Mothers as Weapons: What Counters Radicalisation?

The title almost sounds like an oxymoron. We often describe ‘mothers’ as caregivers, nurturers and protectors. How, then, can we possibly think of our natural caregivers as weapons? For centuries, mothers have been venerated as incarnations of the divine. Christianity reveres Mother Mary as a guiding force behind Christ’s path. Hindu tradition addresses its goddesses as Sita Mayya, Maa Saraswati, Kaali Maata; mother, before anything else. Mothers represent power that no institution can ever imitate, one that is fierce, unconditional and resilient. They are, for example, closer to children than any State apparatus could ever get. 

That closeness is exactly what a State must recognise. That closeness is what makes a mother dangerous to extremism. She is a warrior. She is stationed at the one checkpoint, radicalisation must pass through before it becomes irreversible: the home.  

What Radicalisation Actually Looks Like

Across academia, there exists a consensus that radicalisation is a ‘process’. It is neither spontaneous nor inevitable. This process often unfolds unchecked in plain sight, dismissed as teenage rebellion. A significant share of it now plays out on social media. This teenage plight might remain invisible to everyone except the person who shares their kitchen table.   

Contrary to popular assumptions, radicalisation is not merely a product of poverty, illiteracy or shared grievances; but a complex interplay of individual vulnerabilities, social influences and ideological exposure. Osama bin Laden belonged to one of the wealthiest families of Saudi Arabia and was a civil engineer by profession; his father being one of the country's most decorated businessmen, credited with building the Kingdom’s largest construction empire. Abu Bakr-al Baghdadi (leader of the Islamic State (ISIS)) held a PhD in Islamic studies. Ayman al-Zawahiri was a trained physician from a prominent Egyptian family with generations of professors, doctors and imams behind him.

These men had education, privilege and a social standing. Yet, they became some of the most notorious terrorists of the world. Their stories reinforce the notion that there is no single profile of a terrorist. If radicalisation cannot be predicted by wealth or education, perhaps the better question is then not who becomes radicalised, but who notices it first. It is within a family that these behavioural changes are first observed. More often than not, it is a parent, and a mothers love is what can counter these subtle changes that precede violent extremism. 

Mothers as the First Line of Defence

A mother is often the strongest link between a child and their community. Her physical and emotional proximity enables her to become a part of each stage of her child’s development. This makes her not just a witness to radicalisation but also a potential early-warning system for it. 

States are yet to realise the importance of utilising the potential of a family in countering radicalisation. Bringing mothers formally into a State’s counter-extremism strategies would not just add another layer to State’s surveillance but would build a genuine bottom-up network rooted in community rather than institutional suspicion. Such practices would help in building community relations and create local awareness. Not only this, but women coming together would also help in innovating novel solutions to counter radicalisation.

This is exactly what the Dutch municipality of The Hague's Oumnia Works programme aims to do. Combining the arabic words, oum (mother) and nia (hopeful), this program is built on the premise that mothers are the last hope before radicalisation translates into extremism. Jordan’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda is another example of this logic written into policy. Adopted under United Nations Security Council’s resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325), the agenda enables women’s participation in prevention of violent extremism, peacekeeping, conflict prevention and gender-based violence. 

However, good intentions often encounter challenges on their way. Most parents realise their child has crossed into extremism only when it’s almost too late. Too late can be when they’re already under the police radar or en route to Syria to become a part of global jihad. Parents, especially mothers, are mostly the ones to sense the change first: detachment, secrecy, extreme stance on issues of global urgency. Thus, what a child usually lacks is not vigilance but a place to turn to.

This is the gap that Austria’s Women without Borders (WwB) was built to address. It addresses these issues by building the social capital needed in tough times. In 2008, WwB initiated world’s first female-led preventing violent extremism (PVE) platform: Sisters Against Violent Extremism (SAVE) Network. It later developed the MotherSchools: Parenting for Peace model, designed to channel maternal instinct into something structured and teachable,  harnessing the potential of Mothers Preventing Violent Extremism (MPVE). This model aims towards strengthening the participant’s individual capacity, capability, identity and emotional literacy while also increasing their awareness of radical influences. 

Programmes like these address two things at once. On one hand, they educate mothers about the potential harm of radicalisation and how to open a conversation with their children. On the other other, they provide an avenue, so that in case of suspicion, these mothers know exactly where to go before it is too late.

The Second Fight: Weaponising Grief

This section highlights the stories of mothers who arrived too late, but they chose to stay anyway. One such story is of the United Kingdom’s Nicola Benyahia, who lost her son Rasheed to violent extremism. During her son’s jihad in Syria, she was in constant, ‘non-judgmental’ contact with him, trying every possible way for him to get back home and seek help. He never returned. Following the death of her son, Nicola founded ‘Families for Life’, a counselling organisation to combat the shame families feel around radicalisation and support them through it. 

Canada’s Christianne Boudreau lost her son Damian to ISIS in 2014. Following days of searching and the final news of his death, she founded the Hayat Canada Family Support dedicated to helping other families recognise the early signs of radicalisation before they, too, run out of time.

These incredible, resilient women are just a few examples of mothers turning their grief into their most powerful weapon and their most enduring strength. Neither could save their own child but are positioned, quite literally, to save someone else’s child and help the families fight through it.

The Ultimate Weapon

Perhaps fiction understood something that policymakers are only beginning to recognise. J.K. Rowling wasn’t wrong when she made Lily’s unconditional love for her son, her ultimate weapon against the Dark Arts. It wasn’t just her love that protected Harry from Voldemort, but made her love become the very reason that Harry himself never turned to Dark Arts, when he had every excuse to. Fiction borrowed something true: a mother's love was never the opposite of a weapon. It's simply one that States should ‘learn to arm’.

Image: Flickr/European Union (Peter Biro)

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