise from the bush like a mirage.

The 33-year-old was on her way to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State and the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, when two Hilux pickups swerved onto the road ahead.

The minibus stopped. Men in combat fatigues and balaclavas emerged from the first pickup and aimed their guns at the wind shield. They ordered the passengers out onto the hot tarmac. The second pickup sped off towards a nearby village.

The men beat the passengers with their guns, jeering and calling them names as they did so.

A former radio journalist turned civil society activist, Mohammed wasn’t usually afraid to speak up; she thought she might shout or scream, but, instead, she found herself mute.

“I was praying in my mind,” she recalls. “I did not dare pray out loud.”

Then they opened fire.

Mohammed remembers how the dead body of a woman fell on top of her and how she lay there, beneath it.

“Young people don’t talk about terrorism, about war; they talk about education, about being who they want to be, about having a family – that’s a great ambition.”

She heard the screams of two women as they were forced into the pickup. Then the gunmen were gone, leaving tyre marks behind in the dirt.

They had killed five passengers, but Mohammed was unharmed. She and the other survivors, including the driver, got back into the minibus and drove off.

I first met Mohammed in January 2014, just weeks after the attack. She was back at her office in a nondescript high-rise in Kaduna city, the old political capital of the north, gearing up for initiatives to tackle religious intolerance in Nigerian schools.

For the past year, she had been working at the grassroots, community-led Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC), founded by a Muslim imam and a Christian pastor to address inter-religious violence.

In sentences often punctuated by a loud, raucous laugh, Mohammed spoke about her work and the attack.

“It motivated me to go back to the north-east,” she said. “It was something that kept on bothering me: ‘What do you do to conquer this [violence]’?”

Her answer to that question has been to try to counter violent extremism by engaging young people at the grassroots level, getting them to imagine a different future and their individual ambitions for it.

“I was in that bus and I saw hell,” the mother of two reflected. “But it motivates me to work for peace.”

Lifting our voice above theirs

When we meet again, at a bustling salon in the Nigerian capital of Abuja in September 2015, Mohammed is sitting quietly getting her hair woven into braids. When they are done, she pulls the slinky hood of a lilac abaya over the neat, steamed rows and scrolls through Facebook updates on her phone.

There has been a bombing in Yola, where people fleeing attacks in Borno are living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. “Why would they do this?” she questions out loud.

“We have to make sure that our voice is lifted in such a way that we counter those violent messages and ideologies, our voice is heard above theirs,” she later says.

The following day, she posts a video on Facebook, taken on her phone, her face obscured by a dark niqab, speaking through tears about the bombing in the camp.

“I have something that’s really bothering me today and I want to talk about it,” she opens. “How the Boko Haram insurgents went into an IDP camp in Yola, in the north-eastern part of Nigeria, and detonated a bomb, in a camp for crying out loud!”

She cannot comprehend what would make somebody commit such violence against people who have already lost everything other than their lives.

While at a salon in September in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, Mohammed is horrified to learn of a bombing in a Yola IDP camp. Photo © Caelainn Hogan/Al Jazeera

Escalating conflict

In April 2014, when more than 200 girls from the town of Chibok in Borno State were kidnapped by Boko Haram, the world seemingly woke up to what had been erupting around Mohammed since 2009. It is a conflict that has until now claimed more than 15,000 lives and displaced millions.

She has watched as her home state has become the hotbed of a war waged by a group invoking Mohammed’s own Muslim faith.

Across the north-east, education facilities have been repeatedly targeted and, early last year, officials in Borno decided to close around 85 schools, affecting nearly 120,000 students.

Mohammed wanted her children to grow up in Borno, but an attack on a school near the one attended by her children was the final blow: she no longer felt that it was safe for her children to be there.

So, in early 2014, she relocated her father and two young children to Kaduna, a city that has experienced only rare attacks.

But Mohammed didn’t go with them. Instead, she headed further into the epicentre of the crisis in the north-east – to Yobe State

“I thought, what if every individual said, ‘Let’s counter this message by preaching good’? … I felt obligated to do something,” she says, explaining why she would choose to put herself in harm’s way.

