Western governments have been debating over how to properly deal with terrorism following the horrific attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England that left 22 dead and 120 injured.
In the midst of the discussions over use of military force or implementing tough immigration laws, there’s CVE, also known as Countering Violent Extremism. Khuram Zaman, who is the CEO of Fifth Tribe, a digital marketing company, believes that government shouldn’t be the sole party to solve the issue of extremism and that the community needs to step up their role.
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On Facebook, Zaman noticed that critics of CVE, who feel that the government is unfairly targeting Muslims, were particularly silent following the Manchester bombing. He also pointed out how Muslims are just trying to highlight the problem without proposing any solutions.
“So Muslims should condemn terror acts but not try and shape any policies whatsoever around violent extremism? Seems like these condemnations are just CYA!” Zaman wrote. “You can’t condemn terrorism in one breath and then not support any effort whatsoever to combat it. This is morally inconsistent. If you dont like a specific government program, by all means, critique the specific features of that program and give other recommendations to policymakers.”
In an interview with Red Alert Politics, Zaman, who has hosted a number of hack-a-thons to understand how violent extremists are using social media to get their message out, explained that there’s been an oversimplification in how we discuss terrorism.
“If you believe in utopias, I believe that it’s a simple approach,” Zaman said. “If you believe that if only nation states didn’t cross their borders and everybody got along and it’d be all hunky dory, but that’s not how the world operates.”
He continued to say that groups like ISIS want as much chaos as possible to increase their following. “What jihadists want is to force a clash of civilizations.”
“The way they see Middle Eastern regimes out there is that they’ll engage in attacks to show that their security state is weak. So then, those regimes turn against their populations, and their populations basically revolt. And then they get the United States government and other Western powers to get involved in it, so they can trigger an apocalyptic war.”
Instead of just pulling out our military in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, Zaman argues that the Western and Middle Eastern allies need a more targeted approach for people dealing with violent extremism much in the way that you’d deal with substance abuse or domestic violence.
“You would have a community of multiple disciplinary figures that work together to help these people that are going through this phase, so that they don’t end up going to jail,” Zaman said. “Maybe it’s just a phase in their life and sitting down with an Imam or talking to a medical professional they can work out some of the issues they’ve been dealing with instead of going overseas and joining ISIS or commit a domestic attack back home.”
Listen to the full conversation below:
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