De-programming militants

How to take the militancy out of militants has been an abiding question for many years — and there is no simple single answer. Militants become militants for a spectrum of reasons, but with an underlying commonality that means they can be addressed with some uniformity. With society in general having become both more intolerant as well as more tolerant of militant and extremist positions any attempt to counteract militant tendencies at an individual level is going to be an uphill task.



The latest effort in this direction is being made by the Counter-Terrorism Department of the Sindh police that has decided to attempt a comprehensive plan for the de-radicalisation of militants, some of them currently in custody, starting in the current month. It may be recalled that a similar project was set up in the Swat Valley after the fall of the Taliban regime there, and that it has had some partial success. A small team has been established made up of a forensic psychiatrist and a psychologist, a facilitator, a religious scholar and a member of the CTD itself. The composition is appropriate but the task is vast. They are impressionable young persons who were trained in Afghanistan but whose relatives had a hand in getting them to abandon their extremist ways and sought the help of the CTD. This is in itself an unusual set of circumstances.



How successful or otherwise the efforts of the team will be is dependent not so much on their professional skills as to whether what is known as the ‘generalisation of effect’ is sustained once the programme ends and the individuals are back in the wider society. There they will be surrounded by others who have not been de-programmed and who hold extremist or militant positions and views. It is of concern to note that funding for this work is being sought in the private sector, the federal or provincial governments apparently unwilling to pick up the tab. This is important work that may provide a template for de-radicalisation that is applicable nationally. In big-picture terms it will cost peanuts and may be a wise investment. So pay up.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 3^rd, 2017.

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