PREVENTING AND REMEDYING VIOLENT EXTREMISM
DIRECTING LINE OF INQUIRY OF THE PROJECT:
Why do some groups reject armed struggle while others take it up?
When and how and why is unarmed struggle more effective than armed
struggle at advancing political agendas?
How to prevent, and remedy extremist violence?
Introductory Lecture: Reverse Engineering Violent Extremism
1.
The Sources of Violent Extremism:
The sources of
extremism are poverty and desperation, anger and despair. Anger at being
isolated, shut out, ridiculed, excluded. Despair at lack of opportunity.
Desperation due to hunger, untreated illness, absent medical care. No education
other than the gang, whatever stripes or colors the gang wears to intimidate
enemies and inspire friends. In some respects, extremist violence is a reaction
to violation. Without a wellspring of despair violence is limited to isolated
individuals, deluded fools or criminals. Despair is a necessary precondition to
extremism, may exceptionally be sufficient on its own, but is not the sole
cause of violent extremism.
2.
The Vectors of Violent Extremism: Demagogic Elites
Though often a
reaction, not all violent extremism is desperate and poor. In fact, elite
leaders of
extremist movements,
the Lenins, Maos, and Bin Ladens of the world, are by-and-large from the upper classes.
Rarely, a rabble rousing populist like Hitler emerges from the rank-and-file.
But by and large the main ingredients of extremist violence are elites
consciously choosing violence and everyday people so desperate that they will
try anything just to have the bare necessities. Add war veterans, police, some
guns and explosives, a taunting prejudiced provocation here and there, season
with misplaced ambition and jealousy, and set on a low simmer of constant low-grade
domestic violence and petty crime until the pot explodes. That, roughly
speaking, is the recipe for "success" in violent radicalism.
A bleak picture: but
this formula for death can be reverse engineered. That is what this project
seeks to do.
3. Reversing
the Course
The project will
identify these risk factors and policies to combat them in isolation or
combination. It will also show what America can and cannot do to help countries
like Bosnia.
America can help
replace the recipe for clan hatred with hope. America is a beacon of hope, a
shining example and refuge for exiles and migrants. We can exchange hate for
hope through education: we must point out why and how the people are misled. We
can make the difference by offering opportunity and by helping create conditions
of law and justice in countries like Bosnia to replace criminality with
productivity and corruption with honor. Sometimes, amnesty, mostly a line in
the sand. The past is the past, and building a better future together is what
it's all about.
Because human nature
is by-and-large similar it is possible to develop a general model for understanding
extremist violence, whether right-wing, left-wing, or religious. Rival militias
and gangs have a lot in common so we can help people from apparently different
communities organize to better relate to each other’s experiences. This
project, if effective in Bosnia, could then be replicated in other Eastern
European countries facing similar problems.
4. Research
objective of the exchange:
To develop a unified
theory of extremist violence and to publish that theory as either a brief
monograph or long essay so as to reverse-engineer the tactics of extremist
violence. Essay can be lead chapter for an edited work including chapters by
exchange host-partners. Candidate promises to edit Bosnian writers English for
publication whether in book proposed, or individually by exchange partner
authors
COURSE
OVERVIEW
English language learning
occurs on Monday and Thursdays. Those lectures focus on
political and legal terminology to enable people to improve their English
through practice in a practical field of work. Language is most intensely
taught at the start of the session in hopes to have improved the students'
English language ability by the end of the session to enable useful work. The
topics presented are general overviews and are more appropriate to students than scholarly researchers.
Advanced scholars are welcome to participate, they may find the content already
within their ability. Later in the session Thursdays may also be used for
students’ and scholars’ seminar presentations. Lists of legal terminology and
definitions as well as short relevant legal readings will be provided.
Translation of Bosnian legal materials into English as classroom exercises or
homework is also possible!
Tuesdays
are in-depth analysis of the law and politics of prevention of violence.
A good working knowledge of English is expected and Tuesdays are most
appropriate for advanced students and scholars. Scholars are invited to present their research and writing on
Tuesdays for editing, commentary, and to network for publication,
Wednesdays
are training the trainers and students’ and scholars’ seminar
presentations. Scholars and students are invited and encouraged to present
their own research as an English language presentation and paper. Those
students who present papers are enabled thereby to obtain academic credit from
host institutions, provided the host institution agrees that their performance
meets academic standards. Seminar papers may likewise be considered for
publication if of very high quality.
