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| The Washington version of the summit Image: Flickr User - U.S. Department of State |
By Helen Clark
The Countering Violent Extremism Summit offers a contrast to government rhetoric on terrorism.
Right now news in Australia is well engaged again with one of several topics close the heart of the ruling Coalition government: people smugglers. It is not going quite as well as Prime Minister Tony Abbott might hope, with allegations Australia paid off people smugglers to send boats back to Indonesia. Another preoccupation, terrorism, has been on the backburner since the recent citizenship debate. However it’s worth looking back as the most recent Countering Violent Extremism Summit, which concluded in Sydney last Friday, following on from an event in Singapore in April and another in Washington in February, which was attended by Australian Attorney General George Brandis.
Representatives from 24 other nations attended the Australian event, along with members of the Muslim community, civil society, the EU and UN, and representatives from Google and Facebook. A communiqué put out by the attorney general’s office said the event was designed to improve regional coordination and build the capacity of governments and local communities. Workshops included “Working with social media, building community‑led rehabilitation and early intervention programs, and developing inclusive national strategies to counter violent extremism.”
At her last address to the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop spoke about the importance of regional coordination and capacity building in combating terrorism. She believes it to be the greatest threat to Australia and it is usually seen through some sort of ISIS-prism (though she prefers the term “Daesh”). A recent poll by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, notes that Australians see ISIS as the greatest threat facing Australia in the next ten years, terrorist attacks on Australians overseas the second, and terror attacks on home soil the third. Conflict between China and the U.S. came at eight, out of eight, and after Ebola.
Read the full story at The Diplomat