khanserai

Building a trusted relationship to have real discussions. It is rare for people to join extremist groups BECAUSE of their ideology- they tend to be looking for something else in life and then get sucked in. Which means that in trying to pull anyone back one has to deal with the whole person and their myriad issues that made them vulnerable in the first place. And be honest about positions and grievances. The world we live in is very imperfect and we cannot just ignore (real or perceived) injustices.

Having said that, confrontation and arguments definitely DON'T work!

As far as we know (so far), there were no political motives around the Sutherland church shootings so it would not fall under the terrorism or violent extremism labels. That does not make the actions any less horrific.

The fact that he was not eligible to buy guns because of his criminal, violent history but the mess up by the air force in reporting it is outrageous.

Mass shooters are a problem in the US, whether they are citizens or not. Just think about Sandy Hook, Aurora, Las Vegas, Charleston, San Bernadino, Orlando etc. Hundreds of innocents killed and no changes in policy

By 2010 we were seeing a rise in the number of home-grown cases of terrorism in the US and a small group of us were worried that there was no real response strategy. I spent a few months researching the phenomenon and every indicator seemed to point in the direction that the problem was going to get worse, not better. No one else was willing to focus on the issue at the time so we set up a new organization (Muflehun) to work on it. I took the work/methodologies that I was working on since 1999 and applied them to the violent extremism space. And here we are, 7 years later!

ooooooo, now that's hard. Rice pudding is THE best dessert, followed closely by flan

Many reports I'm seeing suggest that there is a growth of extremism in the Europe- across the full spectrum of types of extremism. Right-wing, Neo-nazis, white supremacists, religious, 'black flaggers' (all the various groups aligned with Al Qaeda and ISIS ideologies) are all on the rise. As for what to do about them, that is the million $ question. Actually more like a many many MANY million $ question which is one of the problems. To start to address ALL the extremisms on the rise, each country will have to look inwards and examine the conditions that are fueling the vulnerabilities. Racism, discrimination, injustices, lack of consistent services from the government, unequal access to employment opportunities are all reasons being cited (in different locations). The factors that are consistently raised are: identity, sense of belonging, sense of purpose, wanting to not feel helpless, social justice. Until we don't deal with the systemic problems, and bring money, political will & civil society to the table, the issues will not go away.