1 Introduction
South Africa has a history of violent extremism stemming from domestic grievances that remain prevalent. Although South Africa has not experienced a terrorist attack over the past decade, the country is not immune to the global challenges posed by violent extremism. Transnational extremist groups are expanding their networks across the globe, including in South Africa. South Africa has been linked to al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda and, more recently, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, with an estimated six hundred to one thousand South
These international and local extremism threats raise questions regarding extremism in South Africa and the education sector’s response to these threats. While threats posed by domestic groups such as the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) and People against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) have diminished, there are increasing concerns relating to international extremist groups. South Africa’s contact with international extremist organizations takes the form of individuals who are associated with these extremist groups and who use South Africa to hide out, plan operations, and source funding. What threat does extremism pose to South Africa and how should teachers respond to this challenge?
The xenophobic attacks of 2008 and subsequent smaller sporadic attacks on immigrant hawkers, the most recent of which took place in August 2019 (Evans & Wiener, 2019), signal a form of extremism in the South African context. If this form of extremism is left unbridled, it could lead to some individuals progressing on a path towards terrorism. How can teachers counter this form of extremism?
The inception of democracy in South Africa witnessed a change in the hues and contours that once defined the South African education landscape. This change was embedded in the South African Schools Act of 1996, which aimed to transform the education system to become ‘a key allocator of life chances as an important vehicle for achieving equity in the distribution of opportunity and achievement among South African citizens’. Prior to 1994, an ideology of apartheid had regulated the South African education system. In an attempt to dismantle this system, a barrage of educational reform efforts driven by legislative polices that promoted democracy and human rights for all citizens was introduced in South African schools.
Contested spaces between Black and White South African students were a defining feature of the early years of democracy. It is worthy to note here that the terms Black, White, Indian and Coloured derive from the apartheid racial classifications of the different peoples of South Africa. The use of these terms, although problematic, has continued through the post-apartheid era in South Africa. In this chapter, these terms are used grudgingly for clarification of the context.
However, over the past two decades, the mass entry of Black immigrant students into the South African schooling system has added another layer of complexity to the already existing contested spaces in shared places. Referencing the apartheid era solidarity of all non-Whites as black, ‘Black immigrant
Given the changing historical, political, social, and educational context of South Africa, this chapter asks how teachers can and should address the challenges of extremism and radicalization in South African schools.
The chapter begins by briefly sketching the background context. Next, a review of the literature on extremism, radicalization, citizenship education and global migration will be presented. The review will be followed by a brief outline of the theoretical framework. The chapter concludes by critically connecting the findings of this study with the literature review and the theoretical framework in order to unpack how an exemplary teacher might negotiate the contours of migration and social transformation and might address the challenges of extremism and radicalization in order to promote cosmopolitan citizenship education.
2 Exploring the Terrain
2.1 Extremism and Radicalization
An exploration of the literature reveals that the act of terrorism progresses along a continuum of fundamentalism, extremism, radicalization, and terrorism (Stephens et al., 2019; Ghosh et al., 2016; Borum 2014). This paper seeks to explore how a teacher might address the challenges of extremism and radicalization in South Africa. An understanding of what is extremism and how it differs from radicalization is thus necessary. Extremism as defined by Desmond Tutu is ‘when you do not allow for a different point of view; when you hold your own views as being quite exclusive; when you don’t allow for the possibility of difference’ (quoted in Davies, 2009, p. 4). When extreme positions are justified on moral grounds, the stage is set for radicalism.
Radicalization represents non-conformist thinking capable of imagining alternatives to the existing status quo and a firm commitment to bring about the desired social and political change through whatever means possible. It is both a mental and an emotional process that can prepare and motivate an individual to pursue violent behaviour (Wilner & Dubouloz, 2011). This process of change in an individual’s psycho-cognitive construction of new identities is ignited by radicalization which, in turn, effects changes in behaviour. If kept unchecked or not curbed in time, radicalization will lead to terrorist acts. What role can education play in addressing extremism and radicalization?
The predominant response from governments around the world to the challenge of terrorism is the use of what Ghosh et al. (2016) refer to as hard power.
