Tag Archives: Terrorism

Why Religious Conflict Will Intensify in Africa, By Professor Hussein Solomon

7 Dec

 

Editor’s Note: Professor Hussein Solomon of South Africa is a longtime friend of our office and is widely recognized as one of the very finest commentators in all of Africa on counter-terrorism and the triggers of mass violence.  Here he provides insight on the security, development and even gender implications from increasing religious conflict across the continent. 

Originally published as an RIMA Occasional Paper, Volume 3 (2015), Number 11 (December 2015)

This past week, Pope Francis conducted a six-day tour of the African continent that took him to Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic. The latter, in particular, has been experiencing violent clashes between Muslims and Christians. In this context, the visit by the pontiff to a mosque in the Central African Republic was highly symbolic of the need to reach across the religious divide if sustainable peace is to be achieved on this troubled continent.

What happens in Africa could well define the future trajectory of Muslim-Christian relations globally. What accounts for this prognosis is simple demographics. Between 2010 and 2050, Africa’s share of the world’s population will increase from 12 percent to 20 percent. To put it differently, this continent will experience the fastest demographic growth on the planet. At the same time, in a mere two generations, the majority of the world’s Christians is expected to reside in Africa[1]. Over the same period the number of Muslims globally will grow by a staggering 73 percent[2]. The number of Muslims in Africa, meanwhile is expected to grow by nearly 60 percent from 242.5 million in 2010 to 385.9 million in 2030[3]. The interaction – whether peaceful or conflictual – between these two great faiths on the African continent could increasingly define the interaction between Christianity and Islam globally.

The nature of the interaction between these two faiths is however complicated by environmental variables and the politics of identity. Much of the population growth is taking place in societies where there is a scarcity of resources. Think here of the Sahel.  Growing desertification, has intensified conflict over scarce arable land. The city of Jos in Nigeria, for instance has, witnessed ethno-religious conflict since 2001 which has pitted Christian Berom against Muslim Hausas. At the heart of the conflict is access to fertile land at a time when the population is growing whilst the arable land has been under sustained threat due to the ongoing drought[4]. Over and above the twin impact of environmental variables and religion, Jos also highlights situations where ethnic and regional identities reinforce the underlying religious divide. Add to this the politics of exclusion practised by the Nigerian state, and conflict is all but inevitable. Indeed, most African states have failed miserably at inclusive governance.

Another dimension of the demographic problem is highlighted by Eric Kaufmann in his seminal book Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century[5]. He convincingly argued that the fertility rates among non-religious communities is displaying the lowest fertility rates in human history – often less than one child per woman. Conversely, the fertility rates of deeply religious people are several times this. Moreover this holds true across faith communities – Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, or Jew. This is unsurprising given the fact that religious communities emphasise traditional roles for women and all three Abrahamic faiths encourage their adherents to ‘go forth and multiply’[6]. This growing population increase amongst the religious will, according to Kaufmann see greater conflict between deeply religious communities as they contest who speaks for God as well as between the religious people and secular states. Conflict, once again, becomes the norm.

Compounding these issues is what kind of Islam is on the ascendancy. Is it a moderate Islam embracing plural societies and secular states or is it a Salafist Takfiri Islam violent in its rejection of secularism and the proverbial “other”. The fact that there were 27000 terrorist attacks globally since 9/11 (or more than 5 per day) linked to radical Islam clearly demonstrates that radical Islam is on the ascendancy[7]. On the African continent, the fact that there are more than three terrorist attacks per day attributed to Islamists, reinforces this global trend. Under the circumstances, one can only conclude that religious conflict on the African continent will intensify in the coming years.

[1] Christine Mungai, “The future of world religion is African, so what would an `African’ Christianity of Islam look like?” Mail and Guardian. 30 September 2015. Internet: http://mgafrica.com/article/2015-11-30-the-future-of-religion-in-africa. Date accessed: 3 December 2015.

[2] Manasi Gopalkrishnan, “An interview of Dr. Moshe Terdiman on Deutsche Welle (DW) on the Muslim Population by 2050,” Internet:https://muslimsinafrica.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/an-interview-of-dr-moshe-terdiman-on-deutsche-welle-dw-on-the-muslim-population-by-2050. Date accessed: 21 April 2015.

[3] Mungai, op. cit.

[4] Colin Freeman, “Nigeria’s descent into holy war,” The Daily Telegraph, 8 January 2015. Internet:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria89999758/N. Date accessed: 9 January 2015.

[5] Eric Kaufmann, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. Profile Books. London, 2010.

[6] Ibid., p. xvi.

[7] Daniel Pipes, “Why the Paris Massacre will have Limited Impact,” op. cit.

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An Ode to Advent’s Personal Blessings and Policy Challenges, Dr. Robert Zuber

29 Nov

Based on a sermon preached in Ann Arbor, Michigan in early November

Each year I write an Advent message to my friends and colleagues highlighting some part of our neglected spiritual heritage.  This is a tradition that some have begged me to abandon, but the original impulse came out of the my experiences in a Roman Catholic church in particularly challenging area of Harlem where I found a spiritual home and to which I attempted to provide some pastoral support in the late 80s and 90s. Much of the “neglect” I tried to expose through those Advent messages related to our lack of collective thoughtfulness about ourselves, our actions and their consequences, our creeping inability to sit still in a quiet place, staring at the stars and heeding the lessons of the void: beholding the irony that in the vastness of creation, on this little spec of a planet that we neither properly care for nor can easily replace, we have our niche, our role, our responsibility.   Somehow, some way, despite the testimony of deep space and the annual descending of Advent’s unsettling darkness, we continue to matter, sometimes even deeply.

