Community Resilience And Counter-Narratives To Violent Extremism In Pakistan: Problems And Possible Solutions

Abstract

Violent extremism (VE) has continued to pose one of the most comprehensive and long-standing challenges to Pakistan, derailing national security and crippling social cohesion as well as thwarting socio-economic developmental progress. This paper examines both the multifaceted and interconnected causes of VE, critically evaluates countering violent extremism (CVE) approaches—including the flagship National Action Plan (NAP) and Paigham-e-Pakistan—in Pakistan and presents a resilience-focused framework in which the ideological, socio-economic, governance, and digital aspects are connected coherently. In the methodology, the qualitative research employs semi-structured interviews, a focus group discussion, and a thorough document analysis in an interpretivist paradigm. The sample size consists of religious scholars, youth leaders, representatives of civil society, educators, community activists and practitioners of the security fields hence this will ensure the representation of views. The findings indicate that in Pakistan, socio-economic deprivation, political marginalization, identity crises, ideological manipulation and governance deficits subsist in a complex interrelational relationship with digital radicalization, an evolving and severely underestimated[1] driver, most vulnerably via social media platforms. Despite some partial successes of the state-led measures of CVE in reducing some of the forms of violence, such efforts have been excessively focused on security at the expense of community needs and that of local context. The study postulates that paradigm shift to multi-stakeholder, multi-party approaches, inclusive, gender responsive and youth empowered approaches, which builds confidence between religious and secular institutions, empowers psychosocial and mental health support, and building community ownership of prevention and rehabilitation initiatives are necessary. Among the suggested measures are revamping and refurbishing religious education, mainstreaming digital literacy campaigns, increasing access to fair livelihood prospects and ingraining CVE awareness in curriculum at various levels of education. The gap between the security requirements and the grassroots resilience is bridged in this study which presents a multi-theoretical and context specific model that teaches practical lessons that can be applied by not just Pakistan, but by most states facing the similar challenges.