Zawaya

Countering radical ideas by enhancing the well-being of the people

By: Abdelaziz Karraky

Experience from around the world has demonstrated that a security-based approach is not enough to counter terrorism. This phenomenon has ideological foundations that easily convince people, and is fueled by the widespread poverty and vulnerability that are usually used to attract recruits, especially when people become desperate and are convinced that their situation will never change, in which case despair peaks, and life loses meaning and value.

Fighting terrorism with force alone won’t help find effective solutions to eradicate it, especially when it’s about an organization like al-Qaeda, which turned from a physical entity that has a leader and leadership, into an ideology spreading worldwide. It has become easy for al-Qaeda to recruit ordinary people with limited education, convince them with a wrong perception of the self and the other, and delude them about the possibility of establishing an authority based on the atonement of the state and society, with no room for differences.

The Malian government realized that fighting al-Qaeda requires adopting an approach that the latter can’t use, i.e. sustainable development which remains the best way to challenge all threats posed to society.

When development relies on a participatory approach that turns citizens into partners who are capable of taking their own destiny in hand, it changes people’s perceptions about everything surrounding them. After satisfying all basic needs, people will seek well-being. The future will thus constantly bring new things, hope will replace despair, and people will cling to life.

Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations will then be in real trouble, because they won’t find anyone to recruit for their terrible plans, at which point resorting to military interventions will become rare.

Sahel and Maghreb governments need more than financial support and food aids; they need help to strengthen the capacity of their human resources and to improve the conditions of their societies. This requires investments focusing on quality education to train elites who believe in power alternation as a routine practice, and who adopt democracy as a concept allowing the coexistence of all trends and ideas, provided that these elites compete on development and the advancement of societies.

In 2005, when al-Qaeda was targeting various regions worldwide, Morocco launched the National Initiative for Human Development, which created a unique dynamic that adopted income-generating activities as a development approach, and gave vulnerable people a place in public policies. Transferring the Moroccan experience to the Sahel countries might surround terrorism with a development belt that promotes life instead of death.