 Pardon me. Excuse me. Oh, I'll finish. This is a little bit of press. Oh, you got it in the middle. Good job. Is it tight? Yeah. So shall we begin? All right, we wanted to begin right on time, so I think let's begin. Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Rida Fahri, presenter for TRT World, which is co-producing with the World Economic Forum this session on radicalization lessons from the past. Our discussion here today will focus on the progress and the setbacks that have been made in the fight against ISIS and other violent extremist groups. ISIS may have been dealt a military defeat, but at what cost, you might ask, and perhaps more importantly, has its ideology really been rolled back? Has it been vanquished? How do we amplify initiatives to counter the spread of violent extremism around the world? How do we develop strong narratives that help us stop the spread of their online propaganda? How do we reinforce positive identity and who needs to take the lead? We will be exploring all of these issues with our distinguished panelists. They are government officials, political and religious leaders, academics and members of civil society. They all have an important role to play and a major stake in this discussion. But before we begin, here's a quick look at where we stand today. ISIS, which once controlled a third of Iraq and almost half of Syria, may have lost, as I said earlier, some significant territory, but how much has it lost of its ideology? 2014, with what was going on as Daesh, ISIS was toppling cities in Iraq and taking over large parts of Iraq. Could you imagine in those times that we are still engaged, ladies and gentlemen, in a fight against the ISIS-Caliphate? It is not over yet. Most of those people are from East Mosul. From the images and what they tell us, their homes have been razed to the ground. So although they may not want to stay in the camps any longer, they have nothing to go back to. The truth is that without an inclusive political process, including those who are excluded, particularly the majority, the Sunnis, Daesh will come back. To do about the families of these Daesh people, especially women and children, these are not refugees, these are people that are not of direct concern to my organization so it needs to be found by states. But these children are not jihadi. If we are not able to give them proper care and protection and love and respect and recognition as human beings, then there are more chances that they could be misused or manipulated. The legions of unemployed youth, poverty and conflict are the incubators for terrorism, extremism, for immigrants, fleeing our fertile and our rich countries, knocking on the doors of Europe. ISIS continues to propagate its ideology and to foment trouble in Southeast Asia, despite having been defeated militarily in the Middle East. Almost two-thirds of all civilian casualties in 2018 were attributed to anti-government elements. That's the Taliban and Daesh or Islamic State, Horasan province. We need a sustained focus on prevention, the underlying conditions that are conducive to young men and women being lured by terrorism and violent extremism. So, has ISIS been defeated and speckhard to you first? You are the director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. You're also an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University. I know that you recently returned from Syria. Has ISIS been defeated 100% as the American president claims, or is it alive and well? Well, the claim is that ISIS has been defeated 100% alive and well. Well, the claim is for the territorial defeat. As Iraq also claimed, and now Rojava has claimed and Trump has claimed. But you can kill a person, you can take a territory, but killing an idea is a whole other matter and the idea still lives. ISIS was selling a dream, a dream of an Islamic caliphate of justice, significance, purpose, dignity. And I'm sorry to say, I think that dream is still alive. And as long as we don't have good governance, we're going to see it coming back to haunt us. And how are they able to continue selling this dream, to continue preying on young boys, many of them barely 15, many of them that you've met, ISIS defectors and others, others much younger. You've produced over 100 videos, I believe, interviews with some of these people. Let's take a quick look. First of all, people who are innocent, people who have been killed, people who are unlawful, people who are free, people who are doing wrong. And the first person who is going to die, who is going to be killed, people who are innocent, people who are being killed, people who are not the big ones, people who have been killed for seven, eight years, people who have been killed for 9 years. And as for one person, people who are innocent, people who have been killed for nine years, for seven years of 장دم którzy. View to our video. Thank you so much for your understanding. So that was a chilling inside look. look at the kinds of young boys that ISIS preys on, victimizes. I know that you interviewed this young boy. As a psychologist, what motivates them? Where does it start? What are the mental precursors to this fall deep into the abyss of radicalism and radicalization? As a psychologist, do you say it is neurosis or something else? Well, there's four things that make a terrorist, and it's a group, an ideology, social support for joining, and whatever's inside of you, your vulnerabilities. So if you're a kid in Europe that's discriminated against, and ISIS comes and says to you, I've got something better that you can belong to where you'll be someone, I've got a wife for you, or if you're Tunisian and you can't get married because you're impoverished, and they say, come, you'll get married, there's beautiful girls here, or in this case this little boy they took over his area, and they preached in the mosque, he thought he would get a car, he was paid, he got an income, he was 13 when he joined, so getting an income was really exciting for him. So it's different for each person, and you can class people by where they're from, because it usually has a lot to do with where they're from, but the group is really crafty on pulling people in. So it's a mix of things, a sense of not belonging, a sense of injustice, economic deprivation. I wonder, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, chief executive of Afghanistan, what do you think needs to be done as a government official, because ISIS may be on the