Between
October 18th and 21st, Rutgers University convened an
international symposium, “Youth and the Allure of Terrorism: Identity,
Recruitment and Public Diplomacy.” Sponsored
by the Office of the New Brunswick Chancellor, Dr. Richard L. Edwards, on behalf of President Robert
Barchi’s “First 100
Days Initiative of the Rutgers University Strategic Plan,”
the symposium brought together internationally recognized religious leaders, academicians,
and youth activists from around the world to discuss the conceptual, empirical and
policy challenges in understanding the role of identity, gender, recruitment
and political economy in the spread of terrorism in the contemporary world.
nvolving more than 60 participants
and dozens of guests from the US and around the world, we knew that it would
generate a tremendous amount of energy. Having
attended many conference in which the enthusiasm dissipates soon after the
participants return to their respective professional positions, we scheduled a Planning
Session immediately following the close of the symposium. The outcome of the Planning Session was a multi-year
project, “Youth and Combating Radical Extremism in the 21st Century.”
This was no ordinary academic conference. Rather than limiting ourselves to academics,
we invited youth activists from a number of countries who are working against
intolerance. We also invited Muslim, Jewish
and Christian clerics and religious scholars to participate in an inter-faith
dialogue.
The two part panel, which met
Tuesday afternoon from 1 to 5 p.m., was entitled “Inter-Faith Roundtable on the
Role of Religion in Combating Radical Extremism among Youth.”
All Roundtable participants agreed
that religious leaders have failed to make religion relevant to large segments
of the world’s youth. All decried the
efforts of terrorist groups and many regimes in the Middle East to manipulate
religion for sectarian ends which serve create instability and are designed to
cover up state corruption, nepotism and
the lack of social services.
The symposium also offered panels on
identity issues which propel certain youth demographics to become attracted terrorist
and radical extremist organizations such as Boko Haram and the so-called
Islamic State (Dacsh), and a panel on recruitment which analyzed the
patterns which characterize youth joining terrorist groups.
In light of the extremely repressive
policies of terrorist organizations toward women, another panel examined the
manner in which women are conceptualized and treated by such organizations. The brutality shown towards women, such as
the Chibook female students in Nigeria and Yazidi and Christian women in Iraq
and Syria, was the focus of a number of presentations. Panelists pointed to the
lure of sexual exploitation and sex trafficking which terrorist groups use to
recruit male fighters and the manner in which such groups generate dogma which
they claim to be “Islamic” but which runs completely counter to the doctrine of
Islam.
One of the themes emphasized in all
three panels on identity, recruitment and the gender politics of terrorist
organizations was the marginalization and insecurity felt by many male youth
who join terrorist organizations and rarely include topics other than the sciences
and math in their education. The lack of any encounter with the arts, social
sciences or humanities fails to encourage any critical thinking.
