Countering Violent Extremism Regional Summit, Sydney, 11-12 June 2015
Panel Session 2, Day 1: Key players – the role of women and families in challenging propaganda
Professor Michele Grossman, Victoria University
The role of families in challenging violent extremism: culture and context
As the risks and challenges associated with violent extremism and terrorism continue both to grow
and transform, we are coming to understand that countering terrorism in our communities is
everyone’s business, and not just the province of experts, policy makers, community leaders and law
enforcement. In particular, we have become increasingly aware of how vital families in particular are
as front-line resources in challenging the messages and appeal of violent extremism.
The critical role of families in this space is threefold. First, families play a key role in influencing and
shaping attitudes and responses to the world in which young people grow towards independence
and autonomy, but where they may also encounter harmful influences through both online and
offline violent extremist rhetoric and propaganda. In some communities, mothers especially are able
to draw on key cultural, social and religious narratives that enshrine the importance of women’s
knowledge, guidance and wisdom about how to behave and what values are worth living by.
Second, families are essential building blocks in the key task of fostering community resilience to
violent extremism. We know that building community resilience to promote individual and
community wellbeing in general is strongly linked to building resilience to violent extremism in
particular, especially when we are focused on the very early stages of prevention and resistance to
the appeal of violent extremist ideology and rhetoric.
Finally, families are a front line of defence in relation to detecting early signs of radicalisation
leading to violence, especially amongst young people. Those closest to us are often the first to see
very early or subtle changes in behaviour, attitude and social networks. It is imperative that we
develop a comprehensive model for educating families about how to read and, more importantly,
how best to act on such early warning signs and changes.
Families and resilience
Established indicators of general community resilience and wellbeing include things such as sense of
social belonging and connectedness; the ability to care for others and be cared for by them; sharing
problems and finding common solutions; maintaining a sense of value, purpose and meaning in life;
locating and accessing resources to meet one’s needs; living comfortably with people from different
backgrounds; and exploring new modes of identity and affiliation while still valuing and celebrating
cultural heritage and traditions.
Against all these indicators, families are cornerstones in building individual and community resilience
to violent extremism. Yet to understand the specific ways in which they can be primary resilience
resources for those who become vulnerable to violent extremism, we also need to understand the
cultural bases and contexts in which families operate – what their capacities, constraints, resources
and needs are, and how they themselves understand their ability to be effective in ways that really
make a difference.
In a recent national study led by Victoria University and Victoria Police, we examined the cultural
bases of resilience to violent extremism within the Lebanese- , Somali- , Indonesian- , and
South/Sudanese-Australian communities. Within all four communities, family was seen as central in
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building resilience to violent extremism because ‘the family’ is defined as the core unit of meaning,
sociality and support across generations.
Drawing on a cultural concept of family that was often based on an extended sense of kinship, the
most common way that participants described the importance of ‘family’ to resilience was as a
tiered hierarchy of belonging, loyalty, care, support and responsibility, beginning with relatives and
friends, widening to one’s own ethno-cultural community, and finally outwards to the broader
community. As one participant put it, ‘If anything bad happens, the family straight away is the first
power and port of call. So family comes first as a resource to cope, then [you go] bigger and bigger’.
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However, families were not always cast as a positive resource in times of crisis or conflict. In some
cases, families themselves could be part of the problem, either because of family dysfunction, or
when conflicts arise as young people negotiate new forms of independence that are resisted by
others in a family group. In other cases, people seek to protect a family unit from trouble or conflict,
choosing instead to source help and support in a crisis from friends or social networks to avoid
bringing shame to the family’s reputation within the community.
Families and shame
In fact, our findings suggest that the cultural role of shame in how families, especially those who live
in shame sensitive cultures, cope with vulnerability to violent extremism is a central and persistent
‘double-edged sword’. On the one hand, in family settings where shame is a meaningful cultural
dynamic, developing counter-narratives focused on the avoidance of future shaming of family,
community, culture or religion can be a very effective strategy when thinking about how to build
resilience against violent extremism. The prospect of bringing shame to those you love through your
actions can be a powerful deterrent, including for young people who grow up in shame-sensitive
communities.
