Down front here, please. Thanks very much. A fascinating discussion. I write the mitchell report. I want to focus if i can specifically on the jihadi and isis sort of cluster and pose two questions if i can. One is as opposed to far right radicals or neonazis, et cetera. Some of us have attended sessions in this very room on the role of messaging and counternarratives and i would be interested to know particularly as i listen to what angela had to say about how you would do this successfully, im interested to know whether and to what extent you think messaging and counternarratives can have some success in this process of keeping people from stepping over the edge. And then second, if its appropriate or if theres time, im interested to know how you evaluate the considerable work that the saudis do on this issue and how you evaluate that. Okay. So we have a question about the ethicacy of countermessaging and then about the saudis. Obviously there is a long tradition of deradicalization intervention programs int3 nf middle east and south asia and saudi arabia is leading that. I think they were classified as an active government, highly ideological program. What they try to do with a lot of money and with a lot of effort to replace jihadism with wahhabism. Nothing of what they do could work in the western country to be clear. What they do is they have very strong sense of what is necessary in a practical dimension of deradicalization. Getting Financial Support for moving out and getting a home and they buy these people a car and they finance the families to come in and meet them in prison so the practical dimension is very good and i think theres no western country who would put so much resources into that kind of work. In terms of evaluating it, theres no Deradicalization Program on that planet who would not claim 100 success rate or at least a high success rate. The Saudi Program is no different. They say they have a 95 success rate. It was just a year or two years ago where they arrested an 88person al qaeda cell in saudi arabia. About 50 of the persons were graduates from the program. There were a number of terrorist plots led by graduates from the program. Theres been no scientific evaluation of the program whatsoever. The only information that comes is from people who run it or finance it or say 95 success rate. They are good and they go out. This touches the issue of the program. Im critical and skeptical. Im convinced that deradicalization can be evaluated and should be evaluated and can be effective. There are a lot of questions like data access, the relationship of the researcher and the program, who financed it, who has interest in positive or negative evaluation, its highly complex and highly political. I think the Saudi Program is so popular in the muslim majority world because its very outspoken in terms of we teach them the right form of islam. We sit down and debate them out of it. Western countries to be honest ive never seen that work in practice when jihadi kids are in prison and you send in imam and say you listen and this is islam how it should be, they have no reason to listen. First of all, youre not a real muslim. Why should i listen to you . Youre government paid westernized muslim or government muslim so i do not listen. They simply say it because they want to get out of prison earlier. Its an interesting program. It should definitely be taken into account what can be done practically in terms of classes and Financial Support and sustainability. The ideological component, im very critical of that. I know whats been written in the media and whats been written in some very rare studies about the program. There needs to be a real evaluation. On the question of countermessaging, is it worthwhile to do given that isis has gone out of its way to anger most muslims in the world. You dont light a fellow sunni muslim on fire unless you intend to put your finger in the eye of every muslim. We dont message as a government against neonaziism. Its just mainstream culture decided its a vile ideology. Should we do countermessaging . It fits into the last question. The Saudi Program is essentially saying you should only engage in acts of terrorism when we tell you to do so. Mzg otherwise, its just wrong. Thats the substance of that kind of theology. Its what it boils back down to. That obviously will be beset with all sorts of issues. Theres the credibility thing that you mentioned that actually when you engage with somebody in prison that you are acting on behalf of state and if they already deny the state, youre starting on a negative already. Having said that, i actually my experience has been very different in the u. K. We looked at over 100 cases over the last six or seven years and actually in that space the overriding majority that weve looked at where there has been a theological or ideological component in the deradicalization has taken place and theres continuous engagement since. So in my experience actually, it can be done. I just dont believe the religious specific perspective of the saudis is necessarily the most appropriate way to do that. Looking across the world at indonesia, morocco, egypt, have various different takes on it. In indonesia you do the wraparound thing where they do the whole ideological dimension, theology and taking care of the individual and their family, et cetera, on cases where they convict terrorists. A lot we can learn from in that respect. This is why i think messaging if its calibrated appropriately and has the right messenger, it can be effective. There are various different groupings of people if you like. You have the blood thirsty neosociopath that wants to join isis because they burned this jordanian pilot alive. Because as you explain in your book they are successful sorry. Because actually they are sociopaths attracted to the savagery. The other thing you mention thats really interesting is the management. A book about how you need to be savage in order to win and thats what modern jihadism should be and he explains tactics around it. One of the things you mention is that actually he talks about random killing of women and children and civilians. He