I was going to use the opportunity of preaching in an Ann Arbor church to test out some ideas for this year’s message, to speak again about our reflection deficits, our aversion to the occasional bout of healthy melancholy, our predisposition to indulge in too much reaction and too little reflection, firmly invested in appearances rather than intimate disclosures, turning too much of life into one big selfie.

And then Paris happened, with echoes of Beirut before it and Bamako to come.  And the world quickly pressed into service all of the patriotic rhetoric, the grim determination and the increased military fire power needed to ostensibly “eradicate” this contemporary menace.

Ironically perhaps, the lessons in the Christian bible for pre-Advent Sundays were largely about wrongdoing and retribution, the evil that we experience and the God who will, or so some of us believe, both eliminate evil doers and vindicate our own choices.   This is a faith narrative that is rooted in divine power to restore the moral order as well as an affirmation of confidence in our own place in that cosmic drama.  It is a narrative eerily well suited to these threatening times, this need that some of us have for a deeper sanction for the pursuit of our own “righteous” responses to the evil we experience.

This deep instinct to right the wrongs of the world is hardly unique to our religious institutions. Where I work now, in a small independent policy office at the UN in New York, the single most pervasive aspiration of diplomats and officials is to bring about an end to impunity for the most severe violations of international law, such as we see in Syria, Yemen, Central African Republic and also Paris and Mali. Perhaps no issue undermines the credibility of the UN quite like the perception that wrongdoers get away with wrongdoing to a degree that most of us can barely imagine and certainly cannot sanction.  “Oh Lord how long must evildoers triumph” is a lament that could just as easily be heard in Security Council chambers as in churches. And yet, despite these reputational challenges, or perhaps because of them, there are few aspects of the UN’s work that are as intensely engaged as this one.  We mean business on impunity, even if our business model remains slightly flawed.

As well we should mean business.   With all due regard for the mild hypocrisy embedded in the ways that we at the UN formulate the law and single out perpetrators to address by those same standards, there is no more essential element to a healthy multi-lateral system than a clear articulation of and commitment to international principles — the norms by which we choose to live together and conduct our affairs. Indeed, in the absence of such lived principles, it is unclear how we will ever find our way to a place of trust and confidence in the ability of our evolving global system to solve pending development, climate and security threats. Or even find reason to hope that the cycles of bombings and terror attacks can once and for all be made to grow silent.

And let’s be clear — ending impunity is no abstract matter confined to states and situations like Paris. From children “telling” on each other and barking at parents who they believe have meted out punishment unfairly to the complex matters of jurisdiction and jurisprudence characterized by our international legal mechanisms, fairness in the moral order is part of our cultural expectation. And regardless of where we fall on psychological standards of moral sophistication, or whether we privately posit some deity at the beginning or end of those standards, it is both inconceivable and even emotionally paralyzing that so much abusive and humiliating behavior remains unpunished in this world.  Many of us in New York (what I often refer to as the “global capital of self-importance”) bristle when we are “cut” in line or delayed by insensitive subway behavior.   What should then be our response to unaddressed crimes against humanity?   Surely we can find ways to apprehend and mete out appropriate justice to mass murderers at a higher rate than the street level drug users or “Black Friday” shoplifters who are routinely being squeezed into our prisons.

Surely we can.  But we don’t seem to always know how, and we certainly don’t seem to have many strategies to suggest that don’t involve lots of bombs and missiles and drones.   In other words, we don’t seem to know how to respond to threats of terror without recourse to acts of dubious moral value which simply fuel the next cycles of retribution, the next incarnations of evil which we will then be compelled to address.

We can do better than this.  Indeed, our survival as a species depends on it.

But where is our inspiration for this different way to come from? As the days grow shorter and our fattening squirrels get the message that the feasts of fall are nearing an end, our liturgical lessons of my faith tradition shift their tone – from hard retribution and divine justice to softer, more reflective tones.   Less about what a God is going to do and more about what we have yet to do; less about divine vindication and more about our own thoughtful engagement with the ethical dimensions of local and global governance; less about evil doers and more about our common humanity, humans who seem so clever and powerful at times, until those moments when we catch our breath at the true majesty of the created order, the creation outside our smart phones, even beyond the reach of our deep spacecraft, scoffing at our social conventions and confounding all our policy certainties.  In our anxiety and impatience to deal with all the problems staring us in the face, we lose sight of this bigger picture and its lessons of humble discernment –all of us – more often than we acknowledge.

We have much to fix in this world, much to account for, much to overcome.  We have terror to subdue, development promises to keep, a planet to heal. It may be that the God of one or more faith traditions will somehow, sometime, rush to our side to vanquish and vindicate.  But my suspicion is that this one is mostly on us, our moment to gain some compassionate control – of ourselves and our world – to bring justice which is thorough but not partisan, and to recognize the cycles of violence and abuse that stain all of our political and religious banners.

