Eliza Calvin
Connector Contributor

Paula Rayman thinks fighting violence with violence is fruitless. “World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. We all know how successful that was,” she said at the panel discussion, “The Search for Security: Countering Violence in the Middle East.”

The event, sponsored by UMass Lowell’s Middle East Center addressed the reasons for and tactics used against terrorism. In addition to Rayman, Neil Shortland and Greg Aftandilian were speakers.

Shortland, a senior research associate at the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies, concentrated on the role of inequality and discrimination in extremist violence. He discussed the nuanced relationship between discrimination against certain specific populations and terrorism.

Shortland said that terrorists will use these injustices to create an ideology or narrative that resounds with others in their population and then recruit them for their cause. “Socio-economic equality is not the holy grail of preventing terrorism, [but] is very, very beneficial in some areas,” he said.

Rayman is the director of the Peace and Conflicts Studies program at UMass Lowell. She concentrated on the power of nonviolence and the role of women. She said that because women are generally the ones in charge of basic needs, like clean water and family welfare, that they are more keen on receiving humanitarian aid rather than weaponry.

Rayman also discussed various social movements started by women in the Middle East, such as “Women in Black,” a group that sits in particularly volatile areas to act as witnesses to violent acts. “[There is] a relationship between building positive peace and gender equality,” she said.

The senior fellow for the Middle East at the Center for National Policy in Washington D.C., Aftandilian discussed both the challenges of foreign aid and the relationship between security interests and humanitarian aid. He said that the United States’ response to the Arab Spring was a source of contention with both Democrats and Republicans, and that it is hard to find a happy balance in distributing foreign aid.

Aftandilian claimed that youth unemployment is a factor in terrorism. The Middle East suffers from one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the world and it affects both economic and social security, he said. “Youth unemployment doesn’t necessarily lead to terrorism,” said Aftandilian, “but youths, even with education, have little hope for good jobs, so there is a potential threat that they will join extremist groups to convey their frustration.”

All three panelists agreed that terrorism in the Middle East is an issue spawning from many factors and that it would be impossible to blame just one within such a large spectrum.

Despite the pervasiveness of extremist violence, Rayman maintained there is hope for the future, especially in today’s youth and future generations. “Young [people] are being educated in non-violence,” she said.