Ghosh et al. (2016) argue that teachers must have the appropriate tools to recognize, understand, and address the psycho-social factors that may lead their students towards any stage on the continuum towards terrorism. Teachers must be able to recognize the push and pull factors towards radicalization to ensure a safe learning environment for all students.
2.2 Citizenship Education and Global Migration
Globalization and migration present new and encompassing challenges to imagination and representation as well as challenging the creation of images, which is so essential to both individual and collective world-making (Petersen & Schramm, 2017). Since the mid-1990s, global migration has promoted unprecedented levels of international demographic mobility (Castles, 2017). Migration patterns have also become more complex. This phenomenon can be partly attributed to a renewed emphasis on social cohesion and the integration of minorities into Western countries. Such unprecedented movement necessitates the reconceptualization of citizenship education.
A review of the large body of literature on citizenship education reveals two schools of thought, namely cosmopolitan citizenship education and multicultural citizenship education (Parker, 2017). Some researchers advocate a move away from the current fledgling positive approach to migration towards one that can be recalibrated as cosmopolitan (Bashir, 2017; Starkey, 2017). Bashir proposes a notion of ‘regional citizenship with a cosmopolitan outlook’ (Bashir, 2017, p. 24). He argues that such a notion of citizenship would create more inclusive educational spaces which will afford a diverse body of students
Global citizenship education also harbours the potential for addressing moral conscience. In this regard, Dill (2013) identifies two primary and competing moral features in global citizenship education. First, a global consciousness, which provides students with a global orientation, including empathy, cultural sensitivity, and humanist values; a vision of oneself as part of a global community, and a moral conscience to act for the good of the world. And second, global competencies, which provide students with the necessary skills for competing in a global knowledge society. Dill claims that many countries opt for the former rather than the latter. However, he highlights the fact that the notion of global citizenship has been couched in Western canons of knowledge and suggests that it may perhaps be time to consider alternative knowledge systems to address migration and citizenship education.
3 Theoretical Moorings: A Pedagogy of Compassion
The concept of a pedagogy of compassion was first published in Vandeyar and Swart (2019). It builds on the work of Freire (1998) and Jansen (2009) and proposes the following tenets:
3.1 Dismantling Polarized Thinking and Questioning One’s Ingrained Belief System
Educational settings are almost genetically stereotyped (Keet et al., 2009, p. 110). The lingering legacies of apartheid have ensured that educational spaces in South Africa are still stereotyped according to racial or genetic compositions.
3.2 Changing Mindsets: Compassionately Engaging with Diversity in Educational Spaces
Jansen claims that pedagogic dissonance happens when one’s stereotypes are shattered. This does not happen overnight. ‘One incident of pedagogic dissonance does not, of course, lead to personal change, but it can begin to erode sure knowledge’ (Jansen, 2009, p. 154). Linked to the notion of pedagogic dissonance as argued by Jansen is the work by Zembylas (2010, 2017), who emphasizes the proactive and transformative potential of discomfort. Zembylas (2010, p. 703) argues that teachers experience immense discomfort when having to confront diversity and multiculturalism. Drawing on Foucault (1994) who introduced the concept of an ethic of discomfort and the work done by himself and Boler (Boler & Zembylas, 2003; Boler, 2013), he claims that
an ethic of discomfort, therefore, invites teachers and students to critique their deeply held assumptions about themselves and others by positioning themselves as witnesses (as opposed to spectators) to social injustices and structurally limiting practices such that they see and act as ambiguous rather than dualistic subjects (e.g. ‘us’ and ‘them’).
(Zembylas, 2010, p. 707)
Freire (1992, p. 95) maintains that teachers should have a critical democratic outlook on the prescribed teaching content and should never allow themselves to succumb to the naive temptation of looking on content as something magical. If teachers treat content as neutral, thereby ignoring what Jansen calls pedagogic dissonance, then the content has power of its own accord and the teacher can only ‘deposit’ it in students, which means that the content loses its power to effect the desired change. All of the above play out in educational spaces which, according to Postma (2016, p. 5),
are political spaces of a particular kind. They are spaces of reflection, of relative safety and reduced risks; courage is not assumed, but fostered; opportunities are provided to experiment with new beginnings and imaginations, and to develop judgement; forgiveness could be cultivated and hope fostered.
