Heed Muslims’ grievances or more will go to ISIS from Trinidad and Tobago.

The following post from the Guardian newspaper on Trinidad and Tobago is a salient potent reality of the eminent threat that the Islamic State poses not only Trinidad and Tobago but the Caribbean in general. Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean is being used by Salafist groups, as an experiment in asserting Sunni Islamist hegemony in the region. The article was published on   Sunday, June 25, 2017.

Hajj Nezar Hamze, centre, speaks during a function with local Muslim representatives last week. PHOTO: MICHEAL BRUCE

Heed the grievances of T&T Muslims or people may become susceptible to the Islamic State’s (ISIS) recruitment pitches. This is because Isis recruiters will not stop working and legislation alone may not curb the situation in T&T.

That advice has been telegraphed to Government by Hajj Nezar Hamze, a US deputy sherrif from Broward County in Florida, who is an expert in countering the narrative of violent extremism and terrorist organisations. Hamze visited T&T last week to meet Muslim leaders during Ramadan.

A graduate of Palm Beach State College’s Criminal Justice Institute, Hamze is acting operations director for Florida’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation. Since 2008, he’s served Florida’s Muslim community focusing on safety and security and has trained thousands of Muslims and other faith groups on how to combat violent extremism through community-led effort, and how to work with law enforcement.

While in T&T, Hamze met members of the Muslim Roundtable representing T&T’s conservative mosques. He also met the leadership of El Socorro’s Nur-E-Islam mosque, the Mucurapo Street Jama masjid, and Chaguanas authorities.

“I’m very encouraged to say Muslim leaders here care and are making great steps to organise themselves to be able to deal with the very real threat,” Hamze said on Thursday.

To counter the situation, Hamze had recommendations for local Muslims, Government and the police. He said he had noted factors which T&T has in common with other countries and which made some people susceptible to Isis’ pitches.

He said his feedback was that Muslims were not all treated very well, but the situation confronting T&T with Isis’ moves required that all be treated like fellow T&T citizens.

Hamze said, “Government needs to engage the Muslim community, air their grievances and make attempts to resolve these, no matter how small or big. They need to show an effort that they care about the Muslim community’s grievances—and they’re having many grievances.

“I heard claims about the way police handle the Muslim community including alleged discrimination, profiling and how they speak to some Muslim women. In one case, someone working for the national security apparatus was harassed by local police and he’s visibly Muslim.”

‘Make citizens feel like they belong’

Hamze said he observed basic needs were not being met, “food, shelter, security. So we’re seeing grievances aren’t being heard. Not across the board, but for a majority—and that’s a driver toward extremism. This isn’t a problem in T&T alone, it’s a global problem because Isis is targeting the underserved and the weak and they’re exploiting our religion.

“From a national security perspective, it’s crucial the Government makes citizens feel like they belong, are part of this country and the fabric of society and address grievances—infrastructure, social services, education—regarding inequity to underserved sectors. People have spoken of loving T&T, but some feel ignored and discriminated against by some agencies.

“The police need to be trained to understand who Muslims are and their beliefs. They need to treat them like all fellow countrymen—some don’t feel like that.” And that’s one of the reasons Isis’s recruitment has been so successful locally, he added.

“I’ve been to Europe and all over the US—their recruiting pitch is the same: ‘People don’t like you in your country, come join us, be part of our jihad, we’ll pay you all this money and you’ll be rewarded if you become a martyr.

“In France, an ex-ISISrecruiter told me they’re paid to recruit people. They sit at a computer, enter chat rooms and scan Facebook seeking people with grievances or venting online. They engage them, get a profile of the person and where they are and work on this.”