As I have noted elsewhere, the great Reinhold Niebuhr once said that “the evils against which we contend are the fruits of illusions similar to our own.”  This can be a crushing insight to those who feel that “the good” is found only in the values and practices of their own households, only within their own social rituals and political policies, only at the tips of their own weapons of retribution.   It isn’t so.  It never was so.   Our response to grave threats requires much of us, surely including discernment and some lump-in-your-throat courage. The time for righteous crusades is long past.

During this period when vindication seems to be the understandable order of the day, I beseech us all to keep some energy in reserve for the distinctive blessings of Advent – its vast and awesome uncertainties, but also its deep emotional longings for a peace that is more than patchwork.  Behold the wonder of sitting at the edge of a hillside in the chilly starlight and calling out to anyone who will listen — oh come, oh come Emmanuel.   We have a lot to sort out here.  We have a lot of hard decisions to make.  We need insight and clarity now more than tools of vindication. And we could certainly use a hand.   Emmanuel’s hand.  May it come to us.

 

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High Anxiety:  Selling Reassurance and Resolve in the Security Council, Dr. Robert Zuber

22 Nov

Saturday in Central Harlem, a group of volunteers headed by Stephanie Ali held a Thanksgiving distribution of groceries, including turkeys.  Some of the volunteers, me included, have done virtually weekly “pantry duty” for well over a decade.

Our pantry lines have been long, even in times of economic recovery.   Not everyone on the line needs the food.  What more of them need – and get – is connection and reassurance.  Connection with people they know and care about.  Reassurance that, in a world of increasing anxiety – caused in part by a confluence of external shocks and increasing feelings of powerlessness – there will be someone “out there” who is dependable when rising sea levels start to flood Manhattan streets, the economy crashes again, and our latest security sector efforts to “bully the terrorist bullies” end up restricting more freedoms than alleviating terror threats.   These people also need some reassurance that authorities entrusted to respond to these and other emergencies will keep the economically marginal at least somewhat close to their hearts.

The world around our pantry clients might be uncertain and beyond their control, but they do read the papers, they are anxious about the longer-term state of city and world affairs, and they are looking for some helpful assurances beyond the immediacy of provisions.  In its own small way, this pantry and its volunteers seek to be part of that larger assurance, week after week, year after year.

Anxiety is not the sole province of the elderly and working poor populating a pantry line.  This emotion literally flourishes inside the UN as well.  Personal anxieties are related to career, relationships and money.  And of course there is professional anxiety related to performance in a volatile security and development framework, including as we saw this week in relation to attempts to address the short and longer-term needs of Least Developed Countries and Small Island States; the challenges of ending drug and arms trafficking; the need to reform overburdened UN peacekeeping operations; the responsibility to urgently reverse damage to oceans and watersheds; the need to head off further violence (and incitement to violence) in Burundi;  and of course the responsibility to craft a proportionate and rights-based response to the recent spate of high-profile terrorist acts.

In these and other multilateral venues, policy is developed that is grounded in anxiety about the current state of global affairs while also producing residual, longer-range anxiety in global constituents.  The questions posed to us on social media are both emotionally charged and relevant.  Are policymakers up to the current complex tasks?  Do they understand the implications of their decisions for diverse communities?  Have they learned sufficiently from past mistakes such that they can say with assurance that key mistakes are not being repeated?   Are states able to process their own policy failures, social limitations and other culpabilities while also attending to grave policy responsibilities such as the ISIL menace?

On these questions, the jury is still out.   Friday in the UN Security Council, Resolution 2249 was hailed as significant milestone in Security Council cooperation on what few would argue is a significant challenge for the international community.   The resolution cites ISIL as (having thankfully deleted the word “unprecedented”) one of the “most serious threats” to international peace and security and invokes the uneasy “all necessary measures” language (without directly mentioning military action) to help “redouble and coordinate” efforts to stymie ISIL and its collaborators.

Of course, few would argue the need to vigorously address terrorism, and many here at the UN are set to welcome Tuesday’s briefing by the Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee on “Foreign Terrorist Fighters.” But it’s not as though the “fight” against terror started in earnest last Friday.  Already, there have been thousands of bombs dropped, sanctions imposed, weapons transferred, surveillance enacted, funding halted, freedoms restricted. Were these methods lacking in strategic merit or policy seriousness?  For instance, were the detonated bombs that have already (by admission of defense officials) killed more than a few non-combatants simply dropped by mistake?  And, more to the point, assuming that existing measures have not been frivolous, what assurances are there that this round of “by whatever means” responses will actually eliminate terrorist carnage more effectively than the last round of responses?

Part of the narrative of this current iteration of our now-endless terror war is that the “unjustified” nature of terrorist acts, regardless of motivation, is the only relevant precondition for aggressive responses by Council members and other states.   Unjustified these acts certainly are, by any reasonable standard, but they also did not appear out of nowhere.  And whether your origin points for such brutal violence involve the Assad regime, the unrelieved discrimination of Palestinians, the US invasion of Iraq, prior dubious Council resolutions on Libya or any other causal links of preference, such points are also not without relevance. “We” are not responsible for terror violence, but “we” are also not without responsibility for the conditions in which such violence can apparently flourish – neither for the high anxiety that policies more robust than strategic might create in constituents.

