Countering violent extremism – IPDGC Smart Power

When Public Diplomacy Is a Bad Joke: The importance of in-groups and out-groups to the successful use of humor by diplomats

December 1, 2016July 9, 2020Cultural Diplomacy, Global Communication, in the field, IPDGC, public diplomacy, Social Media, Youth1 Comment

640px-secretary_kerry_jokes_about_his_height_standing_with_kenyan_president_uhuru_kenyatta_at_the_state_house_in_nairobi_28534132883 — Secretary of State John Kerry jokes with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta | State House, Nairobi | August 22, 2016 | Photo credit: U.S. Department of State

Derision is a complicated thing. At its most sophomoric, derision is little more than blowing raspberries on the playground – good for a laugh at someone’s expense but without much of a point. When given proper thought and execution, though, derision can deliver persuasive satire or charming self-deprecation, both of which bond audience and humorist closer together.

While diplomats use humor regularly to engage foreign audiences, often with successful results, there is little study of its use as a public diplomacy tool. Unfortunately, there is no formal understanding of the strategic use of humor when engaging foreign audiences. As a result, we see some nightmares when humor is poorly applied. When a diplomat’s joke bombs, the risk of real bombs is greater than when a new stand-up chokes at Comedy Works. It’s like Bono pleading with the UN to send a CVE-comedy task-force to Syria – we seem to know that there’s something there, but we just can’t quite grasp how to harness it.

Let’s talk about the failures of derision in public diplomacy. The most glaring example is “Think Again, Turn Away,” a counter-terrorism effort so poorly conceived that even our own comedians mocked it. In 2013, the Global Engagement Center from the U.S. Department of State launched the video “Think Again, Turn Away” on YouTube, intending to reach the same young audience that ISIS targeted online for recruitment. It wasn’t long before people realized that the snark-filled, sardonic PSA was utterly tone-deaf.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3VDDbh5dXw&w=560&h=315]

The team that produced “Think Again, Turn Away” undoubtedly understands the situation in ISIS-occupied territories better than most. They just don’t know comedy.

For every joke, there is an in-group and an out-group. These groups may be defined as those who get the joke and those who don’t, or along the classic laughing with/laughing at split. Derision especially lends itself to this split, more so than other comedic styles. Creating distinct in-groups and out-groups can reinforce or undermine existing narratives, depending on how those groups are framed.

Think of it this way: Everyone has a story in their head that tells them who they are. That’s our identity narrative. We have stories about our place in that world. We call those system narratives. In every narrative, there is a protagonist (the in-group) and an antagonist (the out-group). Generally, people like to be the protagonists of their own stories. We make this happen by aligning our identity narratives and system narratives in such a way that we belong to the in-group throughout. So, if we hear a different narrative, perhaps in the form of a joke, that recasts us as members of the out-group, we will reject that narrative. Not only that, we’ll likely cast whoever shared that narrative as a member of the out-group in our own narratives.

Here is a narrative map for a typical ISIS recruit, based on research on ISIS target messaging:

	Identity Narrative	System Narrative
ISIS Recruit	Young, over-educated & underemployed, an outsider (perceived or actual) of mainstream society, destined to and/or worthy of greatness	Living in a society that is hostile towards identity, unjust, limited opportunities to advance; the West is keeping true believers down, only the caliphate is righteous

“Think Again, Turn Away” tries to undermine the “righteous caliphate” narrative by using sarcasm to cast ISIS in the out-group. However, the video fails to draw the potential recruits into its in-group. Therefore, it’s mockery only reinforces the theme of separation between recruits and the West present in both narrative levels.

So, if we hear a different narrative, perhaps in the form of a joke, that recasts us as members of the out-group, we will reject that narrative. Not only that, we’ll likely cast whoever shared that narrative as a member of the out-group in our own narratives.

