Farewell to official who built bridges with US Muslims
COMINGS AND GOINGS IN THE US ADMINISTRATION
A senior US federal official who led efforts to counter violent extremism has resigned amid concerns about the Trump administration’s attitude towards terrorism and Muslims.
The departure of George Selim, who served under three presidents, was immediately welcomed by right-wing commentators who saw him as a holdover from former president Barack Obama’s administration and accused him of funnelling government money to conservative Muslim groups in the United States.
But others praised Mr Selim’s work with community organisations and said that his departure was a sign of a disconnect between Washington and Muslim Americans.
As such his resignation illustrates the state of the debate over programmes to counter violent extremism (CVE), as US politicians seek the best way to prevent vulnerable people becoming radicalised.
“There were clearly political appointees in this administration who didn’t see the value of community partnerships with American Muslims,” Mr Selim said, after details of his resignation surfaced.
For the past two years, he served as director of the office of community partnerships at the department ofhHomeland security. He was also head of the federal task force on violent estremism. His work came under intense scrutiny by the Trump administration and some congressional Republicans who wanted the programmes to focus on law enforcement rather than community outreach.
When Donald Trump took office, reports suggested officials were planning to change the name of the programme to “countering Islamic extremism” to reverse what they saw as a policy mired in political correctness. As part of the reorganisation of the programme, it will no longer target white supremacist groups.
In May, the White House said it would cut CVE’s $50 million (Dh183m) budget to zero next year. It also froze $10m in grants for 31 organisations tackling extremism.
Several Muslim groups dropped out. When the reassessed funding was announced, most beneficiaries were police forces, sheriff’s offices and other groups with a law enforcement element.
That appeared to reflect the thinking of hardline figures in the administration such as Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, whose uncompromising Islamaphobic views made him an outsider among terrorism researchers becoming deputy assistant to the president.
In March, he that previous efforts to prevent radicalisation were misguided, dismissing the programmes as “jobs for jihadis”.
“If poverty and lack of education were the cause of terrorism then half of India would be terrorists,” he said.
Professionals working in the field admit there are deep divisions about how best to thwart extremist recruiters. Some Muslim campaigners also believe that CVE programmes are used for surveillance.
Jessica Stern, a terrorism expert and part of a team at Harvard’s School of Public Health investigating the effect of such interventions, pointed out that since 9/11 almost 75 per cent of deadly attacks have been carried out by white supremacists, anti-government and neo-Nazi groups, although jihadi groups have killed more victims.
She said: “According to research by George Washington University, about one third of American recruits to jihadi groups are converts – we’re not going to get to those kids if our CVE policies target Muslim communities.”
Farah Pandith, who served as the first special representative to Muslim communities and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said power alone was not enough. Defeating extremist groups meant thwarting recruiting efforts by taking them on in a war of ideas.
“The form that we take with our strategy to defeat groups like ISIL and other extremists must build a strategy of not just law enforcement and hard power. We must work diligently to ensure we have a robust and complete strategy around the ideologies that are seeping into our communities and our country and around the world,” she said.
Elaine Duke, acting secretary of homeland security, paid tribute to Mr Selm’s work.
“His experienced and steady hand was important. He played a key role in advising me and senior DHS leaders,” she said. “The department could not function effectively without the selfless service of career leaders like George Selim.”
Professionals admit there are deep divisions about how best to thwart extremist recruiters