Dr Sadia Nasir lauded for tracing various factors behind extremism in Pakistan
Zubair Qureshi
Former Federal Secretary and National Coordinator of NACTA, Hamid Ali Khan has termed the book “Extremism and Counter-Extremism Narratives in Pakistan: An Analysis of Narrative Building” by Dr Sadia Nasir a timely contribution and held she had given a true Pakistani perspective in her book.
He expressed these views while addressing the launching ceremony of the book on Monday. Chairperson DSS, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) Dr Shabana Feyyaz, and Programme Manager at USIP, Hamza Ijaz, also evaluated and commented on the book as discussants.
The event was well attended by the experts, notable scholars, academicians, practitioners and students.
The book launch was held at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Bahria University. Dr. Sadia Nasir is an independent researcher and Adjunct Faculty Member at Bahria University. She holds PhD from Quaid-i-Azam University and is a UNESCO/Keizo Obuchi research fellow and an RCSS Alumni.
While discussing the book, Hamid Ali Khan was of the view that the author had provided a clear definition of various concepts such as extremism, radicalization, and terrorism which are often mixed and used incorrectly in different connotations.
Dr Shabana Fayyaz while discussing the importance of the book said that the author had used the primary sources to educate the reader about the importance of the construction of narratives and counter narratives in Pakistan and the role of madrassah.
Hamza Ijaz appreciated the university for arranging and supporting the research work of Dr. Sadia. Dean Social Sciences (Bahria University) said that the young generation is the future of Pakistan and is exposed to social media. They should learn from such academic activities and need to be careful while taking information from social media.
The book is recently published by Routledge; London and New York as part of its series on Routledge Studies in South Asian Politics, and is the first of its kind to analyse extremist narratives and counter-narratives, from different lenses at the same time.
It provides a reasoned and thoughtful analysis demonstrating the complexity of trying to build a meaningful counter-extremism narrative which is not detached from broader socio-political realities. It argues that counter-extremism narratives, if they are to be successful in Pakistan, need to be taken out of an exclusive security-centric framework and focus on addressing social values and norms which form their basis. It highlights the construction and institutionalization of extremist tendencies and studies the process of the adoption of the narrow interpretation of religion and society, which subsequently was equated with national identity. It looks at the efforts of counter-extremism narratives, which tend to focus on violent extremism while overlooking non-violent manifestations. The author highlights that the main issue with counter-narratives is the difficulty in presenting extremism and its narratives as a social threat since they have been normalized with the state being part of facilitating and building them.
