Throughout the month of April, SEAN-CSO’s campaign focused on the theme of Motives and Behaviours of Violent Extremist Groups. Political grievances motivate violent extremism and these have many sources. On an individual level, the routes to radicalization are many and varied. Often they are linked to trauma or personal beliefs. As the UN Secretary-General’s Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism underlines, radicalization is highly individual, has no discernible path, is non-linear, has a huge range of “push” and “pull” factors, but has no single determining feature.
In the words of the United Nations Development Programme, “conflict as well as religion, policing, peacemaking, citizenship, the rule of law, and autonomy shape the political environment in which violent extremism can exist.” This month we researched and examined such factors and their impact on the ways in which extremist ideologies take root in different Southeast Asian countries.
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