Fusing a set of different horizons or views, namely those of pedagogic dissonance (Jansen, 2009); ethic of discomfort (Foucault, 1994; Boler & Zembylas, 2003); critical democratic outlook and ‘knowledge of living experience’ (Freire, 1992, p. 57); and educational spaces (Postma, 2016), Vandeyar and Swart (2019) propose a proactive commitment to engage compassionately with diversity in educational spaces. Educational spaces have to be opened up to the multitude of student voices. Compassionately responding to student voices entails not only warmth and care, but also a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another individual who may be stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
3.3 Instilling Hope and Sustainable Peace
‘A postconflict pedagogy is founded on hope’, wrote Jansen (2009, p. 154). Freire (1992, p. 77) claims that there is no change without a dream, and that there is no dream without hope. The hope that Jansen and Freire refer to is achievable in practice. It is insufficient to simply pronounce hope; hope should be acted upon. There is no room for utopia in postconflict pedagogy. In a postconflict society, the former oppressor and the oppressed do not get caught up in a blaming game. Jansen refers to postconflict pedagogy as follows: ‘This kind of critical pedagogy recognizes the power and the pain at play in school and society and their effects on young people, and then asks “how things could be better”’ (Jansen, 2009, p. 154). Similarly, Freire argues that as an individual and as a class, the oppressor can neither liberate nor be liberated. This is why, through self-liberation and through the required just struggle, the oppressed—as individuals and as a class—liberate the oppressor through the simple act of forbidding them to keep oppressing. ‘The liberation of individuals acquires profound meaning only when the transformation of society is achieved’ (Freire, 1992, p. 85). Vandeyar and Swart (2019) argue that such transformation not only instils hope but also holds the promise of sustainable peace.
4 Research Strategy
Meta-theoretically, I was drawn to the tenets that govern social constructivism for my worldview. The methodological paradigm employed the lens of
Data capture comprised a mix of semi-structured interviews, observations, and field notes. Semi-structured interviews were designed to determine the teacher’s perspectives about the way in which the process of desegregation was unfolding in her classroom and yielded a set of criteria used in observations. These interviews coincided with the three-week period of classroom observations. Follow-up interviews were conducted for clarification and elaboration of certain issues that arose in the first interview and in classroom observations. The physical environment of the classroom, which included observations of artefacts such as paintings, decor, photographs, portraits, and school magazines, also received attention. Observation was the main data gathering technique used in this study. Observed lessons were videotaped, and interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed.
Data was analyzed utilizing qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2014; Stan, 2010). Codes were generated from the data and continuously modified by the researcher’s treatment of the data in order ‘to accommodate new data and new insights about the data’ (Sandelowski, 2000, p. 338; Mayring, 2000). This was a reflexive and an interactive process that yielded extensive codes and themes. Multiple readings of the data were conducted, organizing codes and themes into higher levels of categories within and across the interviews, observations, and other sources of data (Merriam, 1998).
To ensure research rigour, the following quality criteria were considered: transferability, credibility, dependability, confirmability, and authenticity. Transferability refers to the scope and the restrictions to which findings of this research can be applied. Credibility of the research findings included the purposeful sampling of the research participant, the sampling of the research site, and the application of appropriate data-gathering strategies (Butler-Kisber, 2010). Dependability was achieved through a process known as auditing. The audit trail procedure can also be valuable when verifying confirmability (Seale, 2002). The authenticity of this study rests in the ‘faithful reconstruction
5 Findings: Vignette
The data reported here is part of a broader data set that was reported in a paper that was published in the Journal for Research in Childhood Education. Permission has been granted to use this part of the data.
Priya was an Indian English-speaking female in her late thirties and held a Bachelor in Education degree. This was her seventeenth year in the teaching profession. She had taught for eight years at a former Indian school. This was her ninth year at Broadacres Primary School, a former ‘White’ school. The repeal of the Group Areas Act in 1991 and the desegregation of schools in 1995 prompted a strong influx of Black South African students into Broadacres Primary School since the inception of democracy, as well as Black immigrant students over the past decade. The catchment area of the school thus comprised a diverse community. White students came from the suburb of Broadacres. The majority of Black (indigenous and immigrant) students commuted to the school from the surrounding Black townships and informal settlements.
