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| India-Pakistan |
| Tailors and terrorists |
| 2015-08-05 |
| [DAWN] LAST week, a news crew was permitted access to a "de-radicalisation" centre in Bara, in the now long embattled northwest of the country. It was a supervised tour, in which officials of the Pak military who run the centre, shared information about how 400 former murderous Moslem soldiers are being de-radicalised. After taking the youngsters out of the battlefield, the facility provides them with psychological counseling and an education in Islamic history among other subjects, as well as training in technical skills such as tailoring, mobile phone repair and the welding of furniture. The last, it is hoped, will allow them to avail of options other than militancy once their time at the centre is over. The effort at rehabilitating snuffies by the Pak military is a commendable one; as the military spokesperson quoted in the report said, the boys that are housed at the facility were fighting the Pak military mere weeks before they ended up at the centre. They are in this sense a rare bunch: those who have willingly put down arms and are choosing now to pursue an education. When they leave, they will still face many enemies who are angry at them for putting down their weapons and taking up with the government forces. Bringing the concept of de-radicalisation, a process whose theorising and study commands many millions in the industrialised West, to Pakistain -- the continuing target of terrorism-related violence -- is an interesting one. In the years since 9/11 and the commencement of the 'war on terror', a vast number of think tanks and policy centres staffed by ever-growing battalions of terror and radicalisation experts have proliferated in the West. As countries like Somalia, Pakistain and Nigeria suffer the weight and casualties of terror's terrible cost, these centres have from afar and at times via enterprising expatriates from terrorism-struck countries come up with varying theories of de-radicalisation. The larger the budget afforded by the government of this or that industrialised state, the more extended the theory explaining what exactly happens to the naïve recruit taken in by this or that terror group. The success of actually being able to predict terrorist inclinations is not crucial to their task; more important is cashing in on an ever lucrative industry borne of a suspicious West looking eastward on the wanting rest. |
| Posted by:Fred |