Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice Proceedings of a Workshop (2017) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
4 The Challenges and Opportunities of Countering Violent Extremism
4 The Challenges and Opportunities of Countering Violent Extremism
Pages 43-60
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 43... ...
. • If CVE programming determines vulnerability in terms of ra cial background, ethnicity, national origin, or ideology, then "suspect" communities are identified as precriminal (German)
|
From page 44... ...
Muhammad Babar, physician with the Muslim Americans for Compassion, remarked that CVE approaches should aim not only to pre vent future incidents, but to build a society to preserve American values for the entire nation, including Muslim Americans. In that vein, Downing commented that the key question is how to create an environment that is hostile to prejudice, bigotry, and racism: not an inoculation to prevent violent extremism, but rather a prescription to build healthy resilient communities where people feel like they're part of the process, they have a voice, they're American, and this is their home.
|
From page 45... ...
Depart ment of State's adaptive approach to countering and preventing violent extremism. USAID's strength of good governance enables them to play a larger role in the prevention space, albeit not necessarily directly targeting violent extremism, but rather by aiming to leverage USAID's capacity for good governance to help prevent people from embarking on the pathway to violent extremism.
|
From page 46... ...
German contended that an important problem is situated in the premise of CVE programming: the notion that bad ideas are a precursor state to committing violence, which empirical studies discount. German cautioned about the consequences of adopting language that is used in a different sphere and has a very different meaning.
|
From page 47... ...
He suggested that meaningful engagement with critics is crucial in the CVE space moving forward. Violent Extremism, Political Violence, and Civil Liberties German remarked that for the past 30 years the field of counterterror ism research has been struggling with many of the issues raised in the work shop.
|
From page 48... ...
He argued that the objective should be to counter violence irrespective of extremism and ideology, by looking at it in context and trying to resolve violence writ large, whether it is state violence, police violence, or criminal violence. Griss cautioned against using the public health framework to address violence.1 He characterized it as a type of subterfuge aimed at diverting resources from the public health sector where it can be used to address real public health concerns and shifting it to the military and to law enforcement.
|
From page 49... ...
He expressed concern about CVE programming because of how similar approaches have been used in the past against public health advocates like Martin Luther King, Jr., against the Black Panthers, and against the Native Americans in North Dakota challenging the Dakota Access Pipeline: Unless we recognize that pathologizing radicalization is itself part of the propagandistic role that we are seeing supported by the government and the police and the military, this is a very dangerous movement that has undermined democracy in the United States in the past and probably even more so now.
|
From page 50... ...
Griss suggested exploring the potential for applying the restorative justice model, which has programs at the school level and at the prison level but has wider implications for society as social movements are trying to address real dysfunctions at the national and global level.2 He suggested that this would improve the effectiveness of CVE work, and mitigate the tendency to pathologize so-called terrorist behavior. Griss argued that it 2 More information about this model is available at http://restorativejustice.org (accessed November 8, 2016)
|
From page 51... ...
Wynia suggested that if there are injustices driving the belief systems that cause people to become violent, some may argue that instead of ad dressing the injustices, CVE efforts are only focused on trying to prevent people from getting violent about them. He asked how it may be possible to ensure protection of speech and continue to value radicalization and radical speech, while also discouraging violent extremism.
|
From page 52... ...
has been signed by multiple countries that do not necessarily abide by it.4 He reported that to address this, the U.S. Department of State has sought to increase diplomatic engagement with governments that have been too overzealous in their CVE efforts by encour aging them to adopt CVE programming that builds in a rights-respecting component as its driving mechanism in law enforcement and government responses.
|
From page 53... ...
She emphasized that law enforcement accountability and oversight must be addressed with hate crime enforcement policies, coupled with investments in education and infrastructure. She also suggested improving access, par ticularly for Arab and Muslim communities, to mental health resources that are not linked to CVE and do not require a person to profess to being a criminal or at risk of criminality.
|
From page 54... ...
and addressing them can promote more resilient trajectories at the individual level. She suggested widening the lens of the prevention component of CVE to encompass early-stage interventions to prevent future negative outcomes.
|
From page 55... ...
They suggested that to effectively intervene with individuals who are vulnerable to radicalization and may be on the pathway to violence, recognizing the warning signs must be coupled with a network of appropriate referral channels for seeking help and accessing services for remediation. Key challenges highlighted were the stigmatization that can surround seeking help and some community mem bers' reluctance and apprehension about engaging with traditional avenues of referral through law enforcement or government agencies.
|
From page 56... ...
He continued, suggesting there is much these sectors can learn from each other, emphasizing that this avenue for reciprocal learning and spreading of ideas represents a crucial opportunity to strengthen both fields. Selim remarked that the director of the FBI, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the attorney general have all stated that the current threat of radicalization, recruitment, and the influence of foreign terrorist organizations to inspire an act of domestic terrorism is not a problem that "we are going to arrest our way out of." Similarly, he reported, law enforcement professionals have acknowledged the new state of threat from both foreign and domestic influence on communities in the United States and are calling for the integration of more holistic, adaptive approaches.
|
From page 57... ...
Role of the Media Dan Hanfling, contributing scholar from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, raised the issue of media ethics and the role media can play in perpetuating stereotypes and exposing risks in vulnerable communities, especially in the age of the 24-hour news cycle and pervasive social media networks. David Eisenman, professor of medicine and public health at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
|
From page 58... ...
German warned that with the funding currently available for CVE, people may be tempted to shoehorn other types of programming into the CVE space, when in fact they are programs for law enforcement, the FBI, or DHS. Anderson also remarked on the need for caution in using science as part of an effort to prevent dissent versus using it to help to prevent violence, a distinction that can sometimes be lost because of groupthink and the availability of funding.
|
From page 59... ...
He suggested that CVE policy makers should budget to include an independent evaluation, rather than the agency evaluating itself. Miller suggested that the element of protection may be missing in discussions about measuring and evaluating community resilience and other work carried on in the CVE environment.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.