Hi, I'm Bethany McGann, and I serve as a
research and project manager for the
RESOLVE Network. And they're a national
network of individual experts and
organizations based at the U.S. Institute of Peace working to connect
research policy and practice to address
violent extremism. And I'm Kateira Aryaeinejad.
I'm also a research and project
manager for the RESOLVE Network and
an associate director of RESOLVE's research
advisory council. Today, we're responding
to some of your questions about the
intersections between the coronavirus
pandemic and violent extremism. This situation is reshaping peace and
conflict dynamics around the world and
we're here to reflect on some of your
questions about its intersection with
violent extremism. Now, it's important to
note that many of the issues we are
seeing in the media of poor service
delivery and institutional capacity, weak
health infrastructure, security sector
abuses and the like, have presented
governance challenges and driven
grievances against the state for decades.
COVID is exacerbating these and other
potential drivers of violent extremism.
Conflict entrepreneurs, extremist
organizations, predatory elites, criminal
and corrupt entities and other actors
will seek to take advantage of
desperation, fear, uncertainty and the
critical need for services and trusted
information. COVID is perhaps more likely
to change how these actors go about
their business than the nature of the
business itself, but even that is hard to
tease out and something we will better
understand as time passes. So with that
in mind, let's go to some of the
questions from social media. Margaret
Murphy on LinkedIn asked, "How might
access to water sanitation and hygiene
services during COVID-19 have an impact
on violent extremism?" Kat, do you have a thought?
Thank you for your question, Margaret.
While issues surrounding access to water
and sanitation around the globe are
nothing new, the crisis is highlighting
some of the notable gaps in water
infrastructure and hygiene that are
instrumental in warding off the virus,
with dire consequences. Today, beyond the
grievances and despair that lack of clean
water and basic sanitation and hygiene
services may present in light of COVID-19,
it's easy to imagine a situation in
which violent extremists
actors step in to address some of the
gaps government infrastructures and
responses have left. including around
water, to provide for local health needs
and provide for the needs of the local
populations. In fact, we're already
starting to see non-state and violent
extremist groups shift their messaging
and actions to provide information about
hygienic best practices and actual
services like the provision of medical
facilities, soap and face masks to combat
the viruses in parts of Africa, the
Middle East, South Asia and the Americas.
This type of service provision can have
the effect of increasing the legitimacy
of, or reliance upon, violent extremists
in environments with limited resources.
Although, the extent to which that is
going to last is, as of yet, unclear. We
also had a question about Al-Shabaab. Joy
Carter Minor on Instagram asked,
"Considering the nomadic culture in the
Horn of Africa and the instability prior
to COVID-19, has there been a decline in
attacks by Al-Shabaab, and how is the
spread being tracked and maintained,
particularly in Somalia?" I'm gonna hand
this over to Bethany given her expertise
in African relations. Well, I am
immediately about to say, for more
country and regional level context from
the Horn, I like to refer the questioner
instead to USIP's Africa team. In
particular, the director of those
programs, Susan Stigant, just did a video in the
#COVIDandConflict series where she might
cover some of those, but otherwise use them
as a great resource. That said, you do
bring up a good point about how we
assess COVID's impact on violent extremist
organizations and non-state armed group
tactics and behaviors. So Kat brought
this up in the previous section, but
perceived legitimacy is one of the
greatest currencies for any armed group
seeking to hold territory. And relying on
community support to conduct its
operations and house its organization.
We should be cautious in reading too
much into a perceived decrease in
operational tempo as being directly
related to COVID without more data and
even more cautious about reporting on
armed actor positive contributions to pandemic
response as a sign of maturity and their
objective to be a legitimate governance
alternative to the state. A rebel and
insurgent governance has proven
inherently brittle, and there's little
evidence beyond, that beyond the
social crisis response rhetoric and
turf enforcement that we've seen in
places like Latin America in the Middle
East, that the extent to which these
groups will be able to actually manage
civilian needs over time. And similar to
state actors, these groups run the risk
of over selling their capacity to
respond, resulting in a decrease in
perceived legitimacy and trust, which of
course impacts their ability to recruit
or otherwise coerce communities into
supporting their broader agenda. In
short, it's difficult to draw a straight
line from COVID to changes in group
behavior, especially at this time. If you
look into some of the conflicts in the
Sahel, there's perhaps more evidence that the
pandemic has during little to no change
in group behavior. So more time and
better information will help bring
clarity to the short and long term
impacts of COVID on armed groups. To
some of the next questions, so Zeidan Majd on Instagram asked, "In what
ways could the spread of COVID-19 be
used for recruitment by extremists?" Kat?
