Strategic rehab
Rehabilitation for Marawi City requires a lot of work. A holistic approach aimed at preventing violent extremism (PVE) is needed. What is PVE? Before we define it, let us first look at violent extremism. At the Al Qalam Institute of the Ateneo de Davao University, we learned that it is not easy to define “violent extremism.” Andrew Glazzard and Martine Zeuthen note that “violent extremism” is rarely defined: neither the United Nations nor the European Union has an official definition.
Andrew Glazzard is Director of National Security and Resilience Studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security (RUSI). Martine Zeuthen is an anthropologist and CVE consultant currently working for RUSI on an EU- funded CVE program in the Horn of Africa.
USAID defines it as, “advocating, engaging in, preparing for, or otherwise supporting ideologically motivated or justified violence to further social, economic or political objective.” But Glazzard and Zeuthen said that the “apparently simple and obvious statement conceals a great deal of controversy and uncertainty.”
I agree because because there may be two sides of the coin. In the eyes of the Maute Group, they are fighting for a “justified cause” and for the Bangsamoro people’s grievances.
And does violent extremism always have to be ideological? Can it be criminal, or even purposeless? Is “violent extremism” merely a synonym for “terrorism”? More fundamentally, are terms like “extremism” relative – in which case does “violent extremism” mean different things to different people?
These are not merely academic questions: what we call a phenomenon helps determine how we see it and what we do in response to it. The United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) emphasizes that violent extremism affects all the four core areas -- peace and security, humanitarian assistance, human rights and development, of the work of the Unoted Nations. Therefore, all parts of the UN System have to work together on this issue.
A holistic approach to rehabilitate Marawi City will also require international cooperation and plan of action. These are crucial and necessary to achieve lasting impact on the ground and in helping the around 300,000 internally displaced persons.
In rehabilitating Marawi City, our government must come up with a concrete plan of action that provides a new framework to tackle violent extremism through preventive measures by addressing the drivers of violent extremism. These drivers of VE comes from grievances of the Bangsamoro people.
The following are the suggested priority areas for concrete action: (1) Dialogue and conflict prevention; (2) Strengthening good governance, human rights and the rule of law; (3) Engaging communities; (4) Empowering youth;(5) Gender equality and empowering women; (6) Education, skill development and employment facilitation; (7) Strategic communications, the Internet and social media.
While focusing on having the Enhanced Bangsamoro Basic Law 2017 passed in Congress, concrete and comprehensive PVE work is necessary not only in Mindanao, but also the whole country where we have different peace processes simultaneously happening.--