Terrorism_Reflection Memo 

Different questions and aspects discussed during the debates that occurred during the class about terrorism could be more emphasised.

• A first one would be the debates if we could consider the terrorism issues in Africa, leads by groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in the corn of Africa or the local branches of Al-Qaeda, as specific to the African context and close or similar to the insurgency issues undergone by countries of the continent.

This first point is really interesting for different reasons. First of all, as it was emphasized during the class and could easily be seen, we faced in Africa groups that lean more on a local recruitment source than international. Indeed, if international terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS lean on a massive international military support by the income of huge amount of European, Nord African or Center Asia combatants as it is the case for ISIS composed of a non-negligible number of Tunisians or French volunteers to give concrete examples. In the opposite, all the African terrorists organizations named above do not lean on international support but rather local one, mostly youngsters from the territories under the control of these organizations. A plurality of reasons might explain such situation. The first and most obvious one would be the role of the mediatisation in the process. From the European point of view for example, it is easy to point that the media focus more on conflict and threat from organization like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. These organization by their roles in some attacks in Europe such as London and Madrid by Al-Qaeda in the 2000s or France and Germany by ISIS in the last years led the population in Europe and so the media to focus more on these groups, able to directly threat them. The mediatisation of such organization can then also have a problematic role by attracting the European radicalized youngsters. In the contrary, the threats presented by Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, or Al-Shabaab are almost inexistent for Europe beside some private economic investments like in Mali or Nigeria.  This over-mediatisation of such organization due to the direct threat of the population can then be a first explanation. But the fact that youngsters from other regions are also attracted by ISIS or Al-Qaeda and not by the African terrorist organizations means that it could not be the only explanation to such differences.

We can indeed try to explain it by more subjective reasons. One could be the feelings of foreign fighters that lead them to join such organizations, for example a young Arab from Europe or Northern Africa will basically fell closer and compare himself easily to conflicts and societies from the Middle East than Sub-Saharan Africa. Some personal aspects should then be studied to explain why some terrorist’s organizations become more global by their troops than others.

An ideological aspect should also be seen, if the majority of foreign fighters are looking to a way to fight for radicalized religious ideas, this willing often take the form of a willing to fight the West, and thus the USA or European powers, by joining groups such as Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or ISIS in Syria and Iraq, they have the opportunity to fight against international coalitions in conflicts where most of the Western Powers are involved. On the opposite, terrorists groups in Africa fight mainly local or national powers. Furthermore, neither the USA nor European countries are involved on the ground in most of the areas where the terrorist threat occurs.

All these reasons could be useful while trying to understand why African terrorist groups may seems less global than the more famous one, the recruitments and flux of foreign fighters and the mediatisation playing both a part in the fact to see these groups as more or less global, being threated in Europe by a terrorist group makes it then appears like way more global than one stuck in operations far away and incapable or non-willing to bring such tactics abroad like it is the case of the African ones.

• Another point would be the frameworks of such organizations. Once again we are here in a paradox where we find the terrorist groups of Africa compared as international terrorism but also local insurgencies.

Indeed, as discussed during the class, it appears that the terrorist groups in Africa shared a lot of similarities with insurgencies civil wars in Africa, especially when it comes to the frameworks of such conflicts. As it is easily seen while studying such conflicts, the terrorists groups shared in Africa a lot in their origins with the insurgencies militias. They both come from specific region within states that are mostly excluded from the political power. This political exclusion is also a social or economic one since they are most of the time poor regions. The case of Nigeria, Kenya and Mali are here particularly useful to understand that with in these three nations, a development of terrorist organizations in the most excluded and poor regions. The population of these regions are then marginalized and could more easily be tempted to join such terrorist groups, not due to ideological reason but also for ethnic or practical reasons. The North of Mali with the Tuareg population, the North of Kenya with Somalis Muslims and the North-East of Nigeria with the Muslims could then be seen as good examples that show similarities between insurgencies and the African terrorist groups. The fact that these groups are killing Muslims as well and sometimes almost only them as in the case of Boko Haram in Nigeria could be another proof that the ideological framework of such groups is not as strong as in more global terrorist groups.

            • Finally, appeared during the debate the question of the policy for peace. Indeed, the framework of the African terrorist groups and their ideological aspect could lead to two different answers as discussed during class.

A first one would be a strong a military answer. If this solution is already the one used by most of the countries that are dealing with such threats, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali for example, the fact that these organization hold territories near borders and the small military control that the national power have in those regions allowed the terrorists to escape easily to regional countries such as Cameroun for Boko Haram, Somalia for Al-Shabaab, where they are originally from, or the Sahel for the Al-Qaeda groups in Mali. This situation implies then only one possible military answer. This answer could then only be an international one, lead by all the countries involve in the fight against these organizations, but this lead to another issue that will be the fact that usually some regional power are more friendly with the terrorists groups and could even let them use their border areas as safe zones from where the groups could fight back the national state they are from. This military solution is then only possible with a strong diplomatic alliance with the whole region concerned.

The second solution discussed that can be used to end the terrorist issues in Africa are more political. This solution would be to build trust and discussion between the central power and the regional terrorist organization. Indeed, usually created due to frameworks such as social and political exclusion as it is usually the case like in Nigeria with Boko Haram, building a discussion could lead the terrorist groups to stop the fight in exchange of political representation or just cut, or at least decrease, the enrolment of the youngster of the region by deleting one important framework that lead to the fight within such groups, that is the social exclusion of these region in the political life of the concerned nations.