Photographs of alleged fighters killed by the Nigerian army during an attack on a boarding school in Yobe disturbed her: they were just young men, she observed. “It became a problem for me, knowing I have a brother, I have teenage cousins, I have a son,” she explains.

She wanted to make other young men less vulnerable to the lure of such groups. “What can we do to prevent it, to show that this is not the way?” she asks.

Women’s role in countering extremist narratives

The kidnapping of the Chibok girls, the ensuing Bring Back Our Girls campaign and the rise in the use of young girls as suicide bombers has made the conflict in Nigeria a key example of the dynamic and complicated role of women within crises fuelled by violent extremism – as targets, as propagators and also as leaders in countering the threats within their communities.

This September, the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee held an unprecedented meeting on the role of women in countering violent extremism – often seen as a male dominated domain – with female experts from Iraq, Kenya, and Nigeria speaking about the issue.

Pastor Esther Ibanga, an activist for interfaith peace in Plateau State, in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, believes women play a crucial role in security issues.

Although in Nigeria their involvement is seen as “taboo and sometimes quite offensive to the men,” Ibanga says “women civil society groups tap into the needs of communities, where women and children are disproportionately impacted by terrorism.”

Many activists share Mohammed’s belief that the best defence against divisive ideologies is providing a counter message and encouraging people to speak out.

One such activist is Aisha Yusuf, a campaigner with Bring Back Our Girls. “Poverty in this country makes you nameless, faceless and voiceless,” she says. Yet, “we [citizens] have a duty to speak up against anything that’s wrong.”

But, in some places, people are too fearful to even speak of Boko Haram, she says.

“The question we ask is what narrative are we putting out there to counter what Boko Haram is saying? What are we telling the people?” she asks.

“It’s for us to give a different narrative. If Boko Haram is saying western education is forbidden, why are they on Youtube? … Why are they driving cars and using assault rifles? Why are they not using horses and donkeys or their own legs? These are people saying education is forbidden but they’re using education.”

While there is no shortage of female activists in Nigeria pushing for change and fighting injustice, Mohammed admits that it’s not always easy to be an outspoken woman.

She says most young men are receptive to her work, but some older men have responded differently.

“Some felt I was being disrespectful, that I wasn’t being a lady, that I should be at home, married, having babies like a baby factory, but that wasn’t what I was created for,” she says.

“I am confident, I am strong, I am a Muslim, I am an anti-violent extremism activist, I advocate against it and I will do whatever I can to stop it. A lot of time I talk in front of people and they say, ‘You’re a woman, you don’t need to talk.’ And I say, ‘Yes, I will talk.’ ”

Aisha Yusuf, a Bring Back Our Girls campaigner, speaks at a daily vigil held at the Unity Fountain in Abuja since the kidnapping of the Chibok girls. Photo © Caelainn Hogan/Al Jazeera

Segregated schools

It was Mohammed’s father, a former air force man, who instilled in his daughter the gritty confidence she has today. He always told his children they could achieve anything they set their minds to. “He never treated me differently as a girl,” she reflects.

And it was in her former career as a journalist in Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria, that the roots of her activism were formed. She would visit different communities and meet people facing violence and poverty.

Then, in 2007, she turned to civil society work, consulting for internationally funded development projects.

But she wanted to do more hands-on work to make a sustainable difference on the ground, and so she joined the IMC in December 2012.

In her outreach work for IMC in Kaduna, a city divided between north and south, Muslim and Christian, Mohammed saw how religious intolerance could plant the seeds of extremism and hate.

She and a Christian colleague, Samson Atua, visited schools and witnessed classrooms becoming unofficially segregated by religion as communities grew ever more divided. They drew on their own experiences to show teachers and students that the religious divisions in their minds were fabricated.

“If the student is Muslim they’re taught, ‘Oh [the teacher] is a Christian, don’t relate with her,’ or if he’s a Christian, ‘Your teacher is a Muslim, don’t go close to her,'” she says.

“There has been resistance from the Christian teachers and the Muslim teachers, and we had to give references from the Qur’an and the Bible,” she elaborates. “I can sing choir songs and Christmas carols, and the kids say ‘I dare you,’ and I do. The kids and pastors are surprised, with the hijab and all.”

