Last month Stratfor published my latest piece on radicalization in Georgia and what needs to be done in order to prevent and counter it. Since becoming involved in this sphere from 2013 on, it’s become an increasingly active area of interest of mine and not least because while other countries have been quick to introduce national strategies to combat the phenomenon, Georgia has not. Indeed, the same is true for civil society.
Finally, and after stressing the importance of this in op-eds for EurasiaNet and the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) in 2015, that now looks about to happen.
Levan Tokhosashvili, also known as “Al Bara Pankisi,” died fighting for the Islamic State in Syria. At least, that’s what Georgian media reported on Aug. 28. But at the beginning of September, those claims came under scrutiny when Tokhosashvili’s friends and relatives in Georgia insisted he was still alive. As Joanna Paraszczuk, a researcher tracking Russian-speaking foreign fighters in Syria, noted on her blog at the time, the confusion summed up just how problematic verifying information from conflict zones can be.
She might also have added that the same holds true for understanding the extent of the threat of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) from the South Caucasus and of radicalization in Georgia. Though some research into the subject has been done, hard numbers are tough to come by, and the push and pull factors behind the recruitment of these fighters are still open to debate.
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Even so, things do seem to be improving. Recognition is growing of civil society’s role in CVE, or as the D.C.-based Muflehun’s executive director Humera Khan defines it, “the use of non-coercive means to dissuade individuals or groups from mobilizing toward violence and to mitigate recruitment, support, facilitation or engagement in ideologically motivated terrorism by non-state actors in furtherance of political objectives.”
Last year, moreover, the independent Hedayah International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism based in Abu Dhabi conducted a needs assessment in Georgia as part of its STRIVE for Development project, an EU program aimed at increasing communities’ resilience to violence. Extensive research on the problem of radicalization in Georgia is now underway, and an open call for CVE projects covering Central Asia, the South Caucasus and the Balkans has already followed.
Furthermore, several U.S.-based organizations were invited in July to bid for a U.S. Agency for International Development contract for violent extremism risk analysis in Georgia. The contract includes a CVE training component for the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi and would run from November to December. The assessment would explore not just Pankisi but also Adjara and ethnic Azeri communities.
Despite this progress, officials still appear to be overlooking the dangers that other forms of extremism pose. In addition to the rising tension between Adjara’s Christians and Muslims, neo-Nazi and ultranationalist groups target immigrants — particularly Muslims — and engage in violence, albeit fairly limited. These movements risk feeding the narratives that groups like the Islamic State use to boost their recruitment. Says Clifford, “it’s too early to say for sure, but [such] events have the potential to reinforce individuals’ beliefs about the society they live in and therefore cause ‘reciprocal radicalization.'”
Though Pokalova and Clifford both view Georgia’s impending projects as a step in the right direction, they have added some important caveats. “When it comes to CVE programs, it depends how one defines them,” Pokalova said. “From a broader perspective, one can include such programs as inter-religious dialogue initiatives into CVE. Such broader programs might not necessarily deal with terrorism specifically, but by fostering better societal ties such programs contribute to the prevention of extremism.” Clifford, for his part, added a word of warning: “The landscape of radicalization in Georgia unfortunately reflects its diverse makeup, and there are multiple forms of radicalization in the country that span national, ethnic, religious and geographic boundaries. Thus, this is a circumstance where ‘one-size-fits-all’ CVE programs are destined to fail.”
The full piece can be read on Stratfor here.