retreat in Syria and Iraq, but they are in resurgence in your own country, Afghanistan, we hear talk about an Afghanistan branch of ISIS known as ISIS-K, the U.S. has warned that it is a serious threat that needs to be focused on. What do you know about this group, who the members are, and what kind of strategy you need to keep them? When things were happening in Syria, in Iraq, in Iraq and Syria, we were concerned, we were worried, because in Afghanistan and parts of the country, which security was not good, this would serve the best environment for these groups. And it began with one single tribe, which mainly it's in the other side of our borders with Pakistan, they started in our region with that one single group. And then some groups amongst the Taliban, which were not happy with their leadership, they joined in at the beginning, it seemed that they would make big strides. But due to their brutal tactics that they used, for example, the first picture which came out, while the tribes, the tribes which suffered afterwards, they had thought that they are helping people with their families, because they had come with their families and saying that they're just accommodate us here. But the first thing when they, what they did was to, once they consolidated their feet on the ground, they blew up 10 elders from the same tribe. The picture is like, even to describe it, is difficult. 10 people sitting there, and underneath it was already mined, and they blew, so. But if they are being manipulated and you have time to observe them, if, as you say, these groups are able to tell them, join us, we will give you the economic opportunities. That's part of it. What then should you be doing in terms of concrete steps and strategies to counter this and to create the kind of environment that would keep them on your side, on the right side? The sort of all-out approach, like in short-term and mid-term, there will be things to be done in longer term, of course. The real answer is, of course, education. And sometimes they start working on children from the age of four, five, six, and their parents are needy people, and they have no choice. They allow them there. And then when they are 14 or 15, they know nothing but violence that they are exposed to, they show them videos, they take them to the areas where they themselves witness those sort of violence, and that becomes part of their life. So it's an all-out approach, Olamar can play a role, the people of civil society, elders. But should the government take the lead? Yes, of course, as we are doing in that case. That's why ISIS has been contained in Afghanistan. So after a while, when they spread their control in some parts of the country, how they are contained in eastern part? Well, that's not what the US commander of Central Command, General Vogel says. He said they represent a very sophisticated and dangerous threat that we have to stay focused on. And he says they're very good at using social media to spread their message. I want to just take the conversation away for a minute, and then we'll continue on this line. Let me go to you, Latifa Ibn Ziyat, and Dr. Abdullah just mentioned the importance of education. You are the founder of the Ahmad Association for Youth and Peace. You have a very personal connection to this issue. Your son was killed in France in a terrorist attack. What do you think needs to happen in order to stop these attacks from taking place? Is education the answer? What do you think governments and other leaders should do? And I forgot to mention, Ibn Ziyat will be speaking in French, and everyone has at their disposal headphones. So please, if I could ask you to pick these up. Good afternoon, everyone. I have seven years of experience in the field. It's true that education is at the root of the solution. It is of utmost importance. Education is critical for youth because that is what needs to be done for the future, but you have to consider vulnerability, poverty. And so young people feel discriminated. Unfortunately, when I speak to young people, I ask them, why do you do this? Why are you joining this terrorist sect? Why are you so full of hatred? And they say, well, the French Republic has forgotten us. The state has left us aside. We are not like other young people. That is why I would like to say that in spite of my suffering, I remain steadfast. And I speak to civil society and to government, and I say school is of the utmost importance. Everyone must make an effort for the youth, because youth is the future. We need young people. People must be focused on this, not just education. Education is the first step. But children need to be supported in every walk of their lives. And as a mother of Moroccan origin, I am French. I found my family in France. And that is the experience that I have every day. And we must listen to our young people. We must support our young people, whoever they are. They need support. They must be supported because some young people are not as lucky as others. Youth that many of them living in Western societies in Europe quite often feel marginalized, don't feel that they belong to the communities that their parents emigrated to. How do you then stop them from going online and getting lured by all of the propaganda that they face that tap into their sense of injustice, lack of belonging, lack of education, lack of jobs? How do you stop that propaganda from luring them in? Can you ever de-radicalize someone who has nothing to live for? There are plenty of things that must be done. First of all, a child should not have a vacuum. Never give a vacuum to a child. And the people who post these videos must be stopped. This message should not be conveyed to young people. What must be shown to young people is something that can help them have hope in the future. And hatred must not be conveyed. And there is still a lot of hatred online. When you insult somebody online on a social media, it goes worldwide. But when you send a letter, you can tear the piece of paper and put it in the garbage can. Freedom of expression. It's a fine line to what extent the authorities need to act more quickly to take down any messages of hate. Absolutely. That is why I say that the people who have set up this machine must be stopped. Men have set up this machinery, and it must be better controlled. That is why we are suffering the damage. I paid the highest possible price. I lost a son of 30. Without that machinery, my son would be here. And there were other young people that age who were assassinated. Latifa Ibn Ziyat, you raise a lot of important issues. So let me turn to you, Ahmad Iradani, president and executive director of the Center for the Study of Islam in the Middle East. We talk about the collective responsibility of authorities, governments, political leaders, and others to take this issue seriously and to do all they can to try to address it early on. So we talk about the responsibility of political leaders first and foremost. But what about the responsibility of religious leaders, leaders like yourself, important voices within the religious community, your responsibility in guiding the youth in the right direction, of creating that kind of real understanding of what Islam is, because as you know, many of them claim to act in the name of religion. What should you be doing that you haven't been? Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Thank you very much and thanks to the WEF for providing this opportunity for me to be here and thanks to you for giving your valuable time here today. This is a very important concern and question you have. And I think that we as scholars of religion or religious leaders or religious actors, we have to realize that more than anyone else, we need to criticize ourselves. And we need to look back to what we have done and also to what needed to be done in the future in order to understand the need and the feeling of the generation, a current generation or future generation. Unfortunately, there's a huge gap, to be honest with you, between the religious community, especially the clergy circle, if I am right to say, and the current and on the street kind of situation where the people are living. So first and most of everything that we have to educate ourselves, we have to learn, we have to work, and we have to get closely to this need of the young generation. And then that's the one step. The other step here is that many of our religious texts need a kind of a new interpretation. And we have to do a kind of refinery, a kind of reform within our religious texts. I have said many times that the issue of radicalization or the people like ISIS is very simple to say that they are not Muslim. No, that's a very easy way to deal with that. And that's not going to solve the problem. We have to accept them and realize and acknowledge them that they are part of our family. These people who have been brainwashed or thinking in that way, that's a part of our family. They are Muslim. But they have got a wrong interpretation of the text. So how do you not convince people who believe that Islam may be at the root of this because of this misinterpretation? How do you convince potential recruits among the Muslim youth that this is not what Islam is all about, not just in words, but actually in deeds and policies? You mentioned the need to look at the interpretation of Islam. Is it time then to start looking critically at certain schools of thought within Islam and to see how dogma is affecting the way young people are being organized? Again, it's happening, for example, I'm originally from Iran and Iran in Islamic seminaries. There are a kind of dynamic thinking started and people are thinking, scholars are thinking. So there is a kind of exchange and also a kind of a relation between religious leaders. It has been started, but it's at the beginning. And we should know that, you know, the issue of radicalization in the extremist way. By the way, I'm not against radicalization as far as it doesn't go to violence. Anyone can be as a freedom of speech or whatever freedom of his rights to be radical in his beliefs or whatever he wants. We have to respect, we have to acknowledge that as well. Some people have more concern about their values or whatever they believe. As long as they do not bother others or do not want to force others to join them or using the force to convince them to what they believe. So there are so many, I think maybe in next time, which I have, I'm going more into details to talk about how we can go ahead. We will do that. I just want to get to the last panelist before we open the conversation in a way that brings us all and all the different perspectives in. So we just heard, Hassan al-Thawadi, about all the tensions in the region being driven by the deep divisions over politics and religion. A lot of dynamics pulling in many different directions can support act as a unifier. And I ask you this because you are the head of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy of Qatar which is responsible for delivering 2022 FIFA World Cup. This will be the first World Cup that will take place in this region, in the Middle East, in the Arab world, in fact the first one in the Muslim world. So at a time when there is so much division, regional rivalries, instability, can the World Cup, even though it's a few years away, be used in a way to bring people closer together and not push them further apart? Thank you very much, Rida, and thank you for the introduction. I do stick out like a sore thumb over here. And I guess what I do offer for some might seem like it's a wild-eyed optimistic dream. But I think it goes without saying, if we look at it in terms of, if we look at the one unifier, the one element that is the unifier between most of the global citizens in the world, it is sports and it is football. You can go in any corner of the world and you can actually have a heated debate as to who is the best football player in the world, Messi or Ronaldo. And that will be in any, regardless of language, regardless of creed, regardless of ethnicity, and even some of the most radical followers would still have an element of passion and sports in it or within them. So there's no doubt in my mind that sports and particular football is the one great denominator that we have. And being in the Middle East for the first time, it is definitely and absolutely an opportunity and it would be an absolute tragedy if we don't utilize it to break down stereotypes. I just wanted to add my two cents in terms of one of the causes of radicalization. The fact is radicalization is not a regional issue, it's a global issue. And it feeds off each other. The massacre that happened and the tragedy that happened, for example, in Christchurch, feeds into the young 14-year-old or 15-year-old in one of the poor neighborhoods who feels that they're marginalized, they have no hope, and guess what, people are out to get us. And then it just feeds