explains that this is in direct opposition of a saying of killing women and children. Actually coming from an academic voice which is not political which is someone just looking at it, would resonate with a lot of the young people i speak to. Its not muslim but academic who is more interested in politics but is just pointing out your religion is not blood thirsty in that sense and therefore that actually does have a resonance with people. I say that because i engage with young individuals from various different spectrums. In that sense messaging if its calibrated appropriately from different messengers so, yes, the u. S. State may not be the most credible messenger toward jihadi. Its fairly reasonable to say. Then there will be academic voices like yourself and muslim voices and there will be theological voices and then people at various levels of persuasion. Some buy into politics. No matter how much you dislike a particular government, it never justified a terrorist act. Then that messaging will have that impact. It depends really. Thats not a great answer of calibrating and getting the right messenger will determine how effective the messaging it. I firmly believe it can be effective. Gentleman in the brown jacket here in the middle. Yeah. Thank you. Im a retired analyst but worked for among other places a unit in the state department called counterterrorism communication center. The strategy that we worked on at that time was to mobilize voices in the Islamic Community to do the countermessaging that weve been talking about not from the u. S. Government but to mobilize people in Islamic Community, which would be perhaps more acceptable voices to the target audience that were talking about. And i think thats still a valid approach. I would be interested in further comments on that. If i could put a wrinkle on that as well and angela and lorenzo, please jump in. What happens when the communities dont radicalize . Like were talking about far right extremism. Theres not been a big movement to push back against that. You were saying that yours is one of the first in the United States to push back against that. Does the government need to fill that space . Does it need to quietly encourage nongovernmental organizations to do it or should it just sit back and wait to see what happens . From my perspective, i know the numbers arent great, but i dont think we can afford to wait to see what happens. Ill give an example for that. It could be something as simple as a community being empowered with knowledge. What do we do if we see x, y and z and for that example ill use the charleston shooting. That individual publicly stated to several people that he was going to go out and commit acts of violence. If that community was empowered, if they werent afraid or think i dont want to call the police, who do i go to . I dont know if its a credible threat. And with that example i will say that we cant afford not to do something. We cant afford to say the numbers arent that big so we can just let it go. The numbers are getting bigger. Certainly not on the scale, you know, with other things that weve seen, but theres a problem. When you say we, you mean private citizens need to mobilize to set up more ngos like yours . Well, im into all kinds of stuff. I would say we as a community. All of us who are engaged in this kind of work whether its on the academic side, whether its on intervention, cve, counternarratives, policy, thats what i mean by all of us. Needs to take extremism more seriously. There is something that you can avoid that happened in britain and to a large extent across different european countries. The failure in britain was that Civil Society didnt stand up against the phenomenon of radical extremism. I mean, i think that reaction is terrible but the reaction is because Civil Society has failed to challenge the ideology. What do i mean by that . I mean we have as an example the leader of the labor party, the leader of the opposition in the u. K. , the main opposition in the u. K. Who is someone thats invited someone to come into parliament in the u. K. Who describes hezbollah as his friends. These are blood thirsty organizations that do a lot of good social work but they have terrorist fringes as part of their makeup. Yet Civil Society has allowed them to be incubated within parts of mainstream society. This is one area where we can benefit and heed the words of john which is dont embrace your values in historic tradition. You forget why you fought for separation of powers. Why you decided there should be no religious test in your constitution. Theres a reason and rationale why you decided that when you formed your constitution. Essentially the values underpin intellectually you have to stand up for and this is why we see regressive measures and i think that comes in both with your muslim communities and everybody, muslim or not, must share that stake in standing up for the American Dream or whatever your particular aspirations and values of life, liberty and fruit of the loom. Fruit of the loom. What can i say . I think what hes saying is fitting to the u. K. Dynamics but doesnt apply to the u. S. A lot of what we discuss is very country specific. You said it works in saudi but not in other countries. Here in the u. S. We do not have a problem of communities radicalizing. We have a problem of scattered individuals. Occasionally theres more clusters of five individuals, similar to an online community, but its a completely different dynamic. The countermessaging, the working with communities, great stuff. It cant hurt but in some cases if not done properly it can actually hurt. For the most part were talking about individuals here and there who are radicalizing. Were communities but are generally rejecting radical messages unlike important part of the british community. Its a very different dynamic here. Some of the big role of the state, social engineering, the needs for the communities to really speak out, im not saying it would hurt in the u. S. But not necessarily needed. Its not a matter of communities. Maybe theres something to be said about the part of the community in minneapolis but its generally few of the individuals not part of the community. Shameful in pitching our stuff but a study we did on isis in america looking at the individuals indicted in the u. S. For links to isis since 2014. 