Priya taught English and Life Orientation to children aged between 12 and 13 years. Her classes comprised forty students per class and were both gender- and race-sensitive. Students were seated in groups of five across gender and race. On average, students in her classes comprised a mix of approximately ten White students, four Indian students, and one Coloured student; the rest were African and some Black immigrant students hailing from the South African Development Community region, India, Pakistan, or Sri Lanka.
Priya proactively set out to attend to first and second order changes in terms of diversity by applying what I call the metaphors of mirrors and windows. The metaphor of the mirror is about validating the identity of every student in the class. All students should see themselves reflected in the classroom. In this way, their identity is affirmed. The metaphor of the window relates to the fact that even if a particular cultural group is not represented in the classroom, teachers still need to ‘open the window’ to allow their students to ‘look outside’ to learn about other cultures.
Priya attempted to create an educational space that would give all students a sense of belonging and a feeling of being at home. Projects and posters that
During a life orientation lesson about valued citizenship, Priya was confronted with an incident of racial stereotyping. Some students expressed strong opinions about Black immigrants in South Africa. The climate was ripe for this discussion as the stalls and small shops of some Black immigrant hawkers in the township had been burnt and looted over the previous weekend. Some South African students expressed strong nationalist sentiments:
Priya allowed for a multitude of her students’ voices to be heard. Then she said: ‘To have a different viewpoint or opinion is not wrong. Let us discuss this and come to some understanding of whether what you are saying is the only truth’.
Robust discussion and debate ensued in the class. Priya set about challenging each of the students’ viewpoints, allowing for the multitude of voices to contribute to the discussion. She effectively illustrated that there should be no
She also tried to impress upon her students that we are not born into an identity, but that identity is fluid and context-based. She asked some Black immigrant students to identify in terms of their cultural backgrounds. Responses elicited were: Rwandan; Congolese South African; Indian-South African; African; South African-Nigerian. She then used these responses to validate her argument. She also outlined the value and benefits of having Black immigrants in South Africa. By the end of the lesson, a few students expressed some misgivings and others were still a bit dubious. This was understandable as it could not be expected that the ways of thinking of all students would have changed after only one lesson. However, Priya certainly planted the seed of doubt and created the opportunity for students to question their beliefs. Priya possessed an admirable professional trait of presenting her students with many truths so as to challenge them to exercise critical and reflective thinking. She consolidated the lesson by reinforcing what they had learnt with the following task:
The President of South Africa announced today that all Black immigrants who came to South Africa since the advent of democracy will be deported to their countries of origin.
Write a letter to the president in which you respond to this announcement. Justify your standpoint.
The due date for this task was a week later, which gave students time for introspection and self-reflection.
6 Discussion
In an attempt to negotiate the contours of migration and citizenship education, and in order to address challenges of extremism and radicalization in South African schools, Priya provided an admirable educational response. The beginnings of the three specific vulnerabilities observed among violent extremists as identified by Borum (2011) seemed to be emerging in her classroom. Students in her class clearly demonstrated a need for personal meaning and identity and a need for a sense of belonging. Indigenous students articulated a perceived sense of injustice while immigrant students experienced a sense of humiliation.
In attempting to diffuse any potential tension that might have arisen, Priya chose a teaching philosophy and a strategy that was inclusive and closely
Educational spaces are political and contested spaces of a particular kind. It was clear that students in Priya’s class were echoing and reflecting the image of the social mirror of South African society. What they had heard from their families and their respective communities seemed to be imbibed as ‘the truth’ and to run as deep as knowledge in the blood (Jansen, 2009). This mindset created a psychological climate that harboured the potential for vulnerabilities and propensities to reveal and shape behaviours in ways that could increase a student’s likelihood of involvement in violent extremism (Borum, 2014, p. 286). Borum argues that ‘motivational, attributional style, volitional and attitudinal propensities can affect the likelihood of a person’s involvement with violent extremism’ (Borum, 2014, p. 294). If left unchecked, this could lead to acts of terrorism. In her attempt to change the mindset of students and to shatter their stereotypical views, Priya refused to treat the content as neutral. Instead, she tried to use the power of the content to effect the desired change (Freire, 1992). She created opportunities for pedagogic dissonance and exposed her students to an ethic of discomfort (Boler & Zembylas, 2003). Priya seemed to live by the axiom that ‘one incident of pedagogic dissonance can begin to erode sure knowledge’ (Jansen 2009, p. 154). Her own values, beliefs, and worldview surfaced during the discussion while she facilitated students in examining their own beliefs (Ghosh et al., 2016). She attempted to inculcate critical and reflexive thinking skills in her students, created opportunities for them to engage compassionately with diversity in educational spaces, and effectively illustrated that
Priya’s teaching methods sought to challenge beliefs before they became radicalized. She co-created spaces of critical hope. Students were challenged to experiment with new beginnings and imaginations and to develop judgement (Postma, 2016). By focusing on positive aspects and nurturing critical and reflexive thinking skills, forgiveness could be cultivated and hope instilled with the goal of creating sustainable peace. It would seem that Priya’s approach was aligned with cosmopolitan citizenship education because it was underpinned by human rights and was more universal and inclusive in nature. Her approach also seemed to address a global consciousness in which students were provided with a global orientation, including empathy, cultural sensitivity, and humanist values—a vision of oneself as part of a global community, and a moral conscience to act for the good of the world (Dill, 2013).
