Governments around the world need a coherent, global strategy to uproot the ideology of violent extremism, former British prime minister Tony Blair says. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, they already knew that — and have been acting on it for years.

Organizations such as the Saudi-based Ideological Warfare Center and Muslim World League, and Hedayah and the Sawab Center in the UAE, are classic examples of the “prevention is better than cure” methods that Blair calls for on Thursday in a report by his Institute for Global Change.

“Extremism is a global challenge prevalent now in both developing and developed states, so the discourse has to be beyond fragile states only,” said Hassan Abbas, professor of international security studies at the National Defense University in Washington. “Enabling civil society workers to promote coexistence is a much-needed agenda item as it will lead to local capacity-building as well as acknowledgement of good work already being done — rather than misguided attempts to reinvent the wheel.”

The Ideological Warfare Center, founded by the Saudi Ministry of Defense, “has been concentrating on educating people and raising awareness about extremism and fundamentalism through cutting-edge visual tools,” said Dr Majid Rafizadeh, Iranian-American pol- itical scientist, president of the International American Council and board member of the Harvard International Review. “The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been leading states in using soft power, security, setting up public and private institutions that raise awareness about extremist ideologies, initiating dialogues between different societies, as well as taking regional and global initiatives to uproot terrorism and extremist ideologies.” 

Such a complex approach is challenging because of the difficulty of coordination between various inter-governmental and intra-governmental organizations, he said. “Nevertheless, in the long term, this is the most effective strategy to uproot extremist ideology and terrorism.”

SOURCE : ARABNEWS