into itself and then that feeds into another tragedy that occurs somewhere else where other members of a different faith get massacred. You're right. I mean, there is this spread of violent extremist ideology on different sides of the spectrum. We'll get to it in a second and I'd like to ask you a question on that, but just focusing on the region for a moment and what you can bring to the table with this sort of big mega sporting event that will give hope and excitement to a lot of young people, but it's just over a 30-day period. What for you is the realistic, long-term sustainable prospect? I mean, how much can it do in disrupting, disrupting this sort of violent extremist ideology and creating something tangible? I mean, when we started in 2010, we've worked as hard as possible to actually exploit as much as possible for the opportunities that this World Cup offers. And especially in countering the ideological or the radicalization elements, it's to create hope. And when you're looking at the region to create hope, it's to empower the youth. We've launched many initiatives that works towards one, upskilling capabilities or developing capabilities of people who are interested in working within the sporting industry one of our initiatives is called Jassour Institute that develops people within the sport, through workshops and diplomas. A very important element, I think in the region's economy would be the small and medium enterprise companies to develop job opportunities and to develop greater integration within the around about 60 million people that are gonna come within the next decade into the market. We've launched an initiative called Challenge 22 that looks towards utilizing the World Cup as a hook. But can you realistically, because you put your finger on something really important beyond giving hope to the youth in the region and there is much need for that. But giving them job opportunities, it's a very young region, 400 million plus, half of them under the age of 25, a quarter of them unemployed. A lot of people see it as a ticking time bomb. It is a ticking time bomb, but in the end, we all have to work in our different spheres. I mean, when you asked the question earlier, who should work? Is it the government? Is it civil society? The simple fact is all of us. Every opportunity we have, every catalyst we have, every initiative that we have today, you know, you have the World Cup today available. You have the Dubai Expo in 2020. You have a lot of other initiatives that are going on. We all have to come to acknowledge the fact that unless we utilize every opportunity available and extract every chance and be optimists, be absolute optimists and hope that we, you know, in 2030, we actually hold hands and start singing kumbaya. We will miss out on, you know, and we will fail the youth. It's as simple as that. So lots of challenges to keep the focus on, but you did mention an important point about the spread of extremism, not just within a specific group of people in this region, but across the world as well. So I turn to you Ann Speckhard. We saw how violent extremism in different forms can take shape and lead to attacks like we saw in New Zealand a few weeks ago on Muslim worshipers. To what extent do we have to also focus on this sort of extremism, what people are calling white supremacist nationalism? When Donald Trump was asked about it and asked whether it is a global threat because the data shows that a lot of attacks are actually being committed in the United States by these sort of extremists, he just brushed it off and said, this is just a group of small people with very, very serious problems. Do you see it that way? Should we just brush this off and brush it under the table? No, I don't see it that way at all. And I'd go back to... So what should we do about it? Well, we have to fight violent extremism in every one of its forms and we need to do the things from all of us. As you said Hassan, a government needs to take down this poison that kids are drinking so that other people's sons don't die as your son. So government in France, they said you have one hour to take extremist content down and the big giants of Google and so on and Tech Against Terrorism are doing it, but they also are voluntarily doing it. Facebook apologized profusely and said that they're trying to get on top of right-wing extremism. But if we follow the Twitter feed of our president, it does get a little blurry, doesn't it? But a lot of this starts in the West where a lot of this freedom of expression gives the ability of these young people to get online and there are similarities on there in their tactics of recruitment. They're all online, aren't they? Spreading their messages. So what would you say to those people who have the ability to do more? What should they be doing? Well the tech companies, the big giants, when it came to ISIS, they now have a library of their films, their images and their claims. So boom, boom, boom, they can find it by machine learning. But they're smart. In Albanian, our research director just found 500 Facebook profiles putting out ISIS vitriolic hatred and they spell Jihad with the number one. So the machine can't find it, right? Right-wing violent extremism is even harder to detect by machine learning. And Facebook is dominating the world right now. So you can't expect a person to sit there and track it. But all of us should report. And I do wanna say something else about all of us being part of the solution. I've been so heartened being here and knowing that so many of you are investing in the region, making jobs, making hope, because good governance and hope and economic viability is really the answer to these issues because terrorists prey on injustice and desperation. So, Dr. Abdelay, you just heard Anne Speckhardt talk about the collective responsibility within your own context in Afghanistan. We know that the Taliban is fighting ISIS. To what extent can you join forces at least in this fight against a common enemy? Sorry, we are... In reality, we're fighting against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda. No. I'm here for that. The point is that when... One of two things in regards to what was mentioned earlier, certainly ISIS has lost territory in Iraq and Syria, but not defeated. But the fact that they were stopped from making progress at the beginning, which had created such an appeal for these young, disparate generations that they were looking towards something