Don't Bomb Them, Educate Them

Don't Bomb Them, Educate Them

“Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world.”

Malala Yousafzai

By: Erreh Svaia

These days we are witnessing a major conflict quickly escalating in Europe and in the Middle East, as ambition, oil geopolitics,  migration,  religion and intolerance are becoming at a fast pace key elements of a violent armed conflict between a good number of players,  a new world war? We hope not.

The civil war in Syria, a conflict spawned from the so called Arab Spring that ended almost in an altercation between Russia and its ally Syrian dictator Basher Al Assad,  and the U.S.A., by playing the tough guy,  President Vladimir Putin was able to stop a violent escalate, he was even ironically considered for the Nobel Prize in Peace,  but all this left a void,  just as the one left previously by the U.S.A. intervention in Iraq,  and the already mentioned Arab Spring,  the territories of Iraq,  Libya and a part of Syria became quickly captured by the so called Islamic or ISIS, a group of radical fundamentalists that threatened Syria,  and whose first major action was taking the city of Mosul, they menaced taking over other nations in the surrounding, bowing to build a Caliphate from Spain to India.

ISIS,  Al Qaeda successor, quickly became a powerful movement,  known by its cruel application of the Sharia Law and by creating and spreading violent and horrific videos depicting all kind of gruesome executions,  as West troops absence and Turkey passive role in the region,  more centered in concentrating inner political power in the hands of another authoritarian regime,  that of Erdogan Recep Tayyip,  give the terrorists group a chance to fortify their position and embarking on a crusade to invoke and to recruit Muslims from all over the world.

The war between Al Assad and the civil resistance in Syria caused a major migration that started in Greece and Turkey,  with migrants trying to reach places like Sweden or Germany,  creating tensions in the borders of the European Union and within it,  the big flow of people threatened to affect deeply the already delicate equilibrium within n the EU,  even alienating radical groups like the German social movement Pegida, Hungarian conservative government and the French right wing party,  The National Front,  precisely all this chain of events ending in the bloody attacks in Paris,  France,  apparently perpetrated by extremists groups.

On Thursday,  we woke up with the news telling us about the Turkey air forces shooting down a Russian sonic airplane,  an event that could only accentuate the seriousness of the situation,  with a NATO country entering a major conflict with a non-aligned country in the Middle East,  it’s difficult to tell if we are close to another world wide conflict,  and it’s hard to tell if the terrorist attacks may again reach America,  but whatever the outcome may be,  terrorism,  as we learned it was after September 11th,  has changed,  and a violent armed action in Syria,  will not stop terrorists in Europe,  Russia,  America or Africa itself,  as Libya and Nigeria territories could turn into fertile ground for extremism and more key enclaves for ISIS,  with its major oil reserves.

The key here to battle extremism is not to bomb Syria, not to bomb Iraq or Nigeria, or even Mali,  the key here is how to educate and help immigrants to integrate in European societies,  how Europe can assimilate the influx of people and give them the right conditions in health and education in order to revitalize their economies and work force, so immigrants doesn't feel left out and start being recruited by extremist organization.

The clue here is not to bomb them, but to educate them,  not to isolate them,  but to integrate them.