However, the actual experience of shame can disable resilience to violent extremism. This occurs
because the experience of shame tends to close down dialogue, support and knowledge-sharing
strategies for addressing extremism leading to violence. This dynamic was clearly evidenced by many
participants who said that ‘keeping things inside’ (the self, the family, the community) or ‘dealing
with things on your own’ are better solutions than disclosure when dealing with challenging issues
because they do not risk public exposure to the shame created by gossip, judgment or censure.
Silence and secrecy are important tools in shame-sensitive communities, but they are lethal for
efforts to bring knowledge and solutions to bear on the risks of violent extremist messaging and
ideology.
Experiencing shame can also result in family decisions to ostracise at-risk family members in order to
avoid shame’s flow-on impacts for a family, or to reduce the ‘toxic effects’ of anti-social behaviour
on others within a family unit. This can lead those who are shunned to seek sense of belonging and
validation through other social networks that can enhance vulnerability to violent extremist
networks and messaging, so that social exclusion from the family breeds its own ‘vicious circle’ of
hardening attitudes on all sides. This means we need to focus on equipping those families who are
influenced by cultural dynamics of shame with strategies that avoid ostracising people and instead
seek other ways to support and divert them from violence.
Opening the dialogue around violent extremism
It is equally important to develop strategies in which open communication channels and dialogue
about the risks and consequences of violent extremism can be aired, shared and debated within
families and communities without creating the experience of shame that can lead to denial, or risk
silencing and driving such issues underground. This is especially important when thinking about how
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we can encourage family members to come forward when they suspect or know that someone close
to them has become involved in violent extremist activities that can bring harm to self and others.
Families are in a very tight spot when it comes to dealing with authorities on these issues, as a
separate study we ran with Australian Federal Police has shown. The inner and interpersonal
conflicts for family members who think about coming forward involve complex experiences of fear,
concern, powerlessness and betrayal – both of the person at risk and also of the broader family and
community fabric. Foregrounding the role of families in countering violent extremism means
ensuring we understand the complex territory involved in speaking up, and that we offer
appropriate support through community figures and organisations that can help people navigate
very difficult and confronting terrain. Family members decide to come forward to authorities based
overwhelmingly on care and concern for those they love. It takes both courage and trust to do so.
Our CVE strategies need to recognise and respect these dynamics, what they mean for families who
get caught up in combatting violent extremism close to home, and how we can foster their coping
ability to deal effectively with these issues.
For all these reasons, the importance of whole-of-family strategies and approaches to dealing with
radicalisation leading to violent extremism remains essential. This is especially so where there a high
value on family cohesion and relations. Working through families and ensuring understanding and
respect for family structures and dynamics based on cultural values and dispositions can be a key
element in helping young people to better understand cultural values and frameworks; reduce
confusion around cultural identity, and strengthen capacity to distinguish between harmful and
beneficial messaging around cultural or religious obligations and imperatives.
Youth-focused strategies for families
Alongside this, however, it is also clear that youth-specific strategies are needed to accommodate
young people’s understandings of their place in the world and their power to act in it that may
diverge from those of older generations in their communities. This means stronger efforts focused
on working with families to understand and accept, even where they cannot support, the realities of
young people’s independence and autonomy as social and political actors within the broader
society. These should be both proactive and prosocial strategies that focus more on positive,
validating approaches and alternatives rather than relying on negative messaging strategies about
resisting violent extremism alone. In other words, the main counter-narrative in building familybased resilience to violent extremism needs to be phrased as a positive: YOU DO’ and ‘YOU CAN’,
not ‘YOU DON’T’ and ‘YOU CAN’T’. Such affirmative messaging is our best hope in helping families to
reach and support vulnerable young people who may be at risk, and also to find the information and
support that families themselves need when dealing with painful and difficult challenges.
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