Countering Extremism

By: Peace Keeper

A lesson of being patient in every walk of life is one of the most essential lessons in every religion, culture and society. However, today's environment that spreads hatred and encourages discrimination is creating a vacuum for violence and extremism.

Extremism what causes such behaviour

Many experts of terrorism from all around the world have concluded that extremism is one of the many root causes of prevalence of terrorism in many societies. To be factual, there is no single trigger i.e. religion or culture that promotes terrorism. Terrorism has grown to be business franchise for many cruel and ruthless people/organizations and in some cases even for governments. When an individual and/or group of people from any society starts showing aggressive behavior towards any certain group, sect, religion or country we can name it an extremist behavior or in a broader context extremism.

Many pseudo-intellectuals and security experts around the world link extremism to a certain religion or country, which is not entirely true in its actual nature. Extremism is a psyche which can be presented and develop in any person, society or country, regardless of the fact that how advanced and developed the country is. Many recent events related to extremism have justified the theory that extremism is not linked to any certain religion or culture altogether. People belonging to different religions, race and creed have been extremist and even terrorists, the incidents gives the proof of the allegation. Why does an educated and working class American who is also a white Christian male, started killing people randomly in the streets? He was neither Muslim, uneducated or belong to certain race as all attributes mentioned latter are normally linked to a perfect profile of an extremist. The answer lies in the mentality and perception which has been created in the minds of general public.

Perception Needs Improvement

So the perception needs a lot of improvement and modification to counter the extremism in entirety. We cannot relate extremism to a certain religion, race and culture, the responsible quarters of the concerned governments would need to work hard and develop a narrative that does not seem prejudice and biased. Moreover, broader and consistent campaigns to teach general public needs to be kick-started in every society, regardless of the fact that how peaceful and far more civilized these societies and countries look.

Essential Implementations
In countries/societies where deprivation is one of the key elements of excessive extremism, the need to address these issues is essential in curbing extremism. Such as under developed countries are lacking basic necessities of providing food, shelter, health, employment and education to its people, there the need to act smartly in all mentioned deprived areas is important. In societies where these basic necessary aspects are abundant or sufficient, the need to create a perception of harmony and peace among people is need of the time. For this creation of harmony and peace governments should kick start several psychological campaigns to develop the mindset of the public in a way that cater all required elements of peaceful and harmonized society. Proper and strict legislation should be passed against racism, because racism leads to many extremist views and acts that ended up in violence and/or terrorism. Then comes the issue of sectarianism, again the responsible quarters of every government should pay heed to this issue and devise a proper and consistent policy against the crimes of sectarianism. For this process to be more fruitful the help from all walks of societies, especially from religious scholars, celebrities and politicians should be taken and propagated in smart manners. A man learns a lot from his home, so the parents and family are also an important element in shaping the personality of any person.

Monitoring of Policies
After devising the policies to counter extremism the government and all concerned organizations should follow a strict monitoring and evaluation in order to get required results from their policies. The mechanism of monitoring and evaluation is very essential to counter extremism and any extremist behavior or elements.
Every State Belongs To Its People

In order to curb/counter extremism it is important to remember that every state belongs to its people, if the people of any state are not satisfied with their lives and do not get basic facilities from the state, they are likely to be more vulnerable to extremism. Our nation and forthcoming generations are an asset to us, we should not deprive them of their fundamental rights and positive learning. Countering extremism is not a rocket science, all it needs is a proper policy and implementation. Along with mentioned techniques, a thorough and well designed deradicalization program to welcome the disgruntled elements of the society back into the normal lives is important. State institutions should scrutinize the trigger of their extremist behaviors and should work on the basic issue with an intention to not let it emerge again.
Individual Responsibility

Finally every individual is born with common sense and some type of wisdom "more or less". We should think about the consequences of our extremist actions, which are logically, religiously and socially not acceptable and appreciated by any society or culture. Not even a single religion encourages extreme behavior towards any human being, in fact not on any living being. The message of God is loud and clear, and we all are bound to follow and comply with this very message of spreading love, peace, patience and forgiveness.

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