Community resilience

Extremism is the deadliest emerging threat to global security, rights, peace, well-being, and sustainability. The rise in extremism in various regions of the world is caused by inequalities and an increase in sentiments of intolerance toward marginalized populations.

Pakistan ranks third in extreme violence and terrorism worldwide. The recent rise in violent extremism in Pakistan is affecting the country’s rich, pluralistic, and cultural ethos.

People can radicalize towards violent extremism in a variety of ways and at different levels. Violent extremism is influenced by several institutional, psychological, and socio-economic factors. ‘Push factors’ such as marginalization, inequality, discrimination, a sense of persecution, a lack of education, the denial of rights, and other complaints cause people to become violent extremists.

‘Pull factors’ such as well-organized violent extremist groups that offer services, income and jobs draw people to violent extremism. In addition, the extremist groups claim to provide ‘a place to belong’ and a positive environment to radicalize the people towards violent extremism. Since extremist groups are a part of and interact with the communities, they try to radicalize and take advantage of the situation. Furthermore, problems in rule of law, issues of corruption, education system, and criminality are examples of contextual variables that foster the growth of violent extremist groups.

Organizations engaged in community engagement-based countering violent extremism (CVE) programmes are crucial to maintaining peace and harmony in these communities. Until you are rooted in these communities, it is impossible to resolve these problems inside the community through building resilience.

Community resilience is the ability of a community, state, people, or region to adopt new norms, new processes, and strategies for conducting their lives and new societal relationships in response to violent shock or uptick in aggression and brutality to prevent, mitigate or recover from violence. Community resilience cannot be possible without community engagement. Community resilience refers to a network of interrelated systems, including the socioeconomic, ecological, and constructed environments that directly impact human society at the local level.

Many experts have talked about the issue of violent extremism and shed light on the focus to counter violent extremism, but a sustainable approach is needed. Violent extremism is a persistent threat to peace and sustainable development. It is not only a societal issue but a development issue as well. Furthermore, the role of parents is highly affected in the proliferation and prevention of violent extremism, especially the influence of mothers’ thinking on children’s understanding of society and extremism.

The first step in reducing violent extremism is frequently ensuring security, but this is not a sustainable approach. Countering violent extremism/PCVE is generally seen within the security paradigm, but it is also important within politics, policy, and governance. Somehow, they all are connected. Steps that can be taken; prevention or preventing the next crisis by focusing on the root causes, moving from reactive to proactive, proactive policies or interventions can deal with potential conflicts. This is possible through community engagement.

Unlike the traditional security approach, a people-centric approach must be taken for sustainable peace and development. Dealing with structural violence is key. Only physical violence won’t help. We must act on the group that is threatening the state. The reasons behind this are deprivation and frustration.

PCVE needs a separate model as well as a stable political environment. People feel or must feel a sense of belonging. Comprehensive security is where people have a sense of belonging and have people participate. Evaluating the impact is crucial to understand what does and what has to be done. In evaluating CVE programmes, we need to look across individual projects at a larger level. Developing local reform is important. Contextual knowledge and information are very important. It is needed to address fundamental issues and a peace-education framework in a curriculum needs to be introduced. Long-term effects need to be considered. Political extremism is also contributing to making a society.

Prevention is essential to combat the causes of violent extremism, and education is the foundation of prevention. Academia has a significant responsibility to prevent violent extremism. It can address the injustices that give rise to violent extremism and supports students in making responsible choices. Action at the educational level is required to create a successful preventative strategy. Inclusiveness is necessary for students to have a feeling of belonging and respect for differences.

We need resilience to increase students’ abilities to endure difficulties and challenges. We require processes to respond to the needs of those in danger. Civic education would help resilience in understanding. Civic engagement and education both are part of community resilience. For interventions to be effective and comprehensive, partnerships between educational institutions and the community are required. As the nature of extremism is very dynamic, partnership with academia is very important for devising policies.

Communities and the problems they face are becoming more and more complicated as there are other more frequent and expensive natural and human-caused disasters that affect communities. Climate change and disaster also lead to violent extremism as they are interlinked with each other. To combat these risks, we need a strategy that integrates climate resilience and community resilience as well. To reduce the harmful effects of disasters, communities must focus on improving their daily well-being.

Community resilience building is crucial to lessen the communities’ vulnerability to threats from violent extremism. Such resilience can be strengthened by education, community engagement, and trust-building. Community engagement and community participation are needed for more sustainable and resilient outcomes. Resilient communities enjoy high levels of trust and engagement throughout ethnic, religious, and generational groupings throughout society.

The writer is a project assistant at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Islamabad.