We would make the case that “all necessary measures” can (and should) be applied to our own societies as well to the terrorists.  External vigilance is needed to be sure, but also accountability is required to the norms, values and expectations that give meaning to social existence and contextualize our growing levels of “high anxiety.”  These are high bars to reach, to be sure, as they are in part the consequence of prior policies that have not met expectations, have not alleviated the suffering we all hoped they might, have not inspired confidence that we can vanquish our enemies without also assessing ourselves.

We very much appreciate the references in the resolution to international human rights and humanitarian law, as well as (thanks apparently to the Russians) to the UN Charter.   These reassurances, as helpfully underscored by Chile and others at the Friday Council meeting, are hopefully more substantive than rhetorical.   Should such references end up being marginal “window dressing” in the implementation of anti-terror initiatives, it is highly unlikely that any tribunals will be organized to investigate the resulting carnage.   Nor will future acts of terror, when and if they occur, be seen as an actionable indictment of the limitations of this particular Council resolution or what would otherwise be seen as legitimate responses to ISIL and its cohorts.

My GAPW colleagues and I spend much time in the Security Council chamber, significantly more than in any other single UN meeting room.   And we have deep regard for the tenacity of Council members and the sometimes fitful progress of this chamber on transparency and working methods, driven especially at this current moment by some extraordinary non-permanent members.  But transparency and accountability are not the same.   The Council lacks structures of accountability for its limited policy scope or errors in judgement.   There is none to hold the Council, and especially its permanent members, responsible to the standards to which they routinely attempt to hold others.

This is one source of anxiety in the longer term, the notion that prior Council actions which demonstrably failed to achieve full objectives end up having little or no consequence for future resolutions.  Indeed, if we are not accountable for our errors, there is simply no reason for others to believe that future actions will avoid similar pitfalls.  For reasons related to limited time or institutional culture, we simply aren’t learning enough from previous experience to alleviate the anxieties of those dependent on this sometimes pedagogically-challenged policy community.

During Friday’s discussion following the unanimous vote on Res. 2249, Lithuania solemnly noted, “We will have to deal with the uneasy question of how much of our liberties and freedoms we are ready to sacrifice to ensure our safety and security in a way that does not support repression.” For my part, I would prefer a bit more liberty even if it means taking on a bit more risk.   After all, liberty’s road to repression is much longer than the one defined by safety and its multiple compromises.

In any case, these are the bargains that will continue define a world wrestling with its political polarization, excess materialism and militarism, and tepid commitments to ending social and economic inequalities and giving this overly-stressed climate a chance to heal.  And we are already seeing governments and their party oppositions ravenously grasping for political space in the aftermath of the recent terror attacks; ostensibly to protect people from terrorists, certainly to protect governments from uneasy conversations about their role in helping to protect the core principles, values and aspirations of people and not merely their physical bodies.

What is apparent, in settings as widely distinct as a Harlem food pantry and the chamber of the UN Security Council, is that our efforts to alleviate anxiousness regarding current affairs must take into account the deeper and “longer” anxieties – people who have good reason to wonder what will become of themselves and their families; and why this recent, welcome show of Council unity and resolve will be able to climb over bars of policy effectiveness and regard for international law when other efforts have mostly fallen short.

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Boat People:  The Security Council Considers Options for Safe Passage, Dr. Robert Zuber

17 May

On Monday May 11, the Security Council under the leadership of its current president Lithuania convened a briefing in chambers that managed to set a tone different from what some of us had feared prior to taking our seats.

Several Council members – including the UK and other members of both the SC and the European Union — had apparently been discussing a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, that would allow – in a manner still unspecified as of this writing – the boarding and/or destruction of vessels accused of smuggling migrants across the Mediterranean.

This resolution-in-waiting apparently has many measures still to be worked out, including the degree to which the ‘recognized’ government of Libya needs to be consulted, what protocols need to be established to guarantee that those boarding boats under whatever circumstances have their safety and security protected, etc.   It was also clear from conversations beyond the Council chamber that the European Union has been contemplating some type of ‘boarding policy’ with or without Council approval.

Certainly those working on security at UN headquarters understand both the challenge and responsibility of the large number of men, women and children who brave a long sea journey in substandard craft in an attempt to escape the grave humanitarian and security crises affecting Libya and at least some of its neighbors.  Italy has rightly won praise from the international community for its efforts to rescue damaged craft that have threatened even more mass casualties, but Italy is not the only destination for these overloaded boats. Moreover, concern has been expressed that ‘terror groups’ might well be profiting from what is deemed to be a lucrative trade focused on people who have some access to funds and feel that they have little choice if they are to protect their families from what seems to be endless violence in the post-Gaddafi era.  As more than one UN official has noted recently, no one would choose to subject their families to such a voyage if there were other, viable options to escape the misery and violence.

Behind this crisis is a robust, system-wide effort, led by the High Commissioners of Human Rights and Refugees, to highlight the plight of migrants and their humanitarian and human rights interests.   We have been to more UN events focused on migrants in the past two years than in the decade previously.  It is now widely recognized that migrants and internally displaced – on the move due to armed violence, water shortages, climate-related changes or other factors – represent a grave peace and security concern.  But more than that, such displaced persons – largely women and children – have humanitarian and human rights expectations that the international community is morally and legally bound to honor.  People don’t forfeit human rights protection simply because conditions force them on to boats to seek refuge elsewhere – this is true whether those boats are operated by smugglers in Libya or Carnival Cruise Lines.

