From FT reports that a secular girl, born and bred in Paris, with penchant for booze is linked with Paris attacks, who also became Europe’s first suicide bomber in Europe during a search operation in suburb of Paris, it is increasingly becoming clear that youth living like rats with no hope and no meaning or value in their lives are vulnerable to and are easy exploit for ‘jihadi hunters’ who use Islamic doctrines to bring meaning, purpose and hope in their lives.
At one end of the spectrum there is a need to address the issue of jihad [1][2] philosophically, while at the other end communities which are living at the bottom of the social heap with nothing to look forward to, needs to be given opportunities and hope, to thrive, not merely, to survive.
Responsibility to garner consensus among scholars lie on governments, by providing enabling environment through regulation of Madaris (religious schools) and facilitation of interdisciplinary dialogue within academia, of Muslim countries. And then onus of its aggressive disseminationdown to common man in communities is on the shoulders of opinion makers and media in these nations.
However, to build hope to blossom, in marginalized communities in Muslim, as well as in Western countries, Europeans and Americans have to come forward to do their bit. Not only funds for new infrastructural projects like in FATA, Iraq and elsewhere would be needed, but technical expertise would also be required to build indigenous solutions to help the local population build a future for themselves and their children. White man’s burden could not be lessened by merely accepting their omissions and commissions and helping here and there.
Just as an example: 1.2 million people have died only in Iraq! The infrastructure is in dilapidated state, the institutions have crumbled and to build them anew would require a lot of effort. Accepting refugees is not the solution to the problem as complex as this. Immigrations, otherwise also have not helped to lessen the poverty, as Roy Beck of NumbersUSA puts forth in one of his convincing presentations. It has only exacerbated the poverty stricken societies’ plight by facilitating brain drain! Therefore a more appropriate strategy would be to build capacity i.e. to train people in different trades, to give/offer more bursaries in educational programs and then to send them back with the local governments and or NGOs to uplift the local population and/or institutions. Monitoring their progress with intermittent trainings and feedbacks can be a force multiplier in this undertaking. Of course, legislature, law enforcing agencies and intelligence communities around the globe needs to continue their efforts alongside.
Not coming out of terrorism’s conundrum is not an option as economic cost of terrorism may not only be difficult to assess, but may gradually also become unbearable for this ‘global village’ despite its apparent boost to war economy of certain states.
Thus the war against terror has to be a global effort in which states, communities, religious scholars, teachers, soldiers, opinion makers and perhaps people at large have to synergize to extinguish the fire of hate lest it engulfs the humanity rendering the planet uninhabitable!