7 Conclusion
A robust and critical re-examination of the role of education in negotiating the contours of migration and citizenship education to address challenges of extremism and radicalization is required in South Africa. Ghosh et al. (2016, p. 14) claim that ‘the right kind of educational measures will have to run their course to make a difference’. I argue that effective citizenship education in schools as a means of addressing both unity and diversity and extremism and radicalization could be achieved through the implementation of a pedagogy of compassion. Pedagogy of compassion as a soft power is underpinned by human rights and constitutes, as Parker (2017) contends, the powerful knowledge that would be most effective in responding to an educational space created by global migration. Pedagogy of compassion as implemented by a teacher who is a transformative intellectual (Freire, 1992) brings with it the potential for dismantling polarized thinking; for shattering polite silences of post-apartheid South African society; and for fostering cosmopolitan citizenship education (Bashir, 2017; Starkey, 2017). Such transformative education can assist ‘students to channel their anxieties away from oppositional behaviour toward creative endeavours’ (Ghosh et al., 2016, p. 13) and would be most effective in addressing challenges of extremism and radicalization in South Africa.
The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.
(Appiah, 2015, p. 8)
Bashir, B. (2017). Beyond state inclusion: On the normalizing and integrating forces of deterritorialized citizenship and civic education. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), Citizenship education and global migration: Implications for theory, research and teaching (pp. 23–40). American Educational Research Association.
Borum, R. (2011). Radicalization and involvement in violent extremism II: A review of conceptual models and empirical research. Journal of Strategic Security, 4(4), 37–62. Retrieved 6 January, 2014, from http://works.bepress.com/randy_borum/57/
Cachalia, R. C., & Schoeman, A. (2017). Violent extremism in South Africa: Assessing the current threat. Southern Africa Report No. 7. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/sareport7.pdf
Evans, S., & Wiener, M. (2019, September 8). Xenophobic attacks: Did the authorities miss the signs? News24. https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/xenophobic-attacks-did-the-authorities-miss-the-signs-20190907
Gagne, A. (2015, January 12). Opinion: Education should be at the heart of Quebec’s anti-radicalization plan. Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 21 September, 2015, from https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/opinion-education-should-be-at-the-heart-of-quebecs-anti-radicalization-plan
Ghosh, R., Chan, A. W. Y., Manuel, A., & Dilimulati, M. (2016). Can education counter violent religious extremism? Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, 23(2), 117–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2016.1165713
Hammersley, M. (2012, August 31). Methodological paradigms in educational research. British Educational Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/methodological-paradigms-in-educational-research
Mayring, P. (2000). Qualitative content analysis. Forum for Qualitative Research: Qualitative Social Research, 1(2). Retrieved March 26, 2010, from https://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1089/2385
Stephens, W., Sieckelinck, S., & Boutellier, H. (2019). Preventing violent extremism: A review of the literature. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2018.1543144
The South African Schools’ Act. [Act no. 84 of 1996]. https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/act84of1996.pdf
Vandeyar, S., & Swart, R. (2019). Shattering the silence: Dialogic engagement about education protest actions in South African university classrooms. Teaching in Higher Education, 24(6), 772–788. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1502170