Indeed, the Council briefing seemed to be an ample confirmation that the work of OHCHR and other key UN players to ‘institutionalize’ a growing concern for migrants has taken root.   The EU’s Frederica Mogherini, while soliciting support from the African Union and UN Security Council to “disrupt human trafficking networks,” took a careful and balanced tone in her remarks, noting the need to “do more to address root causes that push people to take dangerous risks.” She also called for a “unity government” in Libya, an aspiration which the Council has recently addressed on several occasions with full awareness of its high degree of difficulty.

Other briefers were a bit clearer than Ms. Mogherini in their articulation of the international community’s responsibility to protect the Libyan boat people.  For instance, SRSG Peter Sutherland –without citing the proposed resolution directly – called for “root solutions to root problems” that do not further isolate asylum seekers in poverty and violence.   He described trafficking allegations as largely a matter for law enforcement and urged the EU to work towards more “resettlement destinations,” “more visa options” for asylum seekers and, as noted, more law enforcement capacity in situations calling for such a response.

Mostly supporting this line of argument, the African Union’s Ambassador Tete António cited the many push factors – including armed violence, drug trafficking and chronic unemployment — that cause people to seek out the tiny spaces on these boats in the first place.  He also noted that much of the migration in North Africa is within region rather than outside of it, perhaps in part due to the high costs (as well as risks) of a sea voyage.  He urged the Council to embrace a larger picture of migrant needs and rights beyond the immediate and limited concern of boat trafficking in persons.

While none of the briefers took up the alleged value of a potential militarized operation in Libyan territorial waters nor the challenges and potential mis-steps of such operations in open waters, one came away from this briefing with a clear sense that numerous reservations existed both regarding militarized response and with regard to a single minded policy focus that cannot possibly, as Sutherland rightly noted, solve the migrant problem alone.

Perhaps this was the plan by current president Lithuania all along – create a briefing event that was much more about the rights and needs of previously neglected seafaring migrants than it was about stifling the economic benefits of their escape crafts’ recruiters and pilots. In either instance, the briefing seemed kinder and more humane than the controversial resolution that formed its backdrop.  Let us hope that the lives of often-desperate boat people are not put further at risk by ill-considered policy priorities designed principally to block income streams of alleged traffickers.

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Geopolitical X-Games: Extreme Measures to Stifle Extremist Recruitment, Dr. Robert Zuber

26 Apr

This week two major UN events highlighted the scourge of extremist violence and offered testimony to the roles that youth, religious leaders and others can play in reducing threats from terror groups, including threats related to recruitment.

In the General Assembly, a two-day discussion brought to the UN a group of diverse religious leaders to reflect on ways that communities of faith can have more of an impact on bringing terrorism to heel.  Such discussions, featuring presentations mostly by men of middle age, seemed largely devoted to “rescuing” the essence of “true religion” from the falsehoods promulgated by terrorists.  As a former theologian in training, I found it interesting how ‘above the fray’ many of the presentations stayed. Apparently many religious leaders have misplaced an important truth, especially valuable in the context of encouraging youth participation in peacemaking and related activities, that we as a people are judged less by what we profess and more by what we practice.

In the Security Council, the Crown Prince of Jordan (the only speaker under 30 all morning long) led an intense discussion on ways of responding to the growing problem of youth recruitment by terrorists such as ISIL.  The chamber was unusually full; delegations had much to contribute, some of it highliy substantive and practical, some borderline hysterical, some quite sober in its assessments. In the balance between “push and pull” factors leading to recruitment, a number of delegations jointed UN Alliance of Civilizations in highlighting under-employment as a trigger for youth violence. Lebanon noted that youth are both targeted and targeting others. Chile wisely urged efforts to close development and gender gaps as ways to establish credability and build confidence.

It was a bit sad at times, as noted by one of our valued NGO colleagues, to hear youth portrayed as they were in these discussions. For some delegations and even religious leaders in the GA, youth seemed to be depicted as a vulnerable and volatile presence who didn’t know what was best for them and certainly didn’t appreciate all the blessings of home. We apparently need youth to help us combat messages of extremism, but don’t always accord them the respect they deserve, the autonomy of opinions still unformed, but certainly worth a hearing. “Respect” in this instance does not mean deference, nor a cavalier passing on of responsibilities to new generations that we cannot find ways to handle in our own.  It does mean a bit more of what psychologists refer to as ‘de-centering,’ seeing the world through the eyes of young people who, as noted by outgoing New Zealand Ambassador McLay, cannot be expected to trust our “modern state” policies and social structures at face value.

At both events, the Secretary-General was thoughtful and emotionally engaged. Clearly for him, as for many diplomats and non-governmental leaders, there is much at stake in providing what was often referred to as a believable “counter narrative” to the alleged attractions of terrorist groups.  From my perch, his major contributions to both the GA and SC discussions were twofold:  First the insistence that youth not be problematized when it comes to terrorist recruitment.  His statement that youth represent “potential not peril” has been given wide media play, but it represents a positive, helpful perspective. Increasingly over the years, the UN has been host to thousands of smart, aware, committed youth who, as the SG put it, “seek to fight injustice, not people.” This is the image that needs wider play.

