COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN THE MENA REGION: TIME TO RETHINK APPROACHES AND STRATEGIES**

Transcription

1 No May 2016 COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN THE MENA REGION: TIME TO RETHINK APPROACHES AND STRATEGIES** Moussa Bourekba* Introduction *Researcher, Project Manager for SAHWA, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs **The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/ under grant agreement n for the SAHWA Project ( EUROMESCO BRIEF 1

2 Evidence and Analysis Figure 1: Foreign fighters by region Source: The Soufan Group Report, Foreign Fighters: An Updated Assessment of the Flow of Foreign Fighters into Syria and Iraq, December EUROMESCO BRIEF 2 2

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4 Soft Policies: The Limits of the Security-Oriented Approach Radicalisation of Islam vs. Islamisation of Radicalism: De-islamising Approaches to VE EUROMESCO BRIEF 4 4

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6 Figure 2: Do you trust the following institutions? Source: SAHWA Youth Survey 2015/2016 (Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon). 1 1 Preliminary Results from the SAHWA Youth Survey 2015/2016 (Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon). The SAHWA Project is an FP-7 Project led by the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and funded by the European Commission. It brings together 15 partners from Europe and Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries to research youth prospects and perspectives in a context of multiple transitions in Arab countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon. Further information can be found at this link: EUROMESCO BRIEF 6

7 EUROMESCO BRIEF 7 Local Level Focus: A Decisive Scale for the Success of Soft Strategies

8 From Short-Term to Long-Term Strategies: Towards Multidimensional Approaches Analysing Pull Factors: a Window of Opportunity for CVE Strategies EUROMESCO BRIEF 8

9 EUROMESCO BRIEF 9 CVE in the Youth Agenda: The Need for Integrated Strategies

10 Figure 3: What are the three main problems facing your country in the near future? Source: SAHWA Youth Survey 2015/2016 (Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon). Violent Extremism as a Form of Political Engagement EUROMESCO BRIEF 10

11 Unemployment: At the Heart of Violent Extremism? the Observatoire du Nord des droits de l homme 2 In Libya, Daesh occupied Syrte, a region rich in oil... in the middle of the country to sell oil. These are considerable amounts of money. They give each recruited young person up to 30 or 40 thousand dinars per month, in addition, to support their families... It is normal that young people are tempted by terrorism, a 26- year-old Tunisian said (SAHWA Ethnographic Fieldwork, TN_LS_3). 3 There are young people who get to such a state of despair that they choose one of the two, as for the one who chooses neither one nor the other you ought to know that he has a certain degree of awareness that protects him!, a young Tunisian said (SAHWA Ethnographic Fieldwork TN_LS_1). EUROMESCO BRIEF 11

12 Figure 4: Youth Unemployment in the MENA Region Source: ILO, Trends Econometric Models, April The charts depict the evolution of global and regional unemployment rates between 2008 and 2014 as well as unemployment rate projections for 2015 to Projections are presented in the form of a fan chart, indicating the probability of various outcomes for the unemployment rates. Each shade of the fans corresponds to a third of the confidence interval around the central projection. EUROMESCO BRIEF 12

13 EUROMESCO BRIEF 13 Policy Implications and Recommendations

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15 Bibliography Spread of Nationalism. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Why Men Rebel. Le Monde. EUROMESCO BRIEF 15

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