Rabat – This text is a synthetic reflection on the contributions of many observers and commentators. Inaccuracies in assessments, faulty analyses and unsound conclusions remain mine.
Terrorism is a transnational phenomenon. Its threats are weighing heavily on everyone’s safety and security throughout the world. No country and no region is spared. It does not stop at borders and frontier check points. It simply does not recognize the conventional international mapping of continents and regions. It is a transnational plague that spreads across frontiers in the luggage of satellite television channels, social media platforms, the sermons of radical religious figures and militant ideologies that surf on discourses protesting against social injustice, poverty, inequality, loss of cultural identity, imperialistic hegemony and international Zionism. It also draws its strength from the respective weakness and flaws of the internal governance approaches of the political, economic and judicial sectors of individual countries as well as from the uncertain quality of the governance of the issues involving their common borders and the populations of their respective sides.
Terrorism thrives on corruption and in environments in which it reigns. In its extreme manifestations, it transforms itself into organizations that substitute for the state and that usurp its legitimate monopoly of coercion and that revoke the legislative authorities of elected institutions and cancel the powers of the judiciary over territories it conquers. It builds up its resources by extortion, blackmail, theft and massive massacres of populations whose wealth and savings it confiscates. It rules by fear and terror. It also prospers in regions fraught with socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural and political conflicts, especially those that evolve into military operations within the borders of the same country or which engage two or more than two countries that may or may not share borders. It takes deeper roots in environments in which stability and social and cultural coherence are kept by a force that is perceived as the hegemony of a minority over a majority, as is the case in Syria, by a majority over a minority or by foreign forces that impose their will through puppet regimes on peoples with whom they have neither history or culture nor borders in common for purposes of mere economic interest or for some strategic schedules.
It would, however, be interesting to consider that had the socioeconomic and political conditions of many Arab and African countries and regions been different during the last two decades or so, radicalization may not have been as comprehensive and global. Such extremely violent organizations that have jeopardized the peace and security of the region and the whole world would not have found grounds to grow and gain legitimacy among increasing populations and population categories, either.
Many argue that these countries and regions, most of which have acceded relatively recently to independence and whose viability depends on chaperon foreign powers, have been caught up by sudden changes in their demographic structures, a new world order and new economic and trade challenges. The consequence, the argument goes, is that they had neither the time and the resources nor the skills and faculties to have prepared for these changes and to have anticipated them. Because of these objective constraints and in addition to them, they were unable to cater to any of the socioeconomic infrastructures and political aspirations that would have (i) met the needs of their sensitive populations for decent living standards, (ii) guaranteed minimal respect for their Human Rights, (iii) ensured access to fair shares of the wealth of their nations to them and (iv) involved them in the political decision-making processes of their countries. To have been able to do this, the governments of these countries would have had to set up appropriate and highly performing education systems both for their youth and for their illiterate men and women, to create employment opportunities, to adopt inclusive communication systems and good governance approaches, to ensure food and health security to all, to protect their borders from all types of international organized crime exactions, to foster complementary economic activities with their neighboring countries and sound grounds for common sociocultural relationships among the populations on every side of the borders.
Terrorism being an offshoot of various possible radicalization processes originating mostly in sociocultural frustration, in political systems’ inability to satisfy the economic expectations of sensitive populations and in specific assessments of international and regional relations, it does not emerge out of nothing but takes time to develop within political and/or religious organizations that fail to spur populations into adhering to their subversive options. This is exactly why the control and the combat of terrorism are to be undertaken within such organizations and through the surveillance of their attitudes and behaviors in and towards the various aspects of everyday social, cultural and political life. This may, at times, call for the fundamental restructuring of these organizations and the enactment of laws to govern and monitor both their funding and operations. This, furthermore, requires the collective involvement of civil society which, in turn, requires the construction of strong citizenship attitudes and aptitudes and the investment of individual citizens as well as NGOs with full social and political responsibilities towards their living environment. Without regional and international, bilateral and multilateral collaboration, however, none of these initiatives would have any meaningful impact on the evolution of terrorism and of the radicalization process within which it originates. The increasing claim of and for INGOs to be granted further freedoms and margins of action from the State and some sort of immunity vis-à-vis its official monitoring of their sources of funding and actions in the field has, however, led many to question the political innocence of the claim although not necessarily of those who relay it.
While many observers have difficulties understanding why young Western youth, both of Arab and Muslim stock and recent converts, join extremist terrorist groups and get entangled in crimes against humanity, war crimes and hateful behaviors towards women, others advance that in general, a young person with a sound education in the universal principles of Human Rights and the culture of good citizenship, who holds a good job, who has easy access to various social services and to decent housing and who has been involved in credible democratic processes from a young age, will hardly be a victim of recruiting units for terrorist organizations. Preventive strategies should therefore be embedded in global and comprehensive strategies that seek to integrate women, youth and children in homebred democratization processes led jointly by governmental and elected institutions and civil society and protected by a sound and strong economic sector, an independent judiciary, a competent legislative system, an administration free of red tape, well-trained and highly skilled law enforcement personnel and security institutions respectful of human rights. This means that unless the strategy is multilayered, operates on the horizontal level and is truly collaborative and cooperative, it will be in vain.
The problem most observers have highlighted, however, is that very seldom do these institutions actually have a good knowledge of one another, rarely do they know how they can work closely together and hardly do they perceive their tasks as complementary of and dependent on those of others. Examples of these difficulties would include the complete absence of collaboration between curriculum designers, security institutions, the legislative, the judiciary and NGOs working in the various fields of Human Rights, gender issues and ideology matters. Examples would also include absence of innovative and imaginative cooperation among countries sharing porous borders used by terrorists.
Terrorism will remain a real threat for the MENA, the Levant and Sahel and Sub-Saharan countries as long as mindsets have not changed and these institutions and organizations have not been reformed so as to improve their capacities to collaborate, learn how to prioritize actions, upscale their governance aptitudes, design and implement reasonable and feasible action plans and evaluate their actions. In addition to the security type measures enforced by competent law enforcement and specialized paramilitary and military units and to the relevant technology, equipment and logistics that requires, the action plans must be focused on soft initiatives. These include developing strong ideological parades and discourses and implementing formal and informal education initiatives to sensitize social players, educators, religious figures, police forces and other security personnel to the critical importance of the soft component of the strategy in countering those which the terrorists use in their recruitment campaigns.
When a tooth has decayed beyond repair and when the pain it causes holds a threat of contagion to other healthy ones, the solution becomes extraction. At a time when Europe is removing borders and expanding the territories within which it identifies and defines itself, Arab and African countries are building walls to set them further apart from each other and to isolate their populations from their relatives on both sides of the walls. Likewise, at a time when other regions are integrating countries into wider socioeconomic and financial strategic groups, Arab and African countries are warring along and for the artificial borders which former colonial powers had designed for them for the specific purpose of maintaining them in a perpetual conflict situation.
To conclude, terrorism can and will be overcome when and if the countries mostly exposed to it develop and learn to express mature political will into comprehensive and integrative collaborative strategies that focus on the human factor and that promote dignity for all through the type of sound progressive education, democracy, economic opportunity and good governance that result in the supremacy of the state of law, removing poverty and all forms of discrimination and segregation and of social, economic and cultural injustice and that enhance citizenship awareness and commitment to serving one’s local community, nation and region and in promoting world peace while seeking one’s own happiness. Another critical condition for defeating terrorism is the involvement of the whole world community not only in fighting it where and when it manifests itself, but to anticipate its advent based on a good and comprehensive knowledge of the conditions that give rise to it.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
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