Assessment of De-Radicalization Hypothesis in Sub-Saharan Africa

This study considers de-radicalization hypothesis in relation to the youth of Sub-Saharan Africa and the purported re-training from engagement in violent extremism. The hypothesis assumes a waning or reduction in youth radicalism in Sub-Saharan Africa. This change is reported to be due to the reduced opportunities for recruitment into violent extremist groups, through proselytization in the virtual or real world. The instigators are Muslim Clerics, or Jihadist agents, or even through 'Self-radicalization'. The reduced effect is, apparently, attributed to the successes garnered by the international war on terror. For proof of concept of youth radicalism, and therefore, de-radicalism, a review of the reported motivations of the youth to jihadist causes was conducted. This was to assess if those motivations are still prevalent in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa's. If so, can the argument be sustained that, once there was active radicalism and now, there is de-radicalism? The evidence on de-radicalization of the youth even in Europe and in Sub-Saharan Africa as reported by observers and security organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa and else, is not compatible with the quantum of the youth from Sub-Saharan Africa believed to have been radicalized. Among other weaknesses it fails to establish a baseline, and, thereafter, the percentage of change of those de-radicalized. (C) 2019 by The Transformative Studies Institute. All rights reserved.