When growing up in Kaduna, says Atua, “You never knew who was a Christian, [and] who was a Muslim.” But now, he says, “hate is the issue of the day.”

Together they made an effective team: the forthright Mohammed, often dressed in a purple-grey abaya, her head covering framing her round, smiling face, and her diamante nose stud catching the light, alongside Atua, an easygoing, soft-spoken young man in a bright blue t-shirt and jeans.

She saw playground games where children called out to each other: “I’m a Christian, you’re a Muslim,” and mimicked guns with their fingers: “Ta-ta-ta-ta, you’re dead!”

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On one research visit, she asked students to draw their homes. She remembers how one five-year-old drew a picture of trees, smiling people, animals, and sweets on one side of his piece of cardboard. He covered the other side entirely in black crayon. “When I asked him why, he said, ‘This end [the black side] is full of Christians, the other is Muslims,'” Mohammed says.

Mohammed waited until school had finished for the day to meet the boy’s mother, who was shocked. When asked how he got such ideas, the boy said his religious teacher had taught him that “Christians are no good.”

Mohammed’s own family has not been immune to this atmosphere of religious disunity. As a single mother working in Kaduna, her children live most of the time with her father in Maiduguri.

“I had to be the workaholic, up and down,” she says. “My dad was helping me.”

Once in Maiduguri, as she was walking past a church with her son, Mohammed told the boy to go and say hello to the pastor.

“Please don’t make me,” her son responded, tugging at her arm to keep walking. “Only Christians can go into the church.”

She made him go and greet the man, who then gave him some sweets.

That church has since been destroyed by Boko Haram, she says.

We need the correct answers, she says, to discredit “those ideologies, those messages that your children hear on the radio, hear from friends.”

“Every mother’s dream is to have a child who is successful,” she continues. If her own son became a fighter, she says, it would be “heartbreaking … [it would] kill me.”

Yobe State

In December 2014, Mohammed moved to Damaturu, the capital city of Yobe State, and the alleged birthplace of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. For the past year, there have been regular attacks by suicide bombers in the city.

The primarily Muslim state was carved out of Borno in 1991, and was one of the north-eastern states on which former president Goodluck Jonathan imposed a state of emergency in 2013, due to the escalating Boko Haram insurgency.

She joined a regional development initiative as a project manager for Yobe and became responsible for identifying and supporting campaigns and projects countering violent extremism, particularly among young people – or “our nation,” as she calls them.

In Damaturu, an emerging urban centre, daily life continues, despite the regular threat of suicide bombings, as it does across north-eastern Nigeria.

“People just continue their business after a bomb explodes,” she says. “If it’s a really bad attack, they’ll put [a] curfew just for a day.”

Positive messages and dialogue, she believes, can act as a buffer against the anger and frustration she worries could lead many youth to pick up guns themselves. In the rousing wake of Muhammadu Buhari’s landslide election victory in April, Mohammed helped organise a symposium for around 200 young men and women from across the north-east, to discuss everything from leadership to jobs.

We were working on “getting youth on their toes,” she says.

Unlike in Kaduna, where she was on the ground mediating and implementing programmes, in Yobe, Mohammed took a different approach – catalysing local leaders and grassroots civil society organisations to make change within their own communities.

The names of Nigeria’s states, including Yobe, are represented on the Unity Fountain, a landmark in the federal capital of Abuja. Photo © Caelainn Hogan/Al Jazeera

Working with imams

In Yobe, Mohammed worked with interfaith initiatives and women’s groups. One of the most important aspects of this work, she explains, was gaining the trust of local imams who speak out against extremism and violence during Friday prayers and often counsel young people.

A UN event this year highlighted the importance of delinking extremism from religion in countering violent extremism, and Mohammed sees religious leaders playing a key role in that.

“They are change agents,” she reflects.

“There is a lot of frustration everywhere that makes people join [Boko Haram] because they don’t even have the money to buy food or go to the hospital.”

“[There is] poverty, unemployment and frustration that they’re not getting from [the] government what they’re supposed to be getting,” she continues.

When people struggle to see a future for themselves and to form ambitions, Mohammed believes trouble follows.

She wants to empower youth to take control of their lives, to know that they have the right to speak up as citizens and to ask more of their local government; she wants them to see that staying silent or picking up a gun are not the only options available to them.

