Media report for the seminar: “Towards a Methodological Approach to Confront Extremist Discourse in the Syrian Context through Learned Lessons and Experiences”
The Syrian issue has been central in the regional and global rise of extremism given the events which have taken the countries of the region by storm after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution.
After the strong emergence of extremist currents in the period from 2013 to 2015, and the decline of most of them, there started to be intellectual and research efforts to analyse and assess this phenomenon in the context of the Syrian issue, especially after the negative effects these organizations gave birth to on the revolution and its end goals.
In order to draw what the characteristics of a practical and theoretical methodological approach to deal with extremist thought would look like, the Syrian Dialogue Center, in cooperation with the Cordoba Foundation of Geneva, established a seminar entitled “Towards a Methodological Approach to Confront Extremist Discourse in the Syrian Context through Learned Lessons and Experiences.” It was held in Istanbul on Saturday, 22 Rabia al-Akhira 1440 H./ December 29, 2018.
In in its first session, the seminar discussed the roles of Sharia authorities and and the effect of forming a unified Sharia authority in preventing the spread of extremism and the extent of its positive influence in local environments. The participants discussed in the second session how to place unified standards to distinguish extremist organizations so that decision makers can use it to distinguish between the different moderate and extremist groups. Discussion then moved in the third session towards a reading of the experiences of some of the opposition factions in dealing with extremism and its discourse and organizations in the Syrian context to extrapolate lessons in what the best practices to politically and intellectually confront extremism. After that, the seminar concluded with a number of recommendations that the participants agreed upon.
مؤسسة بحثية سورية تسعى إلى الإسهام في بناء الرؤى والمعارف بما يساعد السوريين على إنضاج حلول عملية لمواجهة التحديات الوطنية المشتركة وتحقيق التنمية المستدامة
