Chapter 14 Migration and Citizenship Education

Addressing Challenges of Extremism and Radicalization in South Africa

In: The Challenge of Radicalization and Extremism
Author:
Saloshna Vandeyar
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Abstract

This chapter makes a case for a pedagogy of compassion as a soft power to address the challenges of extremism and radicalization and to promote education for cosmopolitan citizenship in South Africa. A case study explores how a teacher negotiates the contours of migration and social transformation in order to foster critical, resilient, and cosmopolitan citizenship education. Data capture involved semi-structured interviews, observations, and field notes. Findings reveal that a pedagogy of compassion as a soft power underpinned by human rights could be highly effective in responding to an educational space created by global migration and in addressing challenges of extremism and radicalization in South Africa. The implementation of a pedagogy of compassion by a teacher who is a transformative intellectual can assist students in channelling their anxieties away from oppositional behaviour towards creative endeavours and in circumventing the possibility of acts of terrorism.

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 Africans having joined this group (Cachalia & Schoeman, 2017). South Africa has also encountered local extremist threats such as the 2008 xenophobic attacks on Black immigrants or the most recent attack of August 2019, and the thwarted plot by the far-right group the African National Congress (ANC) at the ANC’s 53rd National Conference in Manguang (a township in the province of Free State in South Africa) in 2012.

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 students’ refers to non-White immigrants who come from African countries, descendants of any of the peoples of Africa, and to Indian immigrants who hail from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

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. The literature reveals that governments’ approaches to terrorism are largely reactive in nature. Governments call for military action and surveillance measures. In contrast, terrorists’ narratives use soft power that appeals to the psychological, emotional, and intellectual aspects of individuals (Ghosh et al., 2016). Ghosh et al. make a case for countering terrorists’ soft power with the use of a soft power of a different kind, namely education. They propose that terrorism policies should incorporate education as a preventative measure and should be used a valuable tool to countering extremism. In a bid to counter terrorism, governments should adopt a proactive approach and implement preventative strategies to enable and empower students to become active, critical, democratic, and resilient citizens imbued with a sense of common humanity and compassion. Education should thus be at the heart of anti-radicalization plans (Gagne, 2015). Students need to see the relevance of what they learn and need to be able to develop a critical understanding of the world. This would pre-empt some of the triggers that push and/or pull students onto the dangerous path towards radicalization and, ultimately, terrorism.

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 opportunities for developing a sense of belonging to their multilayered communities within and outside of the nation (Bashir, 2017, p. 25). Starkey (2017) suggests that we need to nurture a form of citizenship that develops a sense of belonging to humanity without encroaching on students’ sense of belonging to their local and national communities. From a cosmopolitan perspective, local, national, regional, and global identities are seen as complementary. One of the key objectives of citizenship education is to value diversity in all its forms—religious, cultural and political—which cosmopolitan citizenship purports to do. Parker (2017) claims that cosmopolitan citizenship education is a better option than multicultural citizenship education because it is more universal and inclusive in nature. He argues that the curriculum should shift from focusing on ways in which hegemonic knowledge is valued to re-valuing powerful knowledge systems. Thus, Parker (2017) contends that human rights constitute powerful knowledge and would be the most effective concept for responding to an educational space created by global migration.

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. For this reason, Jansen (2009, p. 153) calls for the disruption of knowledge so that all South Africans can confront each other with their respective memories of trauma, tragedies, and triumph in the classroom. According to Jansen (2009), polite silences and hidden resentments should be exposed, indirect knowledge should be made explicit, and its potential and real harm should be openly discussed. Dialogue between opposing parties should be encouraged because conflict not only promotes engagement but also harbours the inherent potential to dismantle polarized thinking. Vandeyar and Swart (2019) expand on this tenet by arguing that it should go beyond simply unsettling or dismantling polarized thinking towards questioning one’s ingrained belief system.

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 phenomenology, which describes the development of a phenomenon in relation to how an individual experiences it (Hammersley, 2012). The research design was a qualitative case study (Silverman, 2006) and a narrative inquiry. The concept for the case study was defined by teachers who were negotiating the contours of migration and social transformation in order to promote democratic citizenship. The research sample of the broader study consisted of fifteen teachers and was varied in terms of ethnicity, gender, and years in the teaching profession. Snowball sampling (Baltar & Brunet, 2012; Rubin & Babbie, 1993) was utilized to recruit participants in five schools in the Gauteng province. Principals were requested to identify teachers who were fostering change in their schools. This chapter reports on the data capture of one of these teachers.

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 of the participant’s multiple perceptions’ (McMillan & Schumacher, 2001, p. 415). Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee at the university. The ethics application went through a rigorous blind peer review process (Lindsay, 2010). Pseudonyms were given to the research site and to participants to ensure anonymity and confidentiality.

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 reflected the diverse backgrounds and cultures of all students adorned the classroom walls. The physical appearance, classroom climate, and atmosphere were conducive to teaching a class of diverse students.

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:

Sipho
This is our country’ Ma’am, we suffered during apartheid, and they were not here then. Now they come to take everything from us.
Priya
Who is this ‘they’ that you are talking about, Sipho?
Sipho
The immigrants, Ma’am, the ones with all the funny names like Omidire, Elufisan, and Adebanji. They are not South African, we are! They just come and take everything. They must go back to where they came from.
Kevin (Coloured male)
And, Ma’am, the Nigerians, they are everywhere. They are the criminals, and they are killing our people. They do bad crimes.
Annelise (White female)
These Black immigrants are also very shrewd. They are taking jobs off our people. Now South Africans are jobless. They are also the ones who do drugs.
Kola (a Nigerian student)
[coming to the defence of immigrants] We don’t take jobs. We are businessmen. We can’t help it if we are cleverer than South Africans. If we see an opportunity, we take it.
Reshma
But, Ma’am, also where I live, we suffer with all these Pakis and people who come from India. They are doing the same thing in the Indian suburbs. Why can’t they just go back to their countries?

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 ‘our’, ‘them’, ‘they’, and ‘us’. The ‘other’ is as much a global citizen of the world as he or she is any one of us.

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 aligned with the tenets espoused in a pedagogy of compassion. She did not impose her views on students but opened up the educational space to a multitude of student voices. She allowed polite silences and hidden resentments to be exposed in her classroom, and she encouraged dialogue. In so doing, she not only promoted engagement between opposing parties but attempted to disrupt received knowledge and dismantle polarized thinking (Jansen, 2009). Opportunities were created for students to begin to question and critique their ingrained beliefs about themselves and others (Vandeyar & Swart, 2019) so that ‘they could see and act as ambiguous rather than dualistic subjects, for example, “us” and “them”’ (Zembylas, 2010, p. 707). Learning was not only about the content but also about the relationship that Priya forged between herself, the student(s), and the learning experience. She was open to the idea that she might not have all the answers all of the time, as was evident from her comment: ‘To have a different viewpoint or opinion is not wrong’. Sanzerbacher (1991) interprets Freire’s view on knowledge construction to mean that all knowledge is mediated and that no one has the truth. It was apparent that there was co-creation of knowledge, which shifted the power dynamics in this classroom. Students were empowered to take responsibility for their own learning by applying critical and reflexive thinking.

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 difference is a primary and a rich resource that resides at the heart of human experience (Figueroa, 2000).

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)

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The Challenge of Radicalization and Extremism

Integrating Research on Education and Citizenship in the Context of Migration

Series:  Moral Development and Citizenship Education, Volume: 19

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