The SG also made an important statement in both venues, that extremism is not confined to regions under terrorist control. Indeed, one of the most powerful images of the SG in the General Assembly was the one that drew straight lines connecting discrimination, extremism, and the commission of atrocities. Extremism, he noted is not confined by geographic boundaries, culture or religion.  We are not like ISIL to be sure, but neither are any of our societies exempt from the “push factors’ (noted by Indonesia and others) of unemployment, limited educational opportunity, violence, a lack of inclusion (Nordics) and, yes, discrimination that help to create the vulnerabilities that many delegations seemed to fear.

A recent, extreme example of extremist inclinations came in the form of a now widely known article by Sun (UK) columnist Katie Hopkins on 17 April, demonstrating yet again that vicious attacks on the ‘other’ are not confined to the terrorists. Hopkins described migrants as “a plague of feral humans,” compared them to “a novovirus” and said some British towns were “festering sores, plagued by swarms of migrants and asylum seekers shelling out benefits like Monopoly money.”

I would suspect that most of the religious leaders participating in the General Assembly debate would want to redefine this ‘shelling out’ as “compassion.”

I don’t want to make too much of the ramblings of a few bigots — we have our share in the US as well.  But in our anxiety to address terror threats with “all hands on deck,” it is important to young people that we acknowledge the limitations of our own cultures, our many strivings and achievements of course, but also our unfulfilled promises.  Youth are often more affected by our hypocrisies than our failures. They are disinclined to accept judgments that ‘all is well’ in their societies of origin when their intensive social media reminds them of all the problems they seemed destined to inherit from adults who aren’t nearly honest enough with them.

As France noted in the Council, it is important to convince youth of the republic’s “relevance” to their lives.  But with so many cultures drowning in celebrity materialism and community indifference, there should be no deceiving ourselves about the degree of difficulty associated with this task.   Nigeria’s call to ‘shield’ youth from narratives of terror is much easier said than done as is Egypt’s call to ‘dry up’ funding sources for youth recruitment. Poland rightly rejected the notion that youth recruitment discussions were in any way related to a “clash of civilizations.’   Such discussions might, however, be related more to a ‘clash of generations.’

Venezuela urged us in the Council to see youth as a “barometer” of our political health and future.  At that same debate, Qatar maintained during the Council debate that ignoring youth is akin to ignoring history.  It’s certainly akin to ignoring skills and attitudes we will require in the future to overcome climate crisis, inequity and other discouragements. As Austria reminded delegations, young people are so rarely heard by decisionmakers, which sows suspicion.  As we seek to prevent terror recruitment and, as Pakistan noted, help direct the energy of youth to peaceful, productive ends, suspicion is the one thing we can most do without.

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Child’s Play:  The Security Council Seeks to Shelter Youngsters from Abusive Elders, Dr. Robert Zuber

29 Mar

In an earlier life when I was arrogant enough to fancy myself a philosopher, I was involved with a transnational group of scholars analyzing what it means to live in a world with children in it, the unique combination of gifts offered and responsibilities mandated that bring value and meaning to our otherwise emotion-starved lives. The ‘poster’ for this work came in the form of an old New Yorker cartoon in which a young girl – perhaps 6 or 7 – is pulling a wagon inside the chambers of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.  One of the generals seated on a dais looks down at the girl and asks a question that many of us might be inclined to ask but which also has enormous irony attached to it.

And what can the Joint Chiefs do for you today little one?

What indeed?  The ironies of this cartoon are at least two-fold:  First the assumption that children only ‘need’ us for things, that they are merely bundles of vulnerability that somehow find strength in the often-silly ‘uniforms,’ structures and speeches that we adults use to impress them.   And second, the assumption that ‘we’ have the wherewithal to deliver the goods for children, that we can somehow find the means to make the world ‘fit’ to sustain their normative and creative ambitions rather than leaving behind legacies of scarcity and violence that make the obsessive refuge of social media seem like a perfectly sane response to global circumstances.

On Wednesday, amidst a bevy of UN activity on sustainable development goals and targets, peacekeeping recommendations, ocean health and much more – all with ramifications for the safety and well-being of children —  the Security Council held an ‘open’ discussion on Children and Armed Conflict, with a specific focus on child recruitment perpetrated by ISIL and other terror groups.  As Council president for March, France organized the discussion and, it should be noted, was also instrumental in the early development of the thematic office of Children and Armed Conflict then run by Olara Otunnu and now by the Algerian Leila Zerrougui.

As with so many other crisis-laden conversations in Council chambers, this one combined frustration, sadness, righteous indignation, thoughtfulness and even some hopeful energy supplied by a former child soldier in DRC who has managed to thrive despite the horrors he endured, and perhaps even inflicted.  Needless to say, his story was heartwarming, though not necessarily representative.  Behind this ‘theme du jour’ lies the sober reality that so many children in this world may have already lost any meaningful chance to transition from violence-related trauma to creative engagement.  Urgings by Angola, Slovenia and other states for more psychological services for trauma-infected youth is wise policy, but with the caveat that, from a professional standpoint, the only certain way to address trauma successfully is to prevent its occurrence in the first place.