Understanding the dynamics of in-groups and out-groups isn’t just good comedy – it’s good communication. Philip Seib says that successful communication is always audience based and ties into the narratives of that audience’s socio-political context. Obviously, “Think Again, Turn Away” is not audience based. Rather than embrace its target audience, clearly marking themselves as being “on the same team,” or both part of the in-group, the narrator mocks the ideological society that said audience expressed interest in joining. That is why the video targets its specified audience, after all. By mocking the group with which the audience has already identified, even superficially, it casts both in the out-group, cementing the audience’s allegiance to the butt of the joke.

One might have done less damage trying to sincerely persuade potential recruits to join ISIS. John Oliver points out that the State Department is “banking a lot on any potential militants understanding that [“Think Again, Turn Away”] is sarcasm,” the implication being that the intended audience won’t get the joke. Alternatively, the audience might understand the joke, but doesn’t find it the least bit funny. Either way, the video reinforces extremist messaging by squarely casting the audience in the out-group.

Whether or not potential recruits have the capacity or inclination to “appreciate” the video’s try at sarcasm, humans respond to humor cognitively and emotionally. No one likes being mocked; it makes us feel bad. You learned this blowing raspberries on the playground. When the audience you are trying to reach is also the butt of your joke, you have missed the point.

The views expressed here are the author’s only and do no necessarily represent those of George Washington University.

master narratives of islamic extremism ISIS ISIL

People of the Book: What Explains the Rise of Extremism in The Muslim World?

November 30, 2016Middle East, public diplomacy2 Comments

Perhaps one of the defining characteristics of religion is that it provides a structure for adherents to process the world around them. For the world’s Muslims, who have been rocked by isolated waves of violent extremism in recent decades, their religion provides a rich cultural history that is interwoven with grand narratives of holy wars, martyrs, and heroes. Scholars and public diplomacy officials are quick to point to these more violent narratives as the root cause of Islamic extremism—but these assertions do not explain why Islam, of all the world’s religions, has been most affected. These explanations, whether intentionally or not, ignore or minimize the effects of eroding political and religious control centers and rising global secularism that have acutely affected Muslim population centers.

The Rationale for Muslim Extremism

It is hard to fault scholars for trying to simplify the origins of this outbreak to a narrative susceptibility of the Muslim faith. In public diplomacy, where words are actions, exploring the cultural schema of a foreign community is an important exercise that can ensure that no communication further emboldens the very extremists that a communicator is trying to undermine. Of course, religions of all types include stories of war, conflict, and worldly struggles that have cosmic ramifications. And the overwhelming majority of religious scholars acknowledge that some of these cultural master narratives – especially the Abrahamic faiths of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – provide a framework for individuals to process events that can run counter to western secular values. One needs only to look to the overt religious themes of Islamic State beheading videos or the hate mongering screed that fills Aryan Nations message boards to see what a religious narrative used to mobilize extremism looks like.

aryan nations members salute flag — Three Aryan Nations members salute with a banner that incorporates religious and patriotic symbols in this undated photograph from a website purporting to represent the group. (Image: Susan Hillman | aryannationsworldwide1488.org)

However, the Muslim world has been suffering from the acute effects of power vacuums of religion and state that have left room for extremist groups to grow accompanied by a rising global secularism that has increasingly alienated devout Muslims. In the midst of this societal turmoil, isolated pockets of fundamentalist believers and psychologically disturbed malcontents are prone to radicalization and acts of violence.

Power Vacuums of Religion and State

While Western governments are not entirely immune to the effects of eroding public trust, Islamic nations — particularly those states where groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda have staked out a presence — have been racked by wars, coups and general unrest that involve complex structural problems in governance, demographics, and economics. Against this general backdrop of instability is an increasingly violent schism between various sects of Islam (namely fundamentalist Sunni and Shia groups) that can now reach a global audience with their specific brands of Islam.

