Fighting the global battle against radical Islam

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Radical Islam is a global challenge that must be fought on many fronts.

But while the West has taken this fight on militarily, we are in danger of losing the far more important battle of ideas, the American Foreign Policy Council's Ilan Berman told a packed meeting at the House of Commons earlier this week.

For all the billions of US dollars spent in Iraq, not a single cent has been spent on education. This shocking statistic underlines Mr Berman's central point.

The West is failing to compete with the growing influence of radical Islamic teachings for the minds of young and impressionable Muslims, in vast swathes of the world.

The demographics of Islamic countries mean that more than half of the entire population is, or is soon to be, of school age. However, only a small proportion will receive any kind of basic education.

Berman argues that the resulting education vacuum is a crucial reason why a growing proportion of young Muslims are turning towards sources of radical Islamic teaching.

In Pakistan, for example, some 1.7 million young Pakistanis are now being educated in madrassas that analysts fear are peddling a message of intolerance and becoming a key recruiting tool for terrorist organisations.

The lack of basic education denies young Muslims the skills they, and their countries, need to compete in the global market place. It is no secret that few Islamic countries have developed dynamic mixed economies.

Low skills mean low incomes and often high unemployment, leaving large numbers of disgruntled young Muslims vulnerable to the teachings of hatred and violence of a minority of radical Islamists.

All is not lost, however, as Berman identifies a number of Islamic countries who are developing their own policies to counter act radical Islam. For example, Islamic universities in parts of South Caucasus have adopted an education policy to spread an anti-Wahhabi message beyond their confines.

In Kurdistan, Muslim clerics broadcast a moderate message through the state media on a regular message. This is not to say that these countries are a shining example of upstanding forward-looking democracies.

The point that Berman makes is that there are already efforts to counter radical Islamic teachings out there and the West would be wise to support them more vigorously.

However, this is not an entirely new idea. Europeans have been emphasising the importance of tackling the root causes of violent radicalism, such as poverty and underdevelopment, for a long time.

What is new, and what reveals Berman's American conservative roots, is the aggressive nature that he suggests the West should pursue a policy to educate young Muslims around the world. For in his view, if the West does not compete over the teaching of the young, the void will be filled by radical Islam.

It is not entirely clear how such a policy could be put together, nor what message would be sent if the West was seen to not only build secular schools in Muslim countries, but also influence state curriculums and the selection of reading materials.

However, Berman responds saying that if we are not writing the textbooks and building the schools, someone else will be.

Ed Webber is a researcher for Jenny Willott MP.