‘Get terror victims to tell their stories’

STRATEGY: Sympathy for victims can turn public perception around, says DPM

DEPUTY Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has called for victims of terrorism to be given a platform to share stories of their suffering to defeat extremists and the Islamic State (IS).

Making his closing speech at the inaugural Kuala Lumpur International Youth (KLIYD) dialogue here yesterday, Zahid said he believed such a move would deter the public from supporting terrorist activities.

“The strength of a terrorist organisation, like Daesh (IS), is that they present themselves as an underdog.

“Their argument is that they are fighting against a globally capitalist and systematically corrupt world order.

“We must intervene and put forward the stories of the victims of terrorism. We need to flip the stories and present the victims as the true underdog and as the oppressed,” said Zahid, who is also home minister.

Quoting prominent British lawyer Jason McCue, Zahid said one of the best mechanisms to combat the appeal of extremism was to focus on the victims of terrorism.

“These are the people who can advocate how terrible terrorism can be. Their scars and stories become the epitome of everything extremists don’t want to show to those they are trying to lure.”

He said when the same strategy was used against the Real Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1998, the armed movement suffered a fall in recruitment and subsequently stopped their bombing attacks.

“The victims of terrorism essentially haunted the terrorist organisation to its eventual failure,” said Zahid.

He said the strategy was evident in daily life through the government’s health campaigns.

“For our international delegates and speakers, you might realise that when you buy a pack of cigarettes, you see what smoking does to your body via the pictures on the pack.

“In schools, kids listen to seminars by former drug addicts. They listen to how lives and families were ruined because of drug addiction.”

Zahid called for greater cooperation between the government and youth to implement the strategy successfully.

Your experiences in mobilising a movement on the ground and directly for the people are the expertise we need to fight extremism.

“In talking about extremism, we must start locally. We need to bring together more leaders of communities, mosques, churches, businesses and the non-governmental organisations.”

Zahid said society needed to shed its traditional perception of terrorism, and that extremists could not be defeated by physical force alone.

“As we have seen with the United States’ longest ongoing war in Afghanistan, this shortfall in our perception can have catastrophic outcomes.

“The problem today is that terrorists get replaced by smarter ones, people who learn from their predecessors’ mistakes. If we take one out, others will replace him.

“The terrorists only need to be lucky once, while our security forces need to be lucky all the time.”

Zahid said while the fight against extremism on social media proved effective, there was a need to unite peoples through dialogue.

“Now is the time for us to go beyond social media. No matter how many people you reach in your dialogues, there will be a silent majority that is not being tapped into.”

Zahid launched the You Act Foundation, an organisation that pulls together youths to combat crime and to move beyond Malaysia’s border into the Asean region.

The one-day KLIYD forum held yesterday was to discuss new approaches to tackle extremism.