At one time, the splintering effects of sectarianism were mitigated by the Muslim caliphs. As secular and spiritual leaders, they defined the faith for their followers and fulfilled a spiritual need for an Allah-sanctioned ruler on earth who could separate “right” interpretations from apostasy. Nominally secular governments took the caliphs place in the Middle East after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, some even providing religious leadership in the form of state sanctioned imams who work closely with political leaders to align state policy with the Koran. Even today, the close relationship between government and religion is supported by a plurality among Muslims in these nations who want to see religious leaders take on more political control.

middle-east-north-africa-social-hostilities-pew — Image: Pew Research Center

However, when these secular governments fail to keep the peace in the Middle East, the power vacuums are often filled with religious extremists– especially in nations where government’s implicit support for harsh treatment of religious minorities, “heretics” and “apostates” is present. Weak or oppressive governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan and in Syria and Iraq have been blamed for the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIL.

Rising Secularism and Group Identification Pressures

At the same time, devout Muslims are facing a world that is increasingly ignorant of and outright hostile towards religion. Western nations with high percentages of Christian residents like the U.S., U.K., and Germany embrace religious freedom and tolerate religious practice. There are correspondingly low rates of radicalization in these countries. However, nations like France, which enshrines secularism and the exclusion of ecclesiastical control and influence in its constitution, are moving towards a new paradigm where liberalism and secularization means rejection of the “close-mindedness” and “backwards” thinking that accompanies religious practice. Muslims, who are cast as demeaning women and are a rapidly growing demographic in Europe, have been a visible target of reforms that ban full body Islamic religious dress like the niqab or the “burkini.” Other Abrahamic religions have largely discarded these practices, or their religious dress has been normalized over centuries of exposure. These same conservative Muslims are being asked to condemn fundamentalist extremists’ faith and “moderate” their behavior. This in-group, out-group mentality, and the disdain for religious peoples that accompanies it, alienate Muslims who themselves are fundamentalists, but have come to different conclusions about what their faith requires. Charismatic extremist groups like ISIL use this forced black/white, secular/religious paradigm to recruit fundamentalists and other disaffected Westerners who are drawn to the meaning and sense of purpose that a religious group can offer in an increasingly relativistic world.

muslim woman niqab france 2010 — A Muslim woman wears a niqab in France in this 2010 photo. Image: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 | Flickr User anw-fr

A Rational Conclusion to Fundamentalist Oppression

After making the leap to extremism, fundamentalist adherents can easily rationalize acts of war and terrorism to further their geo-political goals as God’s will for their movement. For the Islamic State, this means conquering territory and drawing the west into a war that their members believe will trigger the apocalypse. For Al-Qaeda before them, it meant using terrorism to draw concessions from Western military forces abroad. Misguided attempts by the west to fight this extremism have only further inflamed tensions that excite members to join and fight.

Western nations must be vigilant in their efforts to minimize further impact of these global trends that have bolstered the rise of Islamic extremism and must be wary of ignoring these problems at home. Banning religious dress, forcing secularism, and otherwise alienating religious groups will only lead to more extremism, as France has seen after multiple local ordinances banning conservative Muslim dress became international news.

The rise of Islamic extremism is a lesson for the world’s leaders: Wherever people feel oppressed, ignored, and alienated in their own country; or where government leaves a vacuum of power, control, or support; there is ample opportunity for charismatic groups to provide the solution.

The views expressed in this blog are the author’s only and do not necessarily reflect those of George Washington University.

Peer-to-Peer: Challenging Extremism [Event Recap]

September 29, 2016public diplomacy, Social Media, YouthLeave a Comment

Peer-to-Peer: Challenging Extremism (P2P) is an innovative program that removes a hierarchical government approach to digital youth outreach. It does so by providing the resources for university students to creatively implement localized solutions that reach the target demographic: their own age group using their own preferred online platforms. On the International Day of Peace, September 21, regional winners from the U.S., Finland, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Netherlands, presented their creative digital outreach campaigns in New York City to encourage moderation and integration in communities plagued by online extremism, prejudice, and hate.