What there was little of during this Council discussion, thankfully, were facile recitations of the intrinsic value of education in countering planetary threats beyond what Lithuania and Save the Children referred to as the restoration of “normalcy” for victims.  Though this community often (and rightly) posits universal educational opportunity (especially at elementary and secondary levels) as one key to social stability and economic success, “getting ahead” in a world that seems to be slowly collapsing under its own hubris might not always be the most attractive option for children and youth, no matter how many school degrees (and school debts) they ultimately accumulate.

After all, what could children need from the adult world beyond the shaky promises of a sustainable future while conferring a bevy of expensive school diplomas representing a misleading assessment of their precious talents?  Isn’t that enough?

It’s not nearly enough.   Nor will solving ISIL’s forced recruiting and conversion madness, as important as that is, be enough.   As evil and civilization- threatening as ISIL and its ilk seems to be, it is not the only crisis for which we have deployed – and will deploy again – robust UN capacity. Nor are terrorists the only forces in the world inflicting suffering and future-deflating trauma on children.   Indeed, as SRSG Zerrougui noted, children are also victims of those of us responsible to protect them, agencies which at times have also demonstrably ‘fumbled the ball.’  Clearly, we have much work to do to ensure that our legacy for children is more hopeful and comprehensive than promoting school skills to help them navigate the coming wreckage.   We can and must do better than this.  As Malaysia and the Secretary General both reminded us, there are simply too many children in the world struggling to recover from the impact of “adult wars.” Too many of these children will simply not be able to handle the transition. The brutality of terrorists confers no plenary indulgences for our own transitional negligence.

As New Zealand sensibly noted this week, there is an irony to Council debates held in a windowless room far removed from any of the scenes of horror our resolutions seek to address.   For its part, Argentina asserted that ‘wisdom’ for dealing with our responsibilities to children is not something we’re born with, but rather something that we must practice with a prevention-oriented eye.   The world simply looks more manageable from the vantage point of a closed room full of overly-crafted policy positions no matter how many somber outside voices are invited to brief. As the human world gets younger, more restless, with values defined more by advertisers than by teachers, with youth more anxious about their collective future, and where stability in childhood is more and more elusive, we can’t jump to assumptions that our current protective preferences are in step with the long-term needs of future generations.  If we are to get in step, we’ll probably need to first ‘turn the heat down’ a bit, finding more time for consultation and prevention and earmarking fewer resources on reaction. We will also need to cultivate more measured wisdom to guide the urgent way forward, with less anger and moral righteousness. Adding a few more windows to the world – real and metaphorical – probably wouldn’t hurt either.

What can the Joint Chiefs, or the Security Council or the IMF do for you today little one?  Perhaps we can start by reminding ourselves of just how intolerable our adult lives would be without the presence of children in them. And once we accept the sublime gift that children represent, perhaps we can then accept the responsibility that the fields we so blithely cultivate now must have enough good soil left so that today’s children will have a realistic opportunity one day to plant and harvest for themselves.

Across programs and sectors, within and beyond the Security Council, the UN has many capable hands in this soil.   It’s incumbent on us to cultivate cooperatively, wisely and with greater earnestness. The children we neglect, abuse or even politicize today are much less likely to manage handling the sometimes grave challenges of their own adult lives.

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Extremism and Terrorism Response – Tools that Need Sharpening

22 Jun

Over this past week there have been a number of UN events aimed at reviewing global policy towards eliminating terrorism.  Obviously traditional approaches such the role of the intelligence community and state based military responses are key component of this discussion. Also of interest however were suggestions for a range of tools that can be used as complimentary measures for dealing with terrorism. These approaches seem to have the advantage of supporting good governance without losing focus on terrorism. In addition, these tools can help successfully address terror threats without strengthening military and intelligence capacities in countries where these institutions are not accountable or are actually a threat to democratic development.

Two themes that came to the fore were how the criminal justice system can be used in combating terrorism and how development and engagement strategies can help mitigate extremist rhetoric.

The latter topic was examined by the missions of Burkina Faso and Denmark as well as the Global Centre for Co-Operation, with a special focus on West African countries and the Sahel.  The meeting focused on the need for multilateral, multi-scale approaches that would help take more conventional development aid programs and orient them toward combating extremism. A key part of this effort, it was argued, was directing more resources towards women and youth. These groups were deemed particularly vulnerable to radical ideology and are target groups for recruitment. Suggested examples for these sectors include skills training, cultural activities and sports programs.

Beyond normal development aid it is also possible to create new programs that help to counter extremist rhetoric. Examples noted include implementation of inter-faith events, cultural exchanges, more creative use of local radio, and de-radicalisation programs in prisons. These initiatives all serve very specific policy ends and can be funded from within current aid packages although further negotiation is needed to increase the range and effectiveness of these programs.

Development itself is not a magic bullet for dealing with extremism, but must be complemented elsewhere. Civil society groups attending the session pointed to how early warning systems are being used effectively to monitor and assess the ‘temperature’ of political rhetoric.  One particular areas of concern:  Calls for the suspension of “terms limits” for government leaders in West Africa and the Sahel, they warned, are creating significant political instability and swelling the potential for increased extremism.