Just reminding the youth to talk about their future can help, she says, explaining that this is a lesson she has passed on to some of the young people she has worked with.

“They don’t talk about terrorism, about war; they talk about positive stuff, about education, about being who they want to be. They talk about in the future having a family – that’s a great ambition.”

Damaturu’s youth

In Damaturu, she spoke to as many young people as she could. Some came to her house, others she’d find in groups at a park or on street corners where mobile recharge cards are sold under colourful umbrellas or at roadside tea and bread stalls.

She spoke to carpenters, bricklayers, and painters.

“They would tell me their ambitions,” she says. “They never got the chance to go to school, but they had ambitions, they had dreams.”

Many were scared to go to school, even if it were possible; they were afraid that Boko Haram would come to kill them.

“If we go to school, what will happen?” a 10-year-old boy asked her. She told him he would be safe and that the security forces would watch over him. He reminded her that security forces had been present when other students had been killed.

One day, in a market in Damaturu, Mohammed was drawn to a gathering of young male tailors. They were arguing about why the media called the Boko Haram fighters Islamic extremists.

“It’s not religion,” said one man, angered by those who claim Boko Haram is an Islamic movement. “It’s not Islam.”

They were hurt that their religion was being linked to something they felt was so far removed from their beliefs. “Why don’t they say ‘Christian terrorist’?” asked one, referring to the Charleston church shooting in the US.

“Some men felt I was being disrespectful, that I should be at home having babies like a baby factory, but that wasn’t what I was created for.”

“I’m like, for real? In the market?” Mohammed laughs. “These guys have a point.”

Mohammed, who rejects the idea that extremism or hateful ideology is particular to any religion, explained to them that because Boko Haram claims to be Islamic, that’s how people see them.

“Well, they [the media] should have more common sense,” one man responded. “It really gets on my nerves.” She encouraged him to get his message out there.

Most of the young people she meets believe the boys who have joined the fighters are being used.

But Mohammed worries that young men, constantly being painted as potential terrorists, could be marginalised to the point that they end up fitting that image.

“We get them to say, ‘Okay, I’ll just be it,'” she says. “Things like this can trigger their frustration and make them hate people.”

She says that many of the young men she has met have been approached about taking up arms, but that they were in no way eager to do so.

“They’re frustrated with the whole issue. They want to go to school, they want to go farming, but now they can’t because they’re afraid to move around.”

Helping women

In June, Mohammed registered her own NGO called Choice for Peace, Gender and Development, to help young people and women whose family members have been taken, whether abducted or recruited, or killed.

“I feel the pain of other mothers,” she says. “They feel helpless to prevent it.”

In Yobe she tried to encourage women-led initiatives and also to set up psychosocial support for women who were dealing with trauma.

The use of young girls, some as young as 10, as suicide bombers has devastated communities.

“Girls are heartbroken that [Boko Haram fighters] are using girls as suicide bombers, that’s something they never expected,” she says.

The young women at the symposium she organised could barely talk about it; instead they just cried.

Each attack leaves her feeling more horrified that anyone could do such a thing. “Even today, it just baffles me,” she says.

Threats

But these days, Mohammed doesn’t feel she’s in a position to help anyone.

The calls began in August: Three different voices, all male. They told her the same thing: When the time is right, we will find you and we will kill you. They said they knew where her family was, that if she continued her work they would harm her daughter.

“Ever since this recent [threat] … every day I sit alone, I get feverish, I get sick,” she says. “I get really confused at times, I’m really scared. I know I’m safe but the thought, it keeps coming.”

In these moments, and in the strained silences when she does not want to speak or to remember, it is sometimes hard to recognise the resolute and unshakeable young woman who sat at her desk just weeks after the attack on the road.

Now, in the early evenings, she is driven home from meetings in Abuja, the lights of the minarets of the capital’s grand mosque glowing in the approaching dusk.

She arrives at the gated, guarded housing complex where she lives, and spends most evenings curled up on the sofa. She fries eggs and watches television. Mostly stuck inside, Facebook has become an outlet for her.

