DE-RADICALIZATION OF EXTREMISTS
Homegrown violent extremists are individuals or groups of people who justify, support, encourage, or endorse violence or criminal actions against the public to gain their economic, religious, political, social, and ideological goals. Majorly, the homegrown violent extremists are the Western country citizens or the people who are legally permitted to reside in a country for a long-term period and have come to oppose the country’s norms, beliefs, cultures, and values. In the United States of America, the extremist is citizens by birth, naturalized, long-term resides, green card holders, international students, and illegal immigrants.
Extremists’ threat has imposed an excellent task to the authorities concerned in finding the most appropriate ways of countering the homegrown violence. One of the methods is ensuring that the judiciary follows the legal and correct procedures that respect and protect the human rights of the individuals facing judgment and prosecution. Again, reducing the perceptions of injustices caused by corrupt governments brings about equality, hence creating peace and stability. Improving the lives of potential extremists such as the youths through education and access to job opportunities significantly lower homegrown violent extremists’ rate. The possible extremist should again be involved in decision-making by creating a platform to air the views; their opinions should be considered severe. They are strengthening the relationships between the authorities and the people. Embracing the dialogue between the different groups of people builds trust and fosters peace and unity in societies. Promoting gender equality by offering equal chances and opportunities to all genders (Tibbitts, 2020) Using the media services in responding against the language used by the extremists and preaching on the needs to upheld social cohesion, tolerance, and human rights. They promote the understanding and tolerance of different ethnicities, genders, religions, and lifestyles of global citizens in schools.
The problem of homegrown violent extremists has two ways of solving it; one way is through de-radicalization and countering of which both have disparities. De-radicalization homegrown violent extremist involves trying to disengage the extremists who have already adopted the virtues of radicalization—one the other hand, countering extremist consists of preventing extremists from conducting or acting violently. Again, the de-radicalization process is targeted mostly at the convict criminals of terrorism in prisons to disengage them from radicalization. While countering extremists is directed at homegrown violent extremists to deter them from waging violent actions on the public (Chemey, 202), De-radicalization on the homegrown violent extremists is a peaceful process which involves professionals approaching inmates to discuss on disengagements from possible radicalization. Countering the homegrown extremists may involve a confrontation where the extremist is subjected to the law to prevent the attacks or violence from occurring.
In my opinion, the courses of homegrown violent extremists in our societies are a wide field of study that requires much attention from all the world’s nations and the authorities concerned. It ranges from discriminations, misunderstandings, segregations, and inequalities. Therefore, to prevent the actions from often occurring, the world’s leaders should ensure that all rights of individuals, especially the less fortunate in society, should be given at least a different treatment to create the comfort of equality in our communities. Religious leaders again should arrange for an international conference of religious leaders worldwide to discuss their disparities and come to a mutual agreement on how they are going to exist and relate to society.
References
Cherney, A. (2020). Evaluating interventions to disengage extremist offenders: a study of the proactive, integrated support model (PRISM). Behavioral sciences of terrorism and political aggression, 12(1), 17-36.
Tibbitts, F. L. (2020). Deliberative democratic decision making, universal values, and cultural pluralism: A proposed contribution to preventing violent extremism through education. Prospects, 48(1-2), 79-94.