Daily Times

LAHORE: The two-day conference titled “Counter Narrative to Violent Extremism in Punjab” concluded here on Thursday with a resolve among participants to develop a counter narrative to violent extremism for effective implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) in Punjab.

The event was organised by HomeNet Pakistan and the activity was part of the efforts to support the provincial government in the implementation of NAP in the province. The participants included academics, civil society representatives, serving and retired government officials, researchers, analysts, media personnel and so on. In the inaugural session, experts in political science and strategic studies presented a situational analysis of extremism and intolerance in Pakistan and Punjab, the contours of the narrative of violent extremism and the need for developing a counter narrative to it.

Analyst Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi stressed that creating a sense of citizenship among the masses was a must to counter the extremist thought in the country. Besides, he said, it was imperative to promote the concept of equality and cultural pluralism which was missing. He said those who had lived in that era’ know that the pre-1977 Pakistani society was a tolerant one and it took around two generations to reach its present state where the culture of dialogue and peaceful co-existence had been taken over by that of violence and intolerance.

Dr Riffat Hassan asserted that to neutralise violence it is necessary to understand it and that there is no hurdle if genuine efforts are made to unlearn it. He said democracy teaches non-violent resolution but unfortunately democratic behavior is invisible in our policies. Extremism is directly linked with poverty, the living conditions of a person and the environs in which he has been brought up, he added.

Scholar in Quranic studies, Dr Shehzad Saleem, said that extremists and terrorists defended their violent actions by quoting references from Quran and other religious teachings, out of context. This narrative had to be changed by encouraging people to discuss religion and understand in its true spirit, he added. Shehzad said Islam was a religion of peace and killing innocent people its name could not be justified.

Representatives of the Punjab government, especially from the Home Department and Information Department were present. They presented the initiatives and achievements of the government on promoting cultural activities for peaceful socialization process of the society. A message of peace and successful outcomes of the government initiatives was sent by Salman Sufi, Senior Member, Punjab Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit (SMU) on law & order.

In group work session, stakeholders representing civil society, conventional and social media, think-tanks and academia identified gaps and challenges in developing a counter narrative in the society and came up with recommendations on how to achieve the desired objectives. In the final session, there was a panel discussion on the recommendations gathered during the event and their practicability regarding effective implementation of CVE strategies and actions in Punjab. Some of the recommendations follow:

Academia: The government must include civics and citizenship as subjects at all levels of education. Freedom of thought among students should also be ensured.

Civil Society: The state must provide space and engagement for enabling societies to implement CVE initiatives.

Media: The state institutions should regulate their green line and red lines so that no institution could give directions as a state representative. Social media should be introduced as a subject in universities and colleges.

Think Tank: The state must not discriminate among groups – there is no good and bad per se. It should engage existing think tanks to build capacity of police at divisional and provincial levels.

Dr Riffat Hussain, Amir Rana, Justice (retd) Nasira Javed Iqbal, Peter Jacob, Ayesha Siddiqa, Dr.Irfan Shahzad, Dr Tahir Ameen, Khawaja Khalid Farooq, Dr Shafqat Munir SDPI, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob and Salman Abid also spoke at the conference.