big happening, that in itself is a big fact. It's a very important factor. But aren't they just lying low, ready for the day when they can come back and bring it back? That's one aspect of it, but it doesn't mean that we should stop all the other things which will have an impact. On the socioeconomic situations, on the cultural issues, on the way that public relations are conducted. Give me an example of a voice of a moderate clergy reflected in the media or in the social media, more or less in the same way that an extremist message is being reflected. The extremist messages will be reflected you see it spread thousand times more than any moderate message. So what do you do? In our own country, while especially in rural Afghanistan but also in urban Afghanistan, the population, like one third of the population, they go to the mosques five times a day or two times a day or one time at least a day. This is in the majority of the olamas in Afghanistan are moderate people. To use this also is important as a venue and platform. So do you believe, Mr. Avani, that the moderate religious leaders and moderate and inverted commas are seeding ground, that they should be more vocal, they should be out there and they should also be more proactive. And to this point about mosques. Not just proactive, provide a space for them because their voices are not being heard, they are raising their voices, they are taking risks. So should you be doing more to raise your voices? And the other point about the spread of mosques, what about this criticism, I think that many of us might have, towards government who continue to spend more money on building mosques than on building schools on education? Going to this issue, I would like to mention something that as we know, the ideology of radicalism and extremism is not a majority we use of the Muslim all around the world. It's a very small percentage that we know the roots of that, where is it coming from? And then there are so many things behind that rather just to be an ideology. It has been funded for political purposes and has been taking hostages in this young generation and this very honest people to be used as a tool and instrument. But aren't all the governments in the region doing this? Aren't they funding mosques in order to shield themselves away from criticism of their own societies who want more political participation? So in a way, driving them toward mosques instead of driving them toward education and socio-economic and political participation, would you agree? Yes, I agree that again, but I want to come back to this. I'm coming to that. What do you say to this point though? Yes, you know, depends on who is building the mosque. This, the problem we are facing here is not just problem of let's say, clergy or whatever, it's a problem of everyone. We are as a family in each country or each society. Then we have to come together and try to solve it together. So whether it's a government, whether it's the private sector, whether it's the business companies. So even the economic part of each society, the company is the business leadership. They have lots of responsibility to support. Yes, building mosques is very important. Also building what has been needed to be presented within the mosque is more important. So but again, it's not just responsibility of one guru. That's the whole family guru. And as I said, you know, as I said, this ideology is very in minority, but there are so many issues that lead this poor people and people who are facing injustice, as you said, who are facing so many double standard policies, discrimination, then they force them to go towards that kind of approach. So let me ask about, you mentioned civil society, Latif Abinziatin, who needs to step up their game? Governments, religious leaders, a combination. Do we need new laws? And does the pressure really have to come from civil society? I think we all have our own responsibilities. The great responsibility at the basis is parents, you know, it's very important, the role of parents in education. But of course, the Hamam and the worshippers and the Hamam is there to pass on a message of peace, of love, which is very important. But I hear today through the internet, I see a lot of things, war and jails and prisons. In prisons, you have no internet, then the radicalization takes place in the prisons. Even in sport centers, I've been on this field for seven years and I see very serious things happening. And that's why I say we shouldn't be naive. We shouldn't have our eyes shut. We should open our eyes and whether in the sports sector or in prisons, even in schools, I can tell you that today I see young girls, young boys in schools that are radicalized. And in the management of the centers, they say, oh, we don't see anything. How do you see that? You know, in prisons, it's the same thing. People are blind. And that's why today it's not only a matter of the internet, there's also all these networks that pass on message. For me today, and I openly say everybody's responsible, it's everybody's responsible, responsibility. First of all, it's the government's. We shouldn't let these ghettos take place, those closed neighborhoods, for example. We have to give a chance to this generation, this youth. For this youth, I can tell you, when I talk with young people of 12, 13, 14 years old, they have no hope. How can we have a 13-year-old not having any hope? It's very serious. And the hope of this youth is something we can dream of. They should be dreaming at that age, and they don't have that. And that's worrisome. And that's why I go to families. And because today, if we can pull out of this trap, again, we have to work with the families. The government has to do its job. And all citizens, all members of society, the media, for example, all have to take their own share and their responsibilities so that they make a better world for this youth. We are the models. And when you're a model as an adult, what do you pass on to this youth? You have to accompany them. You have to listen to them, help them, give them hope for a better world. And it's up to us to take our responsibilities. And other stakeholders, be doing more to address the issues that Latifa just mentioned. Because just looking at the unrest on the streets of Algeria today, there's a sense that governments are not listening, that they're not allowing a highly educated youth who simply is fed up of the bad governance and of being ruled for decades by