Fridays
are for the three simulations,
"The War of the Ants", "Ruthenia and Ainehtur" and "A
Minority is You". Weekends may
be used to extend the simulations, if there is interest, or for outings to
local historical points of interest or libraries. Saturday of the last weekend
is for networking and individual counselling. The final exam is tentatively
scheduled for the last Sunday of the five weeks.
Students are encouraged to bring food with them and
are allowed to eat during the lectures. Students are requested to turn off
their mobile phones but may use their electronics during lectures. Students are
requested to read, at least briefly, the assigned readings so that we may
discuss them intelligently: the more you read the more you learn!
FIRST
WEEK – INTERNATIONAL LAW
Monday:
Introduction of Participant Scholars
Introductory
lecture – The Matrix of Conflict Prevention and Reconcilation
– UN, EU, NATO (30 minutes) – questions to this lecture should be posed during the
five weeks of teaching and training!
30 minute
break for mixer – students’ self-introduction,
institutional presentations (informal). Each institution should have a table
set up with their representative and materials which they may wish to show
others. Students should then go and visit the participating institutions to
meet each other and build friendships and professional contacts.
International
Law
Introduction of course, distribution of seminar
topics
1. Legal Definition of the State:
2. Sources of International Law
3. Jus cogens
Tuesday:
Lectures & Seminar Presentations
Liberalism
1. Understanding the Ideas of Liberal
Internationalist Capitalism: Aristotle
Hobbes, Locke,
Smith – Peace and Prosperity through Trade due to interdependence and
comparative advantage
2. The Rule of Law State: USA, Germany, Singapore
Lunch Break
Post-Conflict
Reconciliation
4. Post-Conflict Reconciliation – Amnesty versus
Impunity, Truth and Reconcilation Trials
Wednesday:
Training Trainers and Seminars
1. Constructivist Learning Theory and Teaching
Methods: How to Teach
2. How to Research and Cite Law
3. Psychological Perspectives on Dysfunction:
Understanding Sources of Problems
4. How to read rapidly! Skimming and outlining, annotating
documents. (Speed reading)
Thursday:
English Language & Legal Terms
General
Principles of International Law and the Law of War
Immunity
Diplomatic Protection
Law of War - Jus ad bello, Jus in bellum
Geneva Conventions
Friday:
Simulation, "The War of the Ants"; can extend into weekend if
students are interested.
SECOND
WEEK – INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW
I. Principles
2. Constitutionalization
II. Institutions and Instruments
A. UN
Charter & UDHR
1. UN
Security Council
2. UN
Resolutions
B. European
Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - Extraterritoriality of the ECHR
Tuesday:
Lectures & Seminar Presentations - Nationalist
Extremism: Fascism
1. Nationalism and Extremist Violence: Cause, Cure,
or Both?
2. Hitler Youth versus Young Pioneers: Youth
Movements Training for Extremist Violence
3. Nationalist Socialism and Religion: Hitler and
Islam
Wednesday:
Training Trainers & Seminars
How to Learn
and Teach Languages: The Practical Parrot
1. A musical approach: rhythm, tone, literary
devices
2. A structural approach: affirmation/negation
direction/location, logical connectors, prepositions and post-positions, nouns
into verbs into nouns, modal verbs, time, space
3. A cognative approach (sic): cognates and
loan-words.
4. In Brief: Deciphering Abbreviations, e.g., n.b.,
c.f., UN, etc.
5. Practical Tips: Tandems, Partners, Skype, Movies,
Youtube, and Hobbies!
6. Not my cup of tea, but whatever works for you:
idioms & stock phrases, crosswords and puns.
Thursday:
English Language & Legal Terms
1. First Generation "Liberty" Rights: UN
Convention on Civil & Political Rights (ICCPR)
Contract, Property, Voting, Freedom of Speech,
Religion; negatives freedom from state power
2. Second Generation "Equality" Rights
(ICESCR) - positive claims to state resources
Workers' Rights: Collective Bargaining
Social Rights: The Right to Education
Anti-Discrimination Law
Racial
Discrimination
Sex
Discrimination
Gender
Discrimination
3. Third Generation "Fraternity" Rights -
Hortatory Rights and Aspirational Goals
Friday:
Simulation, "The War of the Ants"; can extend into weekend if
students are interested.