Keynote speakers from co-hosts Facebook, U.S. Department of State, and EdVenture Partners highlighted the rapid growth of the international P2P competition and ingenuity of the students. The program’s 250 universities across 60 countries have students work with $400 in Facebook Ad Credits and $2,000 budget for academic credit to research a target audience and then create a digital media initiative, tool, or product to counter online extremism. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Richard Stengel, described the program as the “model for public-private partnerships at State. We love this program because we get out of the way.” Head of Product Policy at Facebook, Monika Bickert, said the local and global campaigns are so inspiring because the students are responding to their environment, and they can thus develop effective solutions. Under Secretary Stengel reinforced this critical need to act upon understanding by elaborating on his media experience, “as a journalist, when I asked the wrong question, I got the wrong answer.” The following are brief summaries of how each winning team answered the “right” answer with their innovative solutions, with further details on their campaign sites.

fullsizerender-7 — Under Secretary of State Richard Stengel addresses a full room, photo by author.

All teams presented their strategic off and online, peer-driven campaigns that detailed design, implementation, and results. New York University’s conflict studies Masters students focused on diversity and integration processes based on teammates’ experiences feeling vulnerable as outsiders. They described how their campaigns evolved from the #7TrainStop on immigrants in Queens, into the Voices of New York Resolve on countering hate in Brooklyn, which will now focus on radicalization in Bronx prisons. The team has collaborated with local and international organizations to mutually support countering extremism goals, such as garnering 43, 831 Facebook views and 384,340 Youtube views on BuzzFeed-released, “When Hate Speech Comes to Campus.” [#7TrainStop]

The Turku School of Economics [Finland] and Utrecht University [Netherlands] concentrated on refugee integration. The Finnish team created a mobile application that addressed the ~1,000% increase in asylum-seekers entering Finland from 2014 to 2015. They identified four major problems refugees face: Lack of information on the city and country; Lack of contact with locals; Lack of activities in the reception center; and negative attitudes among the local population. Interestingly, these challenges are similar to those new students may encounter when moving to Turku. The team designed multimedia events to increase locals’ awareness, interest, and opinion of newcomers. “United by Food” was a day-long pop-up for refugees to sell food from their home country. “About Turku” made city information accessible by transforming pre-existing records into a free mobile download in Arabic and English. The Dutch team tackled the heated European political climate in “#DareToBeGrey: An Alternative to the Black & White Fallacy.” They created a humorous online series to raise awareness that it is possible to have a moderate stance on refugee intake. The online efforts combined with their recent five-city Dutch tour have reached over eight million people. Both campaigns give agency to Europeans and refugees through multimedia. [Choose Your Future] [#DareToBeGrey]

fullsizerender-8 — Lahore University of Management Sciences team, photo by author.

The Pakistani and Afghan teams focused on dispelling misuses of politicized Islam. The Afghan team from Laal-u-Anar Foundation identified TV and Facebook as the most wide-reaching outlets to defend their religion in #IslamSaysNoToExtremism while sharing Quranic verses that reinforced peacemaking messages. The Lahore University of Management Sciences project, “Fate: From Apathy to Empathy,” highlighted comprehensive programs to re-incentivize Pakistanis who felt they were “just a number” in the destruction and deaths from violent extremism. They countered the apathy by organizing concerts, tours, video games, activism workshops, and education programs to empower and humanize citizens. Both teams cite youth activation through media campaigns to promote moderate Islam to various demographics, as well as calling attention to a narrowing window of opportunity for effective counter-extremism. [International Strategic Studies] [Fate]

Event host, Dean Obeidallah, concluded by reinforcing the magnitude of violent extremism in Asia, explaining that “over 90% of victims of ISIL and al-Qaeda are Muslims, but the U.S. media doesn’t cover it so Americans don’t know.” Mr. Obeidallah paraphrased Robert F. Kennedy to encourage youth to recognize their potential and collaborate because “few of us alone can change and bend history, but together, collectively, we can write a narrative of our generation.” Indeed, a compelling, accessible narrative needs to be solidified to effectively counter various forms of extremism around the world, and the P2P program is leading the way.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JilJithBoFU&w=560&h=315]