40 of them are converts. Dont really belong to communities. Most of them are new converts that people for a variety of reasons but in most cases belong to the fourth category. People with some weird personal issues radicalize. Outreach to communities doesnt do much in that case. A lot of this stuff doesnt really apply to the u. S. Thank you. Let me gather a few questions. Gentleman in the baseball cap in the back. Thank you very much for an interesting discussion. My name is ken. My work was with addicts as a therapist. I wanted to see if there was some comparison to addiction treatment. People need information to selfdiagnose. If they dont have a selfdiagnosis, they really dont take steps. Part of that is a measure of soul sickness. Ive seen that even in guys who were in combat who were working with radical organizations and even people in the idf got disgusted with what they were doing and had to make a journey but they also needed to have individuals around them that would serve as elders, a sponsor in aa or in recovery but perhaps it would be someone who had charisma of going through this difficult journey back. I wonder if you might want to talk about that comparison if that holds valid. Let me gather a few more questions. There was one in the back. Nope. Her hand is not going up. There it is. Hello. I would love to hear the panels view on some of our quote unquote allies approach to countering violent terrorists. For example, egypt and turkey and israel. Thank you. Lets take another. Down here in front, please. Thank you very much for a fascinating discussion. Im curious if any of your groups or you know of other groups that might actually have become a target for some of these violent extremists . When you think of the example that you end up dismembering a cell, its just a very soft way of destroying it, right . Ultimately you are an enemy. Im curious if thats something thats of concern. Thank you very much. Lets take those questions. Just to remind you, we have a question about similarities what do do you with people who have a problem but arent willing to take the next step . We have a question about the way states in the middle east handle radicalization with egypt, turkey and israel. And then finally about whether any of you or if you heard of anyone being a target of doing this reradicalization work. Gosh. I think lots of people get involved and you end up becoming targets in the u. K. Or have threats. So there is that risk for people. Im loath to figure this out. I think its normal. We tend to live in liberal bubbles. The rest of the world isnt really like that. I think kind of comes to my the last question, some of the h horrific practices of the Egyptian Government we should stay away from in terms of suppressing through violent means, not even terrorists but political radicals, people who we may not see eye to eye with and we think their ideas are horrific, but we shouldnt be supporting the suppression and repression of the muslim broadhobroa brotherhood. Israel, how long you have got . Im going to avoid the israel. Turkey as well has become more and more authoritarian. That is a problem. At a Conference Im at, colleagues from turkey was about deradicalization. I talked about this intervention, ideology. And then turkish said, we put them in jail and they are de d deradicalized. Neutralizing a threat. I know that they have changed a little bit in their Community Outreach project. They have a lot Stronger Community policing aspect where Police Officers would go uninvited and hang out gifts and be present and be nice and be open. They dont have Deradicalization Programs. The question of the threat against people who are engaging in that war. You have to differentiate between those that naturally get attacked and threatened by former groups because theyre a threat to these groups and those who are professionals and come from another background. And its how you frame these kind of narratives. To give you another example of counternarrative intervention, im leading a group together with Inspirational Group called mothers for life, a group of mothers from Nine Countries across the globe who all have lost their sons and daughters. Most of them have been killed in syria and iraq. The mothers wrote an open letter to Islamic State and posted on various social media sites and you can find out about that online. The idea was next to fathers, mothers are in a central position to challenge beliefs and ideologies because theres a famous saying of the prophet so mother irregardless of the faith or ethnic background language, shes the mother and has something to say about that. We wrote that letter and used jihadi terms and described how these mothers felt after their sons and daughters were killed without mothers having a chance to intervene against that and would you guess how long it took for Islamic State to officially respond to that . 3 1 2 hours. After 3 1 2 hours an official twitter account tried to scorn the message. After a couple days when the letter was translated into eight, nine, ten languages they shift their response in posting jihadi recruitment saying you might have a point there but its something different. You misunderstood what we actually do and here are videos showing that we just workout and training and its nice. The response shifted from ridiculing and rejecting it to acknowledging parts of the message and trying to turn it around. None of these mothers were directly threatened after that even me as the family counselor or as an expert in that i was never directly threatened. What you said, of course its dismembering these groups and dismembering the ideology and empowering those who are really dangerous to these groups by their simple biography and their simple natural being. I think it can be done in a way that these cells dont even recognize what is happening. Its simply getting more difficult to recruit. Its getting more difficult to hold your members in the cell and suddenly you are enga