THIRD
WEEK – CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
Monday:
English Language & Legal Terms
a. Federalism
b. Separation of powers
c. Secularity
d. Elections and voting rights
f. Constitutional Amendment
g. Constitutional Courts
h. Party-political Systems
i. Constitutive Communities: Religions, Unions,
Corporations, Universities, Mass Media
Tuesday:
Lectures and Seminar Presentations:
Marxist
Extremism
1. Marxist Revolution: War and State Sponsored
Terrorism
2. State sponsored terrorism? Baader Meinhof, Red
Brigades, PLO, and the Japanese Red Army
3. National Liberation? The Rise and Fall of the
Irish Republican Army
4. The Maoist Black Panthers: Terrorists or
Revolutionaries? (Watts Riots)
Wednesday:
Training Trainers
Community
Organizing
Fund-raising
Tabling
Public marches
Netizens & Internet Activism
Thursday:
English Language & Legal Terms
Constitutional
Law of Fundamental Rights
1. Civil and Political Rights
2. Fundamental Rights
a. Property and Contract
b. Freedom of Expression
c. Freedom of Religion
d. Rights of the Accused
e. Proportionality Principle http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1431179
Lunch Break
Refugees,
Migrants, Veterans and Radicals: Integration
and Reintegration of displaced persons into peaceful civil society.
Friday:
Simulation of Post-conflict reconciliation - Ruthenia and Ainehtur
Simulation may be extended into weekend if students
are interested.
FOURTH
WEEK – EU LAW
Monday:
English Language & Legal Terms - EU Law
Council and Commission
Four Freedoms
Regulations and Directives
General Principles of Community Law
Harmonization
ECJ Case Law; Advocate General; Precedential value
of ECJ Case Law
Acquis Communautaire
Tuesday:
Lectures and Seminar Presentations
Identity
Politics & Extremism
A Woman's Place is on the Barricades? Law, Culture,
Equality and Feminism
Gay Rights or Gay Riots? Stonewall, Act-Up, and
Legal Radical Struggle
American Civil Rights and Anti-Apartheid: ANC, Black
Panthers, Nation of Islam, Pacifists
Language Rights: The FLQ in Quebec and the failure
of terrorism
Wednesday:
Training Trainers, Participant Presentations
Publishing
Social Media Activism, TOR, HTML/JS/CSS
Publish and Prosper: Wordpress, Blogger, Amazon: How
to get your ideas into print and on the internet.
Thursday:
English Language & Legal Terms: EU and ECHR
Proportionality (EU and ECHR)
Third party effect of fundamental rights (Drittwirkung)
(EU and ECHR)
Researching EU and ECHR Law
The relationship between EU law, National Laws, and
ECHR Law
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1283791
Polluter Pays Principle
Source Principle
Precautionary Principle
Ecotaxes
Friday:
Simulation of Post-conflict reconciliation - Ruthenia and Ainehtur
Simulation may be extended into weekend if students
are interested.
FIFTH WEEK – PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL
LAW
Monday:
English Language & Legal Terms
Anti-Corruption
Law
Monism and Dualism
International Civil Procedure: Jurisdiction
Anti-corruption law
UN Anti-Bribery Convention
UN Anti-Bribery Convention
Extraterritorial Law: SEC, Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO)
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
UK Anti-Bribery Act
Tuesday:
Religious
Extremism
Crusade versus Jihad? Clash of Civilizations or
Concert of Countries?
Freikorps, Gangs, and Jihadists: Similarities,
differences and prevention in Weimar Germany, the United States, and the
Islamic world.
American Civil Rights and Anti-Apartheid: ANC, Black
Panthers, Nation of Islam, Pacifists
Wednesday:
Training Trainers
Public Speaking
How to present a public speech - Relaxed self-confidence
based on experience and competence
How to present at a videoconference
How to debate
Debating Sessions – Participants will be given a
resolution to argue for or against and then debate it. Resolutions will relate
to meeting the challenges of violent extremism.
Thursday:
English Language & Legal Terms
International
business law
Contract Law
Corporation Law
Joint Ventures
Friday:
Simulation: A minority is You!
Weekend:
Conclusion and networking
Sunday: Final examination for those seeking lecture
course credit and honors certificate.
Classroom
Exercises:
1.
The war of the ants.
