Abstract
Traditionally, terrorism and violent extremism (VE) are synonymous with male perpetrators, although women are inevitably and adversely affected by such illegalities. Women are increasingly involved as active supporters not only by fundraising terrorist activities but also as lone wolf suicide bombers. Despite the awareness of women’s participation, and the detrimental impact of such crimes on women, the lack of understanding of the causes of Malaysian women’s radicalisation and their political agency has remained under-researched. The understanding of such rationales and agency is crucial to enable the government to adopt the appropriate PVE/CVE approach. Given the lack of academic research on this issue, this paper aims at examining the understanding of VE, the role and the causal factors of women’s radicalisation and their implications on the visibility of women’s agency and gender equality in Malaysia. This research employs qualitative methodology, in which the primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with fifteen respondents. The data triangulation was obtained from focus group discussions with experts from relevant ministries and universities. The data is analysed and interpreted using Atlas.Ti software. The findings revealed that the drivers toward women’s radicalisation are varied, and the lack of visibility of women’s political agency in the analyses of Malaysian women’s participation in VE is unfortunate. Such a situation calls into question not only the future role of women as active actors in PVE/CVE but also the promotion of gender equality as envisaged by the UN Security Council Resolutions 2178 and 2242 and SDG No 5 and 16.
Highlights
Violent extremism (VE) in Malaysia has a long history, which dates back to the Malayan Emergency period in 1948-1960
A respondent who has been involved in the rehabilitation of former Jihadist foreign fighters explained that: When we talked to those people who have been involved in Jihadist or radical movement and have fought in wars abroad, we found that most of them were influenced by the misinterpretation of the Al-Quran or deviant teachings of Islam that the only way to achieve absolute martyrdom and go to Heaven is by joining Jihadist groups such as AlQaeda or Daesh and fight against the infidels
It is interesting to note that the findings seem to exclude socio-economic factors such as poverty from the causal equation of VE, implying that poverty is not a useful explanation of women’s radicalisation in Malaysia
Summary
Violent extremism (VE) in Malaysia has a long history, which dates back to the Malayan Emergency period in 1948-1960. The success of that approach informs the current strategies in countering radical Islamist tendencies and recruitment of extremist groups such as Al Maunah, Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorists, Al-Qaeda linked terrorists and Islamic State (IS) (el-Muhammady, 2016). The recent Global Terrorism Index 2016 published by the Institute of Economics and Peace ranked Malaysia at number 61, which is an increase from number 90 in 2012 of the countries facing the impacts of terrorism (Malik & Kepli, 2018). Violent extremism has begun to proliferate following the September 11 attacks in 2001 and has become entrenched in domestic and international discourse and practice as the principal ‘root’ of terrorism. Ali and Husin (2017) argues that the definition of extremism is a preamble to terrorism. Despite the lack of definite meanings, VE suggests the willingness to use violence, or to support the use of violence, to further particular beliefs of a political, social, economic or ideological nature (European Parliament, 2017)
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