Emerging trends of on-campus radicalization in Pakistan

ABSTRACT

Definitional impasse over the issue of violent extremism has adversely affected the scholarly endeavours to develop a systematic understanding of the threat and policy interventions to counter the phenomenon in its violent and non-violent manifestations. In the absence of clearly defined concepts including ‘radicalisation’, much of the Counter-Terrorism Studies (CTS) research remains ‘subjective’ and politically expedient. This article contributes to the debate on ‘who is radical?’ in the context of Pakistan and ‘how social concepts like radicalisation can be quantified for meaningful scaling of radicalisation and deradicalization?’. The survey of six public sector universities of Islamabad with secular reputation identifies how university youth is vulnerable to radicalism and stresses the need for launching an effective counter-radicalisation campaigns on the university campuses.

KEYWORDS:

• Campus radicalisation
• violent extremism
• Definitional dilemma
• peace
• education
• sectarianism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article sums up the debate between two intellectual giants on Political Islam. Gilles Kepel holds ‘Radicalization of Islam’ as the source of militancy; whereas, his counterpart, Olivier Roy, French himself, exonerates Islam by describing the militant phenomenon as, ‘Islamicization of Radicalism’.

2 In order to avoid any ‘bogus’ or ‘fake’ labels and claim greater credibility and confidence in the research, university names have been described.

3 Urs is the death anniversary of a Sufi saint in South Asia, mostly held at the shrine of the saint.

4 Azadari is a self-beating practice related to the mourning and commemoration of the death of Imam Hussain – grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.