Two or more rival
ant-colonies are competing for limited resources. Each colony has workers,
soldiers, a queen, and possibly slave ants. Some ant colonies make slave ants
others will not, that's just their nature. Each student represents one of these
roles. The colonies compete for food and to grow their population or enslave or
destroy the other colonies. Resources are water, food, slaves. The objective is
to help the students see how rival groups interact in a totally depoliticized
context so they can understand dysfunction to prevent it and resolve it.
Scoring is based on start-end population differential: exercise teaches that
cooperative strategies are more productive than destructive competition due to
the gearing of resources and combat exchanges in the exercise.
2.
Post Conflict Reconciliation:
A terrible war has
ruined Ruthenia. Ruthenia is populated by Ruthenians and Ainehturs. Most
Ruthenians worship
Sacred Ruth, but some are atheists. Most Ainehturs worship Ain, "the one
true God". The Ain religion is very strict. Ainehturs who reject Ain are
expelled from their community. Some of them live in Ruthenian villages. A few
worship Ruth and go to the Temple of Ruth with Ruthenians. However, Ainehtur
minorities still speak Ainehturian and keep their culture. Even Ainehturian
converts are distrusted and unpopular among Ruthenians.
No one can say for
sure how the war between Big Ruthen and Greater Ainehtia started. But armies
from Big Ruthen and Ainehtia raged through poor Ruthenia, committing terrible
crimes. The war finally ended, but the conflict didn't. In this simulation
students are assigned various roles "militant pan-nationalist",
"minority", etc. to try to address issues of post-conflict social
reintegration. This is an unscored role playing exercise. It seeks to help the
students understand the problems of post-conflict integration objectively and
dispassionately.
3.
The minority is YOU!
Students are
separated into two groups - one of which will be declared undesirable. Students
are
assigned chits
representing money. Some students have "keys" which grant access to
university, a job, an apartment or a bomb. One student is designated "the
secret policeman" whose job is to detect and recover the bomb. One student
is designated "the terrorist". The terrorist's objective is to obtain
the bomb. The secret policman has more chits than any one player but less than
all chits total. Students are scored individually based on chit differential at
start and end. Terrorist wins by obtaining bomb. Secret policeman wins by
discovering terrorist or obtaining bomb.
Learning objectives: teaching the problem of paranoia, the necessity of
security, the question of trust. exercise rules do not prohibit bribery, so
exercise can be used to teach the problem of bribery, too.
SUGGESTED
SEMINAR PRESENTATION TOPICS
Students and
scholars are encouraged to propose seminar topics which they wish to research,
present, and write about!
The Rule of Law State: UK, Germany, Singapore
How to cause - or prevent - genocide: Armenia, Nazi
Germany, Rwanda, Bosnia
Marxist Revolution: War and State Sponsored
Terrorism
Nationalism and Extremist Violence: Cause, Cure, or
Both?
Nationalist Socialism and Religion: Hitler and Islam
Hitler Youth versus Young Pioneers: Youth Movements
Training for Extremist Violence
A Woman's Place is on the Barricades? Law, Culture,
Equality
Gay Rights or Gay Riots? Stonewall, Act-Up, and
Legal Radical Struggle
American Civil Rights and the Anti-Apartheid
Movement
The Maoist Black Panthers: Terrorists or
Revolutionaries? (Watts Riots)
State sponsored terrorism? Baader Meinhof, Red
Brigades, PLO, and the Japanese Red Army
National Liberation? The Rise and Fall of the Irish
Republican Army
Language Rights: The FLQ in Quebec and the failure
of terrorism
The Rule of Law and Law Enforcement in the Struggle
against Violence
All Lives Matter: Law Enforcement and the Struggle
against Violence
Gangs of New York? A Comparison of private terrorism
and gang violence
Freikorps, Gangs, and Jihadists: Similarities,
differences and prevention in Weimar Germany, the United States, and the
Islamic world.
Dr. Engle will cover these topics if they are not
addressed by a student/scholar who wishes to work on the above issues.
Academic
Credits:
The course provides a participation certificate for
each participant. The course may be used to obtain seminar credit at a host
institution or lecture credit at a host institution or both. Seminar papers
should be 10-30 pages, well footnoted with table of contents and bibliography.
The examination will be 1 essay of one hour length which may be chosen from 5
possible questions based on each week of the lecture. Course may be taken pass/fail or for graded
credit on US non-curved grading scale, where 65%=D, 70% =C, 80% =B and 90%=A.
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