Canada’s National Counterterrorism Strategy and Challenges of Community Based Intervention in Countering Radicalization

Abstract

In the wake of two gunned down soldiers in Canada in October 2014 by two allegedly radical converted Muslims, the prediction of being attacked at the home soil came true for many Canadians. A substantial number of foreign fighters from Canada also joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) confirmed that they are monitoring nearly eighty suspected Muslim youths returned(ing) in back from Syria while others are waiting to join (they are termed as High Risk Travelers [HRT]). It is now a fallacy to argue whether radicalization exists or not because young Muslims (including converts) are increasingly subscribing to violent extremism inspired by Islamic ideologies (whether rightly or wrongly) and acting on it – the phenomenon is officially coined as ‘radicalization’ in Canada. The Canadian national counterterrorism (CT) strategy Building Resilience against Terrorism published in 2012 underpins the importance of community engagement in clear terms and outlined a holistic approach of ‘prevent, detect, deny and respond’. In this strategy ‘prevent and detect’ components are significant because no single government agencies is capable to prevent and detect radicalization leading to terrorism of its own people. Community (ties) must be on board to effectively implement a holistic CT policy; however, today Canada stands far behind in realizing such a strategy. We conducted a qualitative research in a metropolitan Canadian city in 2013 that mapped the perceptions of the leaders of Muslim faith, ethno-cultural and university student organizations on the effectiveness of national CT strategy in deterring radicalization leading to terrorism. The research shows that current CT strategy failed to convince community (ties) to join the fight against home-grown terrorism. Today the Canadians are even more polarized on issues like religion-defined radicalization, Jihad and West vs. Islam since, on one hand, no meaningful attempt had been taken to operationalize the concept of community engagement (except a few token participations by hand-picked Muslim faith-based organizations and chosen Muslim personalities), and, on the other hand, community (ties) are fearful due to the impact of securitization. Further, at community level a part of the Muslim community also felt isolated since the CT strategy primarily highlighted Sunni extremism as a national threat. Consequently, engagement in the manner of over relying on a few Muslim organizations, mosques, and Imams has not only failed so far to stop Muslim youths being radicalized but it has also alienated general Muslims from taking part in the broader discussion on CT issues. Nevertheless, this study also pointed out the principal reasons impeding community engagement both at national and provincial levels in Canada and suggested some practical measures for an inclusive national CT strategy to arrest the current situation.