SINCE 9/11, Pakistan’s response to terrorism, which has intensified due to suicide attacks, lone-wolf acts and technology misuse, has been mainly kinetic, with hard and soft approaches like security operations and peace pacts. The need to defeat militant ideology is overlooked.

Legal and institutional responses to CT are mainly reactive and punitive. Rehabilitation, reintegration and deradicalisation are low priorities. An effective response to violent extremism needs a diagnostic approach; a solely security-based one shuts out human rights. Collective resolve, political ownership and support and volunteerism in communities where extremism breeds are needed. Is countering VE through rehabilitation only the state’s responsibility or a shared domain? In fact, CVE needs collaboration with communities, LGs and NGOs. Wars on terror require a broader view of the reasons behind VE. To prevent VE, civil society is key, as the UK, which collaborated with 82 CSOs in over 40 areas, realised.

In Pakistan, at first there was little awareness of peace education’s importance. A few universities began peace and conflict studies degree programmes but schools, where curricula are based on narratives of hatred and intolerance, neglected it. Articles 140-A........

© Dawn