the same old people. Are they doing enough to listen to them? And if they don't, is it at their own peril? Are they doing enough to listen to them? Obviously, seeing as their people are out on the streets, I'm assuming not. The results are on the ground. What's the baby doing then? Again, it's creating hope. It's creating hope. And when we're looking at in terms of creating hope, the concept should be, I think maybe one element that we tend to focus on, I think, and Ms. Latifa pointed out, we're looking at the youth. But in the end today, it's a full-on system. It's not just what are we creating for the youth, because the parents in the end are also responsible for developing or instilling good sense into their children. But then if the parents themselves don't have hope, how are they supposed to pass hope onto their own children? The system is circular. We have to create hope not only for the youth, but also for the entire society through creating job opportunities, sustainable long-term job opportunities. And in doing that, we have to exploit every opportunity that we have. There are great projects. I mean, the region is, and I say this with a lot of humility, we're probably one of the most talented regions in the world when you look at talent. I mean, just looking at the room right now, everybody who come across highly educated, highly motivated, very, very intelligent. And yet, somehow, we're not capturing that. We're not capturing it in the long term. There are opportunities for us to capture that. There are chances. There are platforms that we can utilize that. And again, when I talk about the World Cup, this conversation that we're having right now is a conversation that we've been having since 2010. It's not something new. 2010, 2011, we launched our initiative in 2013. The issue is, do we look realistically and do we add the opportunities that we actually have? Or are we paying lip service to them? The World Cup for us is not a vanity project, not at all. In 2010 onwards, we made great progress. But again, I'll speak honestly. A lot of people that we speak to don't recognize that. They don't recognize the power of the sporting events or major platform. I'd say major events have, in terms of creating a sustainable economic cycle that creates job growth for the region. They don't see it as an opportunity or a platform to break down ideologies that people have had embedded in them. It's the antidote to populism, antidote to radicalization. This is what this World Cup represents. And again, as I say, I speak about it. I talk about it, but people underrate it. And it has passed along. And when you're saying where the responsibility lies, it's in all of us. It's in every single person sitting in this room. It's in every opportunity, in every company that you have, in every educational initiative that you have, and in every interaction that you have, whether it's with people from this part of the world or the outside world. Is sport, though, being underrated? Or let's face it, is the region facing too many important challenges to be thinking positively and hoping and getting excited about the World Cup? We're talking about conflicts that are raging, not just the lack of opportunities. We're talking about drones overhead. We're talking about a lot going on. No, the impact of sport, we cannot underestimate. In the middle of the conflict when we have these football tournaments in Kabul, these are the biggest events and in the evenings boys and girls join in and most watched TV programs, let alone World Cup, which you may deserve some tickets for us. Absolutely, sir. Yeah. And in terms of governments, the governments not using extremism and terrorism as a means of achieving foreign policy objective. That's the key. That's the first decision that any government should take. He is hitting my rival, why not? Let him be developed and then tomorrow they will turn, these forces will turn against all governments. They have their own ideology. In our case, what led to the containment of the ISIS to the extent that it is, I'm not saying that it's not a threat. The population turned against them. At the beginning, they seemed to be innocent families joining in. Later on when they saw the brutal activities of them, then they turned against them. So that has led to the containment, to the extent that it is. And in some actions, for example, what Prime Minister Arden of New Zealand did in reaction to the attacks on the mosques, that speaks volumes. That's a message which I think millions of people got a message of humanity, common values, in respect, in dignity. That's perhaps more than a war launching against a basis of ISIS. So we should think about it in much, much broader sense because unfortunately these phenomena will persist and a few years ago I was in Saudi Arabia and I was told that in a relatively bitter of family, a son has killed his parents because the parents were against ISIS and the son took gun or put an end to their lives of their parents. And that was in Madinah, Monawara. And unbelievable. But this is something that should alarm us and we should deal with it with a sense of urgency but long-term vision. And one interesting thought that came to mind as I'm listening to everyone speak and that we haven't touched on is this enigma. We talk about the youth, the indigenous youth in the region, the Arab and Muslim youth feeling increasingly disgruntled about a lot of issues and they have plenty to feel that way about. But looking at the kind of recruits that ISIS gets in terms of Europeans and Westerners, it's unusual, it's a little hard to explain. I'm sure you've met with a few of them. What motivates them more than anything else? I've met with dozens of them and what I would say our project when we interview these people, we get ISIS to speak for themselves to tell what the dream was, why they thought it's gonna make me significant, it's gonna give me purpose. I believe my religion will deliver something for me but in fact, it was corrupt, horribly brutal and terribly un-Islamic. So we just interviewed Huda Muthana. She's an American, Yemeni girl who said I got my first cell phone when I was 18 and I got on Twitter and that's all I was doing. On Twitter, in the Twitter sphere of Muslims and some of them started following Shahad and she calls herself brainwashed that she began to believe that she should go and that it was an obligation in Islam. But we also see that people are being preyed upon in Europe by