A How To Guide: Undermining Violent Extremist Narratives in South East Asia

Supported by the Australian Government and led by Hedayah, the International Center of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, this compendium provides practical guidance and insights for governments, policymakers, and civil society organisations in Australia and South East Asia to support their development of narratives to counter the approaches of Daesh (or the Islamic State of Iraq and as-Sham, ISIS), Al-Qaida, Jemaah Islamiyah, and other violent extremists in the region. The goal is to help countries across the region create alternative, positive messages that will reach and influence their local audiences.

Using video production, spreading their messages on social media, and addressing topics relevant to young Muslims, Daesh propaganda has caught the world’s attention. World leaders and counter-terrorism officials have increasingly emphasised the need to counter the messages of Daesh online and offline to prevent individuals from traveling to Iraq and Syria to join the ranks of Daesh. Fighters and recruits from South East Asia are no exception, and regional concerns have been significantly raised since the Daesh attack in Jakarta, Indonesia, in January 2016.

In the spectrum of counter-terrorism approaches, the "soft" or "preventive" strategies, policies, and programmes that identify and challenge the "push" and "pull" factors of radicalisation and recruitment are described as "countering violent extremism", or CVE programmes and policies. For the purposes of this compendium, CVE describes both the longer-term prevention strategies that address potential macro socio-economic and political factors and the specifically designed, targeted interventions that take place at both the community and individual level (to include psycho-social counseling for at-risk individuals as well as detainees).

The compendium begins with a step-by-step approach to counter-narratives, with examples from South East Asia of messages, case studies, and links to videos and websites that are relevant to supporting the development of counter narratives. The compendium then dives deeper into several case studies, highlighting elements of good practice from the region before presenting a detailed annex of 80 existing counter-narratives from South East Asia (Annex 3).

The steps include:

1. Assess relevant push and pull factors - Push factors refer to the socio-economic grievances (real or perceived) that have to do with external forces and pressures on an individual, for example: ethnic tensions, lack of economic opportunities, unemployment, low education, and government or military actions. Pull factors refer to the psycho-social factors that draw an individual to violent extremism, for example: ideology, sense of purpose, desire to be a hero, and economic incentives.
2. Identify the "target audience" through a baseline assessment - e.g., counter-narrative developers can work together with technology and social media companies to aggregate the necessary data for a particular region or sub-region.
3. Identify the explicit or implicit narrative being countered - The discussion here explores 4 types of narratives used by violent extremists for radicalisation and recruitment in South East Asia, as well as the logical flow and structure of these narratives.
4. Set clear goals and objectives for the counter-narrative - e.g., disengagement, or enacting behavioural changes where an individual's involvement in violent extremist activities reduces and/or ceases (changing behaviour, namely violence and incitement).
5. Determine an effective messenger - In each description (families, community actors and religious leaders, former violent extremists, victims and survivors, governments), there are a number of recommendations as to how that particular messenger may implement counter-narratives most effectively in South East Asia.
6. Develop the content and logic of the message - A multi-page table draws on international good practice to highlight the key elements of a counter-narrative as well as some recommendations for how counter-narratives could be utilised in the context of South East Asia.
7. Identify the medium(s) where the message will be disseminated - e.g., mainstream social media platforms; online websites or discussion forums; television, film, and cinema; radio broadcasts; print media; SMS or cellular-based communications; face-to-face or in-person messages; live events, community events, panel discussions, forums, conferences.
8. Develop a dissemination strategy.
9. Evaluate your impact and re-assess your counter-narrative.

Tips are included throughout the resource in text boxes, such as: "Don't forget about face-to-face messengers - Although mass-media strategies and campaigns have a role to play in counter-narratives, messaging that is most persuasive tends to include an element of connection that emotionally engages at the individual level. In the campaign design, think about how the messenger can connect with the target audience, or how the message can be amplified with face-to-face contact. Violent extremist recruiters use this same model - disseminating broader messages and campaigns, followed by targeted recruitment of individuals both online and offline."

This Compendium is a follow-on product of Australia's Regional Summit to Counter Violent Extremism (CVE), held in Sydney in June 2015. The content itself was developed in March 2016, when practitioners, academics, and government experts from Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam met in Semarang, Indonesia to exchange information about existing counter narrative projects, best practice across the region, and challenges for the future - discussions about which were used to create this resource. The examples of counter-narratives contained in the compendium have also been uploaded into Hedayah's Counter-Narrative Library, an online portal and database of existing, open-source counter-narratives. The compendium will eventually be available in the Bahasa, Malay, and Tagalog languages, in addition to the English version.