But when she thinks of the men in the pickup trucks, or of her father’s house in Borno, now filled with displaced relatives, her whole body stiffens. Instinctively, she wraps her arms around herself.

“[Last year], I was fearless; I would go back to Yobe and stay there, I wouldn’t leave and no one could convince me to leave,” she says. “But I’ve been holding on strong for a long time and I’m breaking down.”

Her hands clasped on her lap, she says: “Now the trauma is in my head.”

The events of the last few years – the attack on the road; the teenage son of a cousin who disappeared only for a note to turn up at his home saying that he refused to join the fighters so they killed him; the friend from Gwoza who returned home after the army had reclaimed the area from Boko Haram, and found a ghost town and people’s bones – have all taken their toll.

“After these phone calls, these threats, all that came back,” she admits quietly.

“I want changes in this country,” she says. But alone in a room that is not hers, separated from her family for fear of putting them in danger, she acknowledges that, right now, she needs to look after herself first. “It’s time to keep my life.”

Hafsat Mohammed works to counter violent extremism by engaging young people at the grassroots level. Photo © Caelainn Hogan/Al Jazeera

First published by Al Jazeera

The post How one Nigerian woman survived Boko Haram to fight for interfaith reconciliation appeared first on Positive News.

In November David Cameron announced plans to introduce Special Exclusion Orders that would bar suspected foreign fighters from returning to the UK unless they agreed to strict controls. Addressing the Australian parliament in Canberra, he said those who complied would agree to be escorted by the police before facing either prosecution or close supervision.

Half of the 500 Britons thought to have gone to Syria have already returned to the UK, and there are growing reports that British jihadis fighting in Syria want to come home – it is thought that dozens are trapped in Syria and up to 100 are stranded in Turkey.

Many will be scared for their safety: British jihadis are dying at a rate of one every three weeks. Others will be disillusioned: the Isis strategy has become so barbaric that even Al-Qaida off-shoots seek to distance themselves from it.

“Refusing re-entry to scared and disillusioned Isis members is likely to make enemies of them for life”

There will be a sizeable minority who did not sign up for this kind of terror. They might have gone on humanitarian grounds and been radicalised along the way, or joined the struggle against Assad, but now find themselves fighting fellow Muslims and harming innocent women and children.

Given the truly heinous actions of Isis, it is not surprising that Cameron is taking such a firm stance. Indeed, for those committing the worst atrocities, even these measures feel like a wholly inadequate way of achieving justice for the victims.

But while those guilty of crimes must be held accountable, this blanket response misses important opportunities that could strengthen national security.

First, returnees could offer intelligence and insight to improve our understanding of Isis.

Second, refusing re-entry to scared and disillusioned Isis members is likely to make enemies of them for life. We should compete for their loyalty, not let them fall into the hands of another set of recruiters.

Third, those that renounce their actions offer the most effective counternarrative to Isis.

As such, the UK government needs to add two new elements to its foreign fighter policy.

Firstly, it should establish a clearing house near the Syrian border in Turkey to process and return home scared and disillusioned British jihadis. Most will be trapped, having had their passports, mobile phones and credit cards confiscated by Isis. This should be accompanied by an information campaign within Syria. This is not about letting people off the hook, but balanced messaging might convince some to return to face justice, rather than choose life on the run.

Secondly, it should set up a national EXIT programme, similar to those operating in Denmark, Sweden and Germany, potentially building on the Channel Programme that targets individuals in the pre-criminal space.

It should offer additional services, such as medical treatment for injuries, de-radicalisation sessions, help to reintegrate into work and society, and assistance for psychological trauma that might otherwise leave individuals vulnerable to relapse. It should also offer advice and guidance to the parents of foreign fighters, something that has improved the effectiveness of such programmes elsewhere.

The situation in Syria is desperate, and the risk posed by returning foreign fighters is very real. The government is therefore right to take a strong stance, but a blanket approach will not work. Our borders are difficult to manage, we cannot arrest our way out of the problem, and we do not have the resources to monitor everyone who returns.

Instead, we need a multi-layered approach. Arrest and prosecute those who have committed a crime. Bring back those who want to return, but on our terms. Use these individuals to push back on Isis propaganda. And offer those capable of reintegration the support they and their families need.

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