face to face recruiters who tell them your parent brought you from Morocco and your father's kufr. How could he do this? You need to make Isra and go back. So they separate them from their parents. They become the parental figure and prey upon them and pull them into a hateful ideology and a hateful place. And what about those who have no connection to the region whose parents are born and bred in Western societies? What brings them into the ISIS? These are people born in Belgium, Belgium second generation Moroccans converts to Islam. We had 45,000 foreigners come to this region to join ISIS and they were preyed upon by being sold a dream and they were told that you will have a good life, you will build a caliphate, it will be great, you'll be rich, you'll be important, you'll have fun and somehow they didn't have alternatives and they did work through sports teams as well as you said Latifa and in schools. So in our schools we need to start teaching these ideologies and warning kids, you are going to run into this in our mosques, in our religious institutions, even in our Christian and Jewish ones because our kids convert and get poisoned by a poisonous ideology. We need to warn them you're gonna run into this. Isra, I can add something. I have also personal experience. A few years ago one of the minister of justice was a friend of mine in one of European country asked me to go there and see how we can help them to de-radicalize the ISIS or the people who are in jail and also that was their main concern in that country. So I traveled to that country and I had the opportunity to pay visit to some of these jails and also had some interviews with some of the people who are a citizen of that country but some of them they had a background of Chechnya or other maybe Muslim countries. And in my interview with them and very frankly and honest and friendly discussion I found out that one of the issue they had at the lack of trust to all the western kind of media or propaganda or whatever comes from the west they look at it as something as a plot that they want beyond all these nice pictures of the west is a kind of evil intention to destroy Islam and to bring Islam down. And I told, I remember I asked one of them how are you getting your news here while you are here? Do you have TV or how do you connect to the outside world? He said that we don't have access to the internet. We are watching the news. Whatever I get from these western channels I interpreted it in the opposite way. So I know that the opposite way is correct not what they are saying that. So that's the mindset of these people unfortunately in the west that they are thinking this way and we should not blame them 100% because there are so many injustice, so many as you said double standard policies so many things coming out of these western countries or leaders as you mentioned recently about the approaches of our president and others towards I mean undermining all of these issues and especially in the Middle East what we see now is going on towards Palestinian-Israeli issues and towards all these issues these are we shouldn't take it easily. These are all like putting oil on the fire that is already here and we see. Mr. Ravani, since you mentioned the responsibility let me turn to you Latifa, you live in the west and as you know a lot of young Muslim people will quite often get radicalized when they get sent to jail to prisons in various western countries. They get sent to jail quite often for petty crime and they get radicalized there meeting one-on-one with people who can influence them. Does that suggest then that something needs to be done differently by the authorities when it comes to dealing with people who shouldn't perhaps be put in the same place with people who already have a history of being radical? Yes, of course, no, they shouldn't be put together by all means because they're easily contaminated but just the fact of being locked up in their jail 24 hours a day, they're five locked up in the same room often the prisoners don't want to go out of their cells they want to stay in their cell and if they don't have opportunities to take training or do sports, something that will encourage them to leave their cell given the book's force and something that can motivate and when that person leaves jail he can find opportunities but unfortunately I met a lot of young people that were radicalized in prisons whether they were French citizens or of French origin or of Muslim origins that are radicalized and I'm always shocked when I hear young Muslims that say they are converted they were born in a Muslim family and it's shocking to see that they become radicalized. I'm going to the trial of the brother of the assassin of my brother and he said, I converted to Islam and he was already a Muslim and he said he has a certificate that he converted to Islam where he was already from a Muslim family it's the same thing in the schools and in families another example I worked with a family where the young girl radicalized and I tried to help her and I had to help the mother and the daughter and how could I work with both? I had to separate them because both were I've become radicalized so I had to work with one and then the other to try to pull them out of this and that's why today in France I always tell the government to pass on this message we must be attentive to this youth we have to love is stronger than anything else the love of this youth give them a chance to succeed give them their proper place I saw a lot of young French people who have succeeded and they leave France they were educated in France went to university in France and they leave France they leave France so we have a problem that's very strong and that's what I experienced today before I never saw that but losing my son led me to see all this and that's what we see not only in France but in Europe that's why we need to give chances to our youth I love football, I'm not against football but there are also other sports why do these people from the difficult neighborhoods only do football? You can do tennis, you can do swimming all kinds of athletic sports so why will we only propose football or soccer to the young Muslim children? I like football, my family, my children and everything play football but I think we have to open up more opportunities so yes, of course it's a very popular sport I talked with the young people from the lower income districts they're the young people I'd like to be