Another UN session organized by the Pakistani Mission explored judicial-legal contributions to countering terrorism. Institutions associated with law and courts are not always seen as useful in preventing terrorism, but rather as a reactive tool to investigate and prosecute once terrorist acts have been committed. This session showed ways that legal systems can be used within a broader policy framework to prevent terror incidents in the first place. One innovation highlighted methods to help encourage more effective communication between intelligence agencies and civil authorities, for instance in building frameworks to ensure inter-agency information privacy and processes to ensure that integrity of evidence. Unregulated, these systems tend to hinder effective joint action among diverse government agencies. Better co-operation can more effectively address some of the unsavory activities that enable terrorism, such as money laundering.

Also stressed was the need for trustworthy, transparent, accountable police services. One positive example cited was in Afghanistan where police engagement with communities regarding less serious security threats (such as traffic safety) has helped build the trusting relationships needed to counter larger threats, including terrorism.

Training was also cited as being very important for the criminal justice system as a whole. Potential avenues for innovation include the need for judges to understand the international law implications of their decisions; the police to have a more robust engagement with regard to the human rights aspects of their work; education focused on how to conduct safe, lawful surveillance; and the importance of assisting women to find their rightful places within the still male-dominated security sector.

None of this precludes the importance of traditional military-intelligence requirements for the combating of terrorism. The approaches outlined above however help prevent the overuse of more traditional solutions — the proverbial “hammer” that creates a “nail” out of every aspect of terrorism prevention.  Given more political will, innovative thinking, clever legal craft and some spin on traditional development activities, counter-terrorism and extremism measures can be improved without undermining measures to ensure more effective governance.

Benji Shulman, GAPW

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The Sixth Committee Talks Terrorism

10 Oct

The Sixth Committee (hereinafter 6C) of the General Assembly opened this week with measures to eliminate international terrorism as the first agenda item. The general discussion focused on a wide-range of issues, including support for the draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism and convening a high-level conference under UN auspices. Member states noted the significance of international law, especially international humanitarian law (IHL), international refugee law (IRL) and international human rights law (IHRL) in combating terrorism. In this regard, member states emphasized that terrorism is not affiliated with any particular race, ethnic group or religion, and a distinction should be made between terrorism and the legitimate struggle for people’s self-determination.

In addition, the importance of strong rule of law mechanisms was recognized as well as more attention on the financing of terrorism and ransom payments. References were also made to arms proliferation including support for the Arms Trade Treaty.  Moreover, welcomed attention was given not only to relevant General Assembly Resolutions, but to the Security Council and the sanctions committees, especially regarding the listing/de-listing process. Finally, Liechtenstein noted in its statement the complementarity between the work of the Security Council, General Assembly, the Secretariat and the contributions of the 6C therein. Given the forthcoming counterterrorism discussion in the GA plenary, Liechtenstein suggested that the 6C consider the terrorism agenda item on a biannual basis so as not to overlap with the GA’s agenda.

Procedurally, one of the main items considered in this agenda was the adoption of a working group, which ultimately failed to be adopted.

The General Assembly had recommended the creation of a working group in 2013 to both facilitate the drafting of a convention and carry on discussions about the high level conference.[i] The working group was also recommended by the ad hoc committee in its report to the 6C.[ii] The ad hoc committee was created in 1996 to “elaborate an international convention for the suppression of terrorist bombings” and nuclear terrorism; this would build on existing instruments and develop “a comprehensive legal framework of conventions dealing with international terrorism.”[iii] In 2000, the Committee’s mandate on the convention was extended and the conference was added as an agenda item “to formulate a joint organized response of the international community to terrorism.”[iv] In 2012, A/RES/67/99 extended the Committee’s mandate with a report due to the 68th session.[v]

The report provides draft text for the preamble and articles 1, 2, and 4-27, which address jurisdiction issues, conflict of laws, extradition, adopting relevant domestic legislation, etc.  Speaking as Vice Chair of the ad hoc committee, Guatemala noted that while the committee provided an opportunity to engage in discussions, they were not able to reach a conclusion. More political will is necessary to address the challenges. In its statement, South Africa raised concerns about continuing to hold meetings especially in instances when consensus has not been reached; nevertheless South Africa hopes that consensus will be facilitated before next year.

From the report, it appears that one of the outstanding issues surrounds the scope of the convention, including the definition of terrorism, the actions of the state military, and actions of “armed forces” vs. that of “parties,” etc.[vi] Regarding the conference, the objective is to increase political support for negotiation of the convention.[vii] While there doesn’t seem to be much opposition to the conference per se, there appears to be a preference among delegations to hold it after negotiations are completed.[viii]

Overall, most welcomed are the references to human rights especially since the right to self-determination is provided for in appropriate human rights instruments including the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, respectively. References to the ATT are of course welcomed, but it is important to also give attention to complementary instruments like the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms, which provides for commitments to eradicate, prevent and combat the illicit flow of small arms. Procedurally, it remains to be seen how this agenda item will develop and to what extent there will be more coordination and collaboration with the GA plenary.

–          Melina Lito, Legal Adviser on UN Affairs

ENDNOTES

[i] A/RES/67/99, OP.24.

[ii] A/68/37, para. 12.

[iii] A/RES/51/210, OP.9.

[iv] A/RES/54/110, OP. 12.

[v] A/RES/67/99, OP. 25 and 29.

[vi] A/68/37, para. 23-29.

[vii] A/68/37, para. 37.

[viii] A/68/37, para. 39.

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