I'm glad to answer that. So I think
that it's important to note as we kind of
open this up with, that as with any
crisis, be it political, economic or the
outbreak of conflict, violent extremist actors are highly likely to take advantage of and instrumentalize
instability to further their own
narratives and achieve their goals. A few
things that are specific to COVID-19,
however, are somewhat unique and worthy
of greater attention. Central to each of
these is fear. The lack of definitive
answers that's currently plaguing all of
us and the restrictions that we are now
confined to and confronted
with every day. So in particular, one main
issue is the fact that in socially
distancing ourselves to prevent the
further spread of the disease,
we're also socially distancing ourselves
to some extent from the reality of the
COVID-19 threat and the social dynamics
that would otherwise present viewpoints
different to our own. Namely, we're not
necessarily interacting with people who
have ideas other than our own and who
might challenge our beliefs or present us
with different information. When we're at
home, it's that much easier to
self-select who we listen to and who we
don't, what information we choose to have
access to and what information
choose to drown out. This lack of exposure
to other points of view, thought and
everyday realities, makes it really hard
to discern fact from fiction and can
leave us more susceptible to narratives
that present easy or superficially
comforting solutions to otherwise
incredibly complex issues like COVID-19.
This is particularly troubling in light
of the narratives, conspiracy theories
and misinformation that we're now seeing
amongst, being distributed amongst,
violent extremist groups today and that
contextualize the crisis in racial or
ethnic battles, and "us" versus "them"
mentalities,
or as a means to place blame for the
crisis or promote false narratives of
invincibility for in-group members
advocating for retribution and honor in
action against the state, so-called
oppressors or specific ethnic
populations perceived to be at fault for
the virus itself. This is obviously
feeding into the narratives that we're
seeing and obviously could have the
potential to feed into some of the
actions, but as of yet, drawing a straight
line from the reactions in these
narratives and social distancing broadly
to radicalization to violent extremism
is something that we should be a bit
wary of. Definitely cosign there. You know,
you are correct in highlighting the
increased fragmentation and opportunism
int he information environment is one
potentially significant change that
COVID-19 has brought, I would note that, you
know, the pre-existing trust and
legitimacy deficit between communities
and certain states and the way that pandemic
responses have the potential to
aggravate, rather than address and close,
these deficits is another key concern.
You know, we've seen a lot of reporting
about security sector abuses and what's
being termed "authoritarian backsliding."
You know, using crisis management to
close political space and further
marginalize opposition movements and
vulnerable populations in places that were
already fragile. The necessary shutdowns
to address and slow down COVID-19's spread
have had a terrible impact on
livelihoods, especially for those in the
informal market sector who rely on daily
economic activity, and security responses
targeting the poor and indigent are already
leading to violence and non-COVID
related deaths. The potential for immense
discontent with government responses,
paired with that lack of government capacity
necessary to combat the virus, could be a
significant driver of political violence
and producing a dividend for violent
extremists who will take advantage of
that. Now, as much as ever, it's important
to support human rights and civilian
protection across all responses, from CT,
counter terrorism, to COVID-19. Then
the last question I think we'll take for
this segment is from Madelyn McEllen
who asked, "What new challenges does COVID-19 pose to peacefully resolving
violent extremism?" Your thoughts, Kat? A
great question, very difficult to answer
as we're all still trying to grapple
with moving from in-person efforts and
interventions to the virtual space. I
would say that it's important to note in
this respect that a lot of the different
programs that are geared towards
countering or preventing violent
extremism also have different
corollaries and benefits outside of the
specific violent extremism space.
CVE programs have borrowed heavily
from peacebuilding efforts and
development efforts that are all of immense use in terms of combating, again,
some of the misinformation, some of the
societal grievances and some of the, you
know, gaps and key governance issues that
are appearing today and are kind of
elevated by this crisis. One issue that I
think is really deserving is, how might
we better support the CVE efforts that
are ongoing already, especially as they
transition to the virtual space? So as
these efforts continue, as COVID
continues, you know, the threat of violent
extremism isn't just going to, going
to go away. Violent extremism will
outlast the crisis and potentially have
significant impacts beyond the crisis
itself, in terms of, further
marginalization of different communities
and further hate speech that might lead
to radicalization to violence. So
investing in a better infrastructure and
aligning some of the CVE priorities, or
CVE outputs, with COVID priorities is
particularly salient at this time, but
will prove difficult given the fact that
we can't meet in person anymore.
On that note, we've come to the end of
our session. Thanks to everyone who
submitted questions on social media.
If you're interested in learning about Revolve
Network, check us out at our website, you
can find that online, and for more videos and
resources on the peace building response
to the pandemic, head over to www.usip.org. Thank you.
