-Hi, I’m Martin Rust, I’m with the Security and Policy Institute of Professional
Development, here, at the University of Ottawa. My guest this afternoon is Kamran
Bokhari. Kamran is the advisor to Stratfor on the Middle East and South Asia, and
author of book "Political Islam in the Age of Democratization". Kamran, we’ve been
talking about ISIS and global terrorism. We’ve been talking about how these things are
multigenerational issues that are not going away any time soon. My question this
afternoon is: what is the way for it? In the wake of all the chaos, and the clash, and
the conflict we see today, how do we, here in
Canada, and as part of a much larger Western organisation and group, how do we deal with
the way forward?
-There are two broad things that we need to do. One, is that we really need to steer clear
of a, you know, a one size fits all solution.
-Mm-mm.
-There is none.
-Yeah.
-We’re just going to have to … We’re going to find solutions as we go along. We’re
going to try something, it won’t work, and we’ll have to move from there. But what
we really need to do, is look for allies and
the argument that I’m making is that countering jihadism, countering, you know, radical extremist
salafism is best done by having people from within the milieu …
-Mm-mm.
-… within the intellectual milieu countering them. In other words, we need to look for
Salafi and Jihadi allies. And I think that the United-States is trying to do that. If
you look at the way the United-States has been trying
to negotiate with the Taliban, it was designed to fight Al Qeada. So, if you can
get the Taliban to part ways with Al Qaeda and bring them into, somehow, political mainstream
and then, you know, to moderate, to de-radicalize, to … this is the way to counter
violent extremism. I think that needs to be done, in Syria and on a broader scale. And
the other thing is that we need to look for, you
know … we’re always in search of moderates. We really haven’t found them thus far, but
the reason is that we haven’t really looked hard in off, you know, around us, in terms
of who is it that can best serve as a potential
partner.
-As I said, and listening to you, it strikes me that this is an argument for having a
Canadian foreign intelligence service, so that we can have our own eyes and ears engaged
in the spotlight. Does that make sense?
-Absolutely. We can’t do it without it. There’s just no way that we’re going to
be able to look for such partner, much less deal with
them and then move forward, unless we have eyes and ears on the ground who are constantly
maintaining situational awareness, providing the Prime Minister, and PCO, and
the wider government with the intelligence that they need to make informed policy decisions.
And we really need to be thinking outside the box. We have to become creative.
We’re not going to be … you know, we’re not going to … It’s like this. So, there
is a lot of talk about: "Well, let’s partner with Sufis
to fight Salafis." Well, you know, you do that and you make it worse because …
-Yeah.
-… the Salafis think that they’re deviant to begin with. Why would they buy their
argument? So, you need people who are part of the intellectual context. So, for example,
perhaps the newer party in Egypt, it’a a Salafi party that’s gone mainstream, it’s
working with General Sisi.
-Mmh.
-And so, maybe we need people like them. We … you know, perhaps there are actors
inside Syria, groups that may be Salafi Jihadi, but they don’t believe in the caliphate.
They don’t subscribe to ISIS or Al Qaeda. They are just nationalists who want to have,
you know, a share of power.
-Right. So, if ISIS and the resulting groups that form are there to fill a gap, if they
are there to fill that space where states have
collapsed and regimes have collapsed, the new
narrative, the new narrative that appeals to them and appeals to those who sympathize,
from the West, how do we create that narrative?
-That’s where we don’t do it directly, we, being the government or being Western
powers, Western stakeholders. We need to work with our Muslim partners, whether they
are Muslim governments overseas, we need to work with Muslim organizations inside
Canada, in the United-States, in the broader West. We need to partner with those people
because, look, nobody can tell another people what their religion should be. It’s the
people themselves that have to define it. History has seen wars on this issue, you know
-Yes.
-… the Christian world has seen so much bloodshed over the centuries because of this
very question of: who is to define what are the boundaries of justifiable actions for
a religion or a religious community? So, we
really need to partner with those people and we
need to find groups that have legitimacy not, you know, lone actors who we think speak
like us, talk like us, behave like us, and then we get all of a sudden very happy and
say: "Oh, we found the right partner", only to
know that there’s nobody following them.
-Right. Clearly, these are complex issues and they are not going away any time quickly
but also, clearly, these are not issues that are over there, in some other part of the
world. Clearly, they’re very relevant, here, to
Canada and to Canadian policy makers. Thank you
very much for your time, this afternoon. I’m Martin Rust, I’m with the Security and
Policy Institute of Professional Development, here, at the University of Ottawa. My guest
today has been Kamran Bokhari, advisor to Stratfor on the Middle East and South Asia,
and author of "Political Islam in the Age of Democratization". Thank you, Kamran.
-Thank you.