a football professional but I'd say you can do something else okay it's their dream but I tell them think of other things think of studying eventually learning the codes of living and everything and to make progress and to have hope to be open minded as to the future and that's why, please forgive me but why I started this project I pulled these young people out of the low income neighborhoods I took them to China, to North Africa and I take them on my travels to open their minds to prove that they there are things like that that can blossom and I can assure you that when I ask young people what you learn with association they say, I grew up and if each and every one of us does a little bit things will be much better For me, when we work with In English So when we work with the we talk about football and everything it's because there are a lot of things along that go along with football education, working in the world of soccer or football and working in the world of sports but as you say there is a power with football in this part of the world and everywhere in the world Just bringing us back to the reality of the region I want to move you toward politics if I can for a second I know it's not your area of focus but I wanted you to answer very quickly if you can just in a second or two Mr Iravani's point about some of the hypocritical policies pursued by some Western governments the lack of peace in the region and whether, as Latifah says we need to move forward and progress whether that can actually happen absent this hope that peace can bring not just football for a moment or two but peace, long standing Again just to clarify the world cup is a building block it's one element in a big chain it will not achieve it on its own but we need to create these opportunities of hope these oases of hope throughout the region can we? the simple fact is we have to it's not a question of can we or can't we we have to for the sake of survival of the region and for the youth there are no doubt hypocritical policies undertaken by many different governments throughout the world that leads to people being disillusioned marginalized and then pushing towards fodder for radicalization but again it comes back to what do we do to counter it if we're gonna say is there hope, can this world cup or can this event or can a single cleric actually change hearts and minds can we actually do it I think we're preparing ourselves for defeat we're building ourselves for defeat we need to in every aspect we need to be audaciously ambitious audaciously optimistic everyone has to build on his own element everyone has to work on their own elements now when we come again to the issue of again it's because the area that we've worked in over the last 10 years when we come to sports the experiences that we've had whenever you talk to anybody from different parts of the world it's a unifier it might not be necessarily football it might not necessarily be sports but the point is unless we see every issue or every opportunity every platform as an opportunity and we extract it and utilize it and exploit it then we're gonna just sit down to continue speaking like this for the next 10, 15 years without any real results thank you very much I'll consider these your final thoughts I've only got less than four minutes at my disposal so if I can ask you each within a minute or so give me your thoughts about the best way forward to look at the problem as it is and to do in our own position in our own role whatever we can to help the generation that we are part of it the future generation and it will not go away unfortunately easily it takes a lot from lots of stakeholders but if you're all only witness to this and not taking action in our role in our part then this might exacerbate further thank you Dr. Abdelabda and Speckhardt your thoughts I'm a psychologist and we're specializing in counter messaging right now but I can tell you any messaging you have to make some resonance with the people you're trying to speak to so we decided to use ISIS insiders to try to tell people that we're on that path don't go further that way it's not gonna work out good for you but we could just as soon and I would love to exploit you this way we could just as soon use sports figures and we have used one we had a kickboxer an Austrian who was from Egypt who has suffered a lot of discrimination in his life and had a lot of anger in his belly over it and he spoke about it we got him on video we got you know a short counter narrative and we've talked to some other kickboxers that have agreed to do it are you know we're limited by our funds unfortunately but role models are terribly important you want to reach to your whoever you're trying to message to and actually reach them because as you said news is not trusted we just had a Dutch girl tell us that so I didn't trust anything that came from the news and I saw Abdelbakker al-Baghdadi he had all this territory as you told us in your opening remarks so I thought he must be bringing the next caliphate and the news is lying to me here in Europe we had a Belgian say the same thing thanks very much Hans Becker to you, Iravani, the world of religion and how we move it forward yes, religious leaders and institutions have different kind of responsibilities first they have to as we discussed they have to go back to their theological aspect and try to bring a new kind of reform information to the society that be current and modern with the society's needs and more important than that they have to be to bring themselves into the real world they have to try to work in the environment in health issues in all these kind of activities they have in charity works more than before and the last one they have to have a there is a gap between science and religion and science communities, scientists and religious communities bringing them together can help to have a better and healthier society Ahmadiravani, thanks very much Latif I've been in Ziyatana in 30 seconds or so the top priority for you well, we're in a sense of emergency we have to focus on tolerance, love we should not fear others and we should work on creating a better world and give youth an opportunity for peace, love and living together it's of utmost importance I think we'll leave our discussion I want to thank all of our distinguished guests for their insights and valuable discussion and thank you all very much indeed for being here thank you thank you can I start with that? thank you