Violent extremism stands out as one of the major problems experienced in the modern society. It involves the use of ideologically driven violence meant to propagate far-reaching religious or political views. A few of the things that have contributed to violent extremism in the modern society include discrimination and inequality. The internet has been identified as one of the key tools used by violent extremist groups to advance their ideology. These groups, for instance, use the social media to recruit members and also to offer misleading information (Khader, 2016). Violent extremism needs to be combated to prevent the loss of lives that is currently being witnessed.
Behaviors that Suggest Radicalization
One of the behaviors that indicate an individual has been radicalized is a sudden break up with family members. The breakup with family members may be evidenced through such things as failing to eat together during meal time. Radicalized family members choose to spend time alone in their bedrooms. For those living in far places, these individuals stop calling their family members. The reason behind this is increased dedication into reading violent extremist ideologies. Typically, there are violent extremist groups that disburse reading materials aimed at attracting and persuading followers (Rankin, 2012). The reading materials are usually distributed in the form of soft copies.
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Other than the sudden breakup with family members, individuals that have been radicalized abruptly drop out of school. Some extremist groups tell their followers that the purpose of school is to distract them from fighting for their views. The followers respond by dropping out of school. The time that they could have spent in school is dedicated to the violent extremist groups and their ideologies. The willingness to drop out of school is so strong to the extent that no amount of advice is sometimes able to persuade the students to rethink their decision (Khader, 2016). Not even parents can convince the young people that drop out of school for violent extremism reasons.
Another behavior which indicates that an individual has been radicalized is a change in attitude towards others. What normally happens is that an individual that has been radicalized begins to hate other people. The people here could be individuals coming from a different community. The previous attitude that an individual has been having towards the same group does not matter after being radicalized. It is possible for an individual that loved members of a particular community to turn against them. The same case applies to friends (Rankin, 2012). It is easy for an individual that has been radicalized to turn against friends.
Strategies that Can Help Combat Violent Extremism
Just to begin with, violent extremism can be solved by encouraging people to question the lawfulness and appeal of extremist beliefs. In any case, ideology is encouraging people to kill other individuals that hold different views; members of the society can be asked to judge the actions on the law basis. Given the fact that there is no law that allows a person to kill another, this will be a good reason for the people to realize that the ideology that is being propagated is wrong (Khader, 2016). The people will be self-driven into doing what is right as per the law.
The second strategy that can help address violent extremism is promoting good interpersonal skills. Members of the society should be encouraged to see each other as friends. A perception such as this will prevent any form of negative towards other members from developing. One of the things that contribute to violence extremism is viewing others as being different. The view that all members of the society are one will help promote unity. There will be no group in the society that will view itself as being superior to the other (Rankin, 2012). All groups in the community will view each other as being equal.
Speaking of communication, fostering good communication skills can be a good strategy towards solving the problem of violent extremism. How people interact with each other determines the type of relationship that they have. A society whose members observe courtesy during communication are more likely to have a positive interpersonal relationship than that whose people don’t observe courtesy. To influence the people to communicate, respectively, it is important to educate them on how to perceive others. The benefits of education are that it will change the way of thinking (Khader, 2016). The manner of acting towards other people will change as a result of a changed manner of thinking.
The fourth strategy that can help address violent extremism is advocating for dialogue. The first step towards a dialogue should be to notify the warring parties. The parties need to be asked to propose key agendas that they want to be discussed during the meeting. This is especially in the case of inequality. After notifying the warring parties about the meeting, the next step should be to carry out the dialogue. When carrying out the dialogue, process, each of the parties should be given time to present their case (Rankin, 2012). The mediator should be tried as much as possible to be neutral. After the presentation of the case. Each party should be asked to compromise to bring about peace.
Fifth, the problem of violent extremism can be addressed to encourage people to be resilient. People need to be told about the importance of mastering their lives. To master personal life here means not allowing other people to exert their influence on individual life. To be more specific, personal mastery in respect to violent extremism refers to the act of failing to accept the ideologies that are being promoted by the violent extremist groups (Khader, 2016). The importance of rejecting violent extremism ideology is that it discourages the people trying to promote the idea from continuing with the promotion.
Other than encouraging resilience, violent extremism can be addressed by asking people to critically investigate extremist claims. It is important to sometimes to allow the people to subject the idea that is being presented to them to reason. When being told to avoid accepting a given violent extremism ideology, some people think that they are being prevented from the truth that is in the violent extremism ideology. Allowing the people to determine for themselves that there is no truth behind the violent extremist ideology makes them take personal measures in discouraging it (Rankin, 2012). The effort of ending the problem becomes the concern of every member.
Additionally, violent extremism can be addressed by separating facts from rumors. One of the things that violent extremist groups use to persuade people into accepting their ideas is rumors. Most of the rumors spread as so appealing to the extent that many people are made to believe them. Law enforcement agencies hardly control the spread of rumors since they are spread through social networking sites. People accept rumors because they are not able to identify that the ideas being presented to them are not true (Khader, 2016). Training them on how to detect false information will enable them to reject any fake information that will be presented to them.
To conclude, violent extremists need to be combated to prevent the loss of lives that is currently being witnessed. Some of the behaviors that indicate an individual has been radicalized include sudden break up with family members and abrupt drop out from school. Another behavior which indicates that an individual has been radicalized is a change in attitude towards others. Violent extremism can best be solved by encouraging people to question the lawfulness and appeal of extremist beliefs or advocating for dialogue. Each party should be asked to compromise to bring about peace.
References
Khader, M. (Ed.). (2016). Combating violent extremism and radicalization in the digital era . IGI Global.
Rankin, G. T., & Cowen, K. M. (2012). Muslims in Europe: Integration and Counter-extremism Efforts . Nova Science Publishers.
