Features
Radicalisation returns to focus in wake of M-E violence cycle
UNICEF has done well to point out the toll the endemic Middle East conflict is taking on the region’s children in particular. The organization indicates that just a few weeks into the New Year, seven Palestinian children and an Israeli child have lost their lives in the violence, while it has either maimed or injured scores of other children.
Such disquieting information needs to be seen as yet another ‘wake-up call’ to the international community that the vicious circle of violence and counter-violence in the region cannot be allowed any more to perpetuate itself indefinitely. For that matter, the world community could no longer afford to turn a blind eye on the scores of other such wasting conflicts the world over. The fact that these conflicts are mainly identity-based should not be lost sight of.
The young boy who opened fire on the Israeli worshippers would have undoubtedly had his handlers and terror mentors, but the truth that stares the world in the face is that impressionable, malleable minds could be influenced into carrying out grave hate crimes with least effort by those sections that have a vested interest in keeping armed conflicts raging.
That is, the radicalization of the consciousness or the converting of mindsets into accepting extremist thinking and ideologies would not prove long drawn out amid conditions of war and conflict. The process is quicker in the case of impressionable minds and it is not only young, unexposed minds that are thus malleable. However, the risks are greater with children. We in Sri Lanka are no strangers to this phenomenon. The LTTE had a ‘Baby Brigade’ which apparently consisted of youth and even children.
There is no arguing the fact that it is the militarization of mindsets or the radicalization of the human consciousness, whether the persons concerned are young or old that proves decisive in the continuation of war and conflict. Accordingly, the UN in particular, has its work cut out in this connection. It will need to redouble efforts to bring peace to the ‘Killing Fields’ of the world and ensure the protection of minds from the devastating results of war.
There is no denying that difficult, uphill challenges await the peace maker. Changing mindsets and attuning them to peaceful ways of resolving conflicts is an arduous, often frustrating task, particularly if identity issues are at the heart of these troubles. A bomb attack on a mosque in Peshawar a couple of days back which claimed more than 32 lives and injured more than 150 others freshly underscores the enormity of these challenges. Reports indicate that the attack was carried by religious fundamentalists and here we have proof of the decisive nature of identity questions.
In the Middle East conflict, identity, no less than land, has proved crucial in its perpetuation over the decades. Unfortunately there are demagogues and political entrepreneurs on both sides of the divide who keep the problem alive and intractable by playing on the religious and cultural sensitivities of the communities concerned. This amounts to ‘playing with TNT’ and Sri Lankans are quite familiar with the grave dangers attendant on this process of governments in particular callously disregarding the sensitivities of minority communities. The inevitable result is national disunity.
The sensitivities at the heart of the Middle East problem are of such complexity that the international community could only look forward to managing it better in the short and medium terms. But right now carrying out the latter task too could prove arduous in view of the fact that the leadership on both sides of Israeli-Palestinian divide could find it difficult to arrive at any common ground of understanding, on the basis of which negotiations towards a political solution could take place. The current security issues faced by both sides could minimize the possibility of such common ground being carved out.
As some sections have pointed out, we have in Israel at the moment an ultra-Right government which may consider it obligatory to pander to hard line domestic sentiment on the gut issues in the conflict. For example, the likelihood is great that the Netanyahu government would open up new Israeli settlements in the contested territories, now that it could make out that expanded settlements are the answer to increasing militant attacks on Israeli civilians.
It is not clear as to how successful an US intervention could be at the moment in narrowing the differences between the principal antagonists in the Middle East imbroglio. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was in Israel in the aftermath of the recent militant attack on Israeli worshippers and he did well to remind both sides of the need to respect each other’s fundamental rights, including the right to observe one’s religion without hindrance.
However, the prime project in peace-building in the Middle East is the realization of the ‘Two State solution’ in the region. The latter would prove pivotal in rendering the conflict manageable to a degree. The principal challenge is to demarcate the land boundaries of two states wherein the Israelis and Palestinians could live side-by-side and preserve their separate national identities and cultures. Thus, the harmful impact of identity issues in the relations between the Palestinians and Israelis could be minimized.
The US and other international stakeholders would need to redouble their efforts to make some progress towards the ‘Two State Solution’. Besides, the US is obliged to ensure that the opening of new Israeli settlements is contained to the extent possible; since land is a flash point in the conflict.
The above prime tasks would need to be achieved with the least delay in view of the fact that day-by-day the hostility between the conflicting sides in the Middle East is aggravating. On both sides, militant mindsets are increasing and hardening and this must be contained if peace in the region is to be rendered achievable.