By: Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS)
A growing realisation among various states that counter-terrorism efforts to kill and capture militants will not in themselves suffice to check the militant onslaught has prompted them to evolve “soft” approaches and strategies to win the hearts and minds of the people and eliminate hatred, intolerance and extreme interpretations of religion.
Such soft approaches are at the heart of various counter-radicalisation and deradicalisation programmes that are being implemented in various Muslim-majority and other countries. The Egyptian, Yemeni, Jordanian and Indonesian models essentially developed as ideological responses to terrorism and extremism, while the Saudi model emphasised rehabilitation through psychological and social modules, along with ideological responses.
Most of these programmes are based on the assumption that religious extremism is a matter of ideology originating from a (mis)interpretation of religion that leads to deviant social and psychological behaviours, and there is sufficient evidence available to indicate that this assumption is valid for Pakistan.
Most of these programmes are based on the assumption that religious extremism is a matter of ideology originating from a (mis)interpretation of religion that leads to deviant social and psychological behaviours, and there is sufficient evidence available to indicate that this assumption is valid for Pakistan.