Trump of the Republicans in the United States, Le Pen of the Front National in France, and Bachmann of Pediga in Germany. What do these names remind you of? As you might know, these people have gained their popularity with their somewhat extreme ideologies and polices in national politics and governments and this trend of extremism doesn’t stop at a national level. It can also be observed in international diplomacy through the conflict between the Islamic and non-Islamic peoples, conflicts between capitalism and socialism, and conflicts between races. So how will this popular trend of extremism affect the world? Should we be supportive of this growth in extremism?

What is extremism?

   According to the UN’s global counter-terrorism strategy, extremism is a phenomenon which has existed for some time and, contrary to popular belief, isn’t limited to a certain region, country or faith. Yet extremism generally implies a situation where certain ideologies and actions tend to be based on radicalism which expresses itself through violence. Extremism is quite common in religious, racial, social and political conflicts. For instance, extreme nationalism, communism, and fascism can be considered as extremist politics.

Image by "Prevent Violent Extremism", a research portal, https://preventviolentextremism.info/

International extremism

Is there extremism in international politics?

   Currently, extremism is most apparent in international politics. It emerges mainly through the ideologies of ​​capitalism, communism, radical nationalism, and conservative swing.

   For instance, being the world’s number one superpower, the US’s presidential election is the focus of attention for media across the world. However, the frivolous behavior of the leading candidate of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is provoking much uneasiness. During his campaign, he said “I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” As this quote shows candidate Donald Trump is campaigning with his extreme policies and his unexpected popularity have provoked many concerned that the US will become an extreme country.

   Also in Japan, the Prime Minister and president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Abe, is gaining startling popularities with his conservative swing. He plans to revise or broaden the interpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution in order to permit Japan to maintain its military. In May 2015 he finally carried out part of his plan by passing “Peace and Security Preservation Legislation”, which would allow Japan to possess military powers to fight in foreign conflicts. Although such actions have provoked critics and protests from neighboring countries his popularity in Japan is still firm with a popular rating of 50.4%.

Does the religion affect extremism?

   It’s a popular belief that religions represent peace and love, which is true in most of the cases. However, when it comes to a modern extremism, religion seems to play as an important factor. Too often, religious extremism is located in the center of numerous violent extremism and its forms of extremism can be the most destructive and violent than any other extremism.

   As many people are aware, the conflict between IS (so called Islamic country) and the US is an example of political conflict which expanded into a religious conflict. IS is an extremist religious group and in regions where IS governs its administration, diplomat and military are also ruled by words of Allah, twisted and modified to fit the personal ambition of few leaders. According to these people, the conflict between Americans and Islamist is much more than just a diplomatic or military conflict but also a Jihad, sacred war, which means all Muslims are religiously obliged to participate in this war to defend or propagate its religion.

 Nonetheless, this isn’t the first time where extremists abuses religion. Similar to Jihad in Islam, Christians also launched the Crusades, a series of religious war, in 11^th and 15^th centuries to capture Jerusalem, recapture Christian territory, or defend Christian in non-Christian lands. During the Crusade, many violent events took place against Jews, Arabs, and any other non-Christian people. For instance, Rhineland massacres, also known as German Crusade of 1096, occurred during the First Crusade and is well known for massacring thousands of Jews. Thus it would be a gross fault to related extremism to one specific religion.

Social extremism across the globe.

   Last of all, the extremism also express itself socially. It portrays itself through crimes, which have turned more violent these days than before and there’re more and more indiscriminate crimes, a crime committed without any particular reason. For instance, this March in Thailand, 4 years old child was beheaded in broad daylight and right in front of her mother for no particular reason. This shocking event gave a huge wake-up call of the dangers of the social extremism not only in Thailand but also in many neighboring countries.

   As well as the crime, the social discrimination, which was and still is a tabooed subject, are becoming more frequent and serious. In US, the problem of racial discrimination was traditionally a very sensitive subject and yet a recent increase of racist behavior of police force sparked this problem into light again. According to Guardians, in 2014, number of black people killed by police force was in total 1134 which is 5 times bigger than those of white people.

International response toward extremism

   As the number of victims of extremism is on the rise, people are now more aware of the risks of extremisms and how its popularity can affect our society. Amongst many organizations who works tirelessly to prevent propagation of extremism and fight against already existing extremism, AVE (Against Violent Extremism) is a global organization which leads this ongoing fight.

AVE homepage, http://www.againstviolentextremism.org/

The Inha Times (IT): What is AVE? What are the objectives of the network?

Against Violent Extremism (AVE): AVE is a network which was founded at the Summit Against Violent Extremism (SAVE) in 2011 and it’s a unique and powerful global force in the ongoing struggle to tackle violence and extremism. Former violent extremists, gang members and survivors of violence are empowered to work together with others to prevent the recruitment of 'at risk' youths and encourage the disengagement of those already involved. Additionally we attempts to help combat all forms of violent extremism, including but not exclusively the far-left, the far-right, religious, racial and ethno-nationalistic extremism, as well as violent gangs.

IT: Who are the members of AVE?

AVE: First, AVE members come from all over the world and are from numerous different backgrounds, industries and fields. They all however share a common commitment to countering violent extremism in all its forms.

IT: And how does the AVE operate?

AVE: The network itself is managed by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an independent think-tank based in London. ISD has considerable expertise in the fields of counter-radicalisation and counter-extremism and has been closely involved in the creation and development of the AVE network.

The network allows members to connect with others involved in countering violent extremism and gang violence in order to share ideas, collaborate, find potential investors, partners, and volunteers, as well as projecting their message to a wider, more targeted audience.

IT: Is AVE successful in fighting extremism? What kind of results did AVE get? 

AVE: As AVE only provide and manage a platform which members can act and doesn’t intervene in any of the projects, we don’t really have concrete information from ongoing projects. However up to now AVE has successfully constructed a network of 2562 connections, 306 formers and has 76 ongoing projects.

   Internationally, extremism is already recognized as an alarming threat and many organizations, such as AVE, are taking actions to combat the extremism. But how about South Korea? What is its current address with extremism?

South Korean response to extremism

   Comparing with western countries, Korean have a tendency to underestimate threat of extremism. Yet Korea also greatly suffers from many extremisms, such as political extremism of conservative right swing opposed by communist radicalisms.

   According to Kang JoonMan, author of “World culture dictionary”, Korea's unique "Simplification of culture” is related to "extremist culture” of Korea.

   Professor Kim Minyoung also explains that this extremist Korean culture derived from ethnically homogenous history and culture of Korea. In this rather small and overpopulated country, Koreans have no choice but to live in high populated areas. These characteristics made Korean society much more impatient, dynamic but uniform.

   Even though these nature of Korean society helped South Korea to develop quickly by making fast decisions and bypassing long and sophisticate decision making by public discussion, it also made Korea society very vulnerable to extremism. In order to satisfy speedy needs of society, authoritarian centralization of power is realized in many sectors including politics and economy. This unanimous society under the rule centralized power makes it more vulnerable towards extremism as they’ll be no stopping once the extremism takes power. However, despite this risks Korea has no public nor governmental organizations working to prevent propagation of extremism.

   Humanity has already experienced and suffered from wrath of extremism through two World War. Yet our world risks of walking the same path due to devious seduction of extremism. Without doubt, the threat is real and it’s crucial that the government and international organizations collaborate to seek countermeasures against the rise of extremism. But the most important of all, public also needs to keep autonomous interest and participation in politics and society, especially in South Korea.

조상현  jeremycho318@gmail.com

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