TUNISIA

In wake of bombing, plan to fight extremism on campuses
Formal steps to tackle terrorism at higher education institutions have been announced by the Tunisian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the wake of a suicide bomb attack carried out by a jobless female university graduate last month.A 30-year-old woman identified as Mouna Guebla carried out the attack which injured nine people on 29 October in the capital Tunis. According to news reports, the incident was an “isolated act” and the woman had not been on the watchlist of potential extremists.
One-third of Tunisian graduates are unemployed, the report said.
According to the ministry, key features of the new measures, to be implemented in cooperation with the National Committee for Combating Terrorism, include:
- • A database of university competencies and expertise in the prevention of violent extremism and terrorism;
- • Awareness campaigns for students in the field of citizenship, protection against polarisation and prevention of extremism;
- • Training programmes for stakeholders on early responses to violent extremism and radicalisation;
- • Research on the terrorism phenomenon with special focus on supporting academic efforts to better understand the roots of radicalisation in young people.
According to a May 2018 report, Tunisian Terrorist Fighters: A grassroots perspective, Tunisia is the biggest source of foreign fighters for the so-called Islamic State or ‘Daesh’.
Based on semi-structured interviews with various people, including students, the report found that economic and social grievances were the main motivating factors for Tunisian terrorist fighters, along with the ideological void filled by the Salafi discourse after the 2011 Arab Spring revolution and the need to replace the moderate Tunisian understanding of Islam in the political debate.
A 2016 study entitled Terrorism in Tunisia through Court Records found that 40% of Tunisian terrorists hold a university degree.
This situation puts Tunisia (at position 41) among the top 50 countries with terrorist activity, according the global terrorism index for 2017.
’No simple indicators of terrorism’
Response to the proposed extremism monitoring network has been somewhat sceptical.
"There are no simple reliable indicators that best describe the behaviour of radical students on physical or virtual campuses and online social media platforms to be used for identifying potential ‘risky’ students as this area of inquiry is still in its infancy," Hamza Alfrmawi, ICT expert at the Islamic Development Bank Alumni and Science Development Network, told University World News.
"As a result, the proposed extremism monitoring network will end up relying mainly on individual perceptions and personal impressions, which may lead to negative side effects in the university education environment such as threats to intellectual freedom … which could hinder campus activism," he said.
Annemarie van de Weert, researcher at the Research Centre for Social Innovation of HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, the Netherlands, told University World News: "If you let the university community play a part in the information security chain, you have to be very careful."
"Don't only train them to detect certain indicators but train them to be objective and capable of critical self-reflection," said Van de Weert, who is the lead researcher for a 2018 journal article entitled "Subjectivity in detection of radicalisation and violent extremism: A youth worker's perspective”.
Core democratic values
Asked what should be added to the roadmap, Van de Weert said: "Approaches focusing on the core values of a democratic society: equality, liberty, solidarity. Thus, we also need primary preventive strategies focusing on polarisation to counter in-outgroup thinking and stimulate the core meaning of diversity in society."
Higher education expert Magdi Tawfik Abdelhamid from Cairo's National Research Centre in Egypt, said in addition to curricula that develop critical thinking skills, universities should promote entrepreneurship and industry linkages to produce market-ready and self-employed graduates to ensure their stability and sustainable socio-professional integration as a means of combating their exposure to terrorism.
"As Tunisia's political tensions might increase ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections respectively scheduled for October and December 2019, Tunisian universities must urgently start promoting disciplined, peaceful and independent student political activism, regulated by a comprehensive student conduct code."