Caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] at thats a movement, scholars discussed ways to innter violent extremism muslim communities. This is one hour and 20 minutes. All praises due for allah, and peace and blessings. The last leg of the race here, and today will will talk about Mental Health challenges for muslims and conflicts of identity. And as you know, until Health Issues are something that is a human issue. It is not something that is single to muslims or any other faith or population of people. Without further i do, i just want to get started, because we have a lot of speakers we have to get through, and the time is limited. I would like to actually first introduced brother ali, if you would not mind coming up. The state maryland delegate. [applause] in the name of the lord, most merciful and compassionate, being the only state legislator from baltimore city, i know how it feels to be alone and ostracized. But the point i want to make is this first of all, i want to thank the tay because this is so necessary about educating the public in general about what true islam is all about. I think it has been a total miseducation about the faith of islam, and i think we operate out of so many stereotypical ideas that this interferes with you getting or being able to connect with the person. I think the common denominator is we are all human, we all have shared values. I think language is so important because when you prescribe a certain adjective to an entire religion as opposed to did compartmentalizing the compartmentalizing behavior of angels who may or may not of individuals who may or may not embrace an entire faith. The take away today is we had a mess that we hope there is a message you take away from here today, and better understanding that people do not represent islam. And what i mean by if an individual does something that we know is contrary to the fundamental principles of islam, we do not generalize or paint the entire religion with one brush, because we do not do that with any other religion. It seems like it seems like islam has become that target that when someone does something and may propose to profess a belief in islam, then the whole religion gets a bad rap. We need to educate ourselves more to differentiate between that perk it particular persons behavior and accepting personal responsibility for those acts, no matter what they be as opposed to demonizing an entire religion. Im here to support these brothers. There is a lot of things that i have been able to do with in own community. I have been very effective in antiviolence movement, whether working with gangs. I think, rubber ah brother akhil made a good point about the criminal justice models we use. Currently we use three models. Deterrence, incapacitate, and deterrence. It of you fit in one of those boxes or you do not. There is no integrated model that comes out of criminal justice that we are currently using, but we should have a more integrated model because there is different individuals in different circumstances that we need to evaluate, individuals in order to pro appropriately assess those individuals. Given the Political Climate we are in now, as we all know, we have a lot of work to do as individuals, and i think the brother has said it earlier, that we should be ambassadors to go out, because many of us have muslim neighbors, and we need to debunk a lot of the stereotypes out there because at some point they take on a life of their own, or people think they are the truth, and a half truth is disguised as the truth does more damage than the actual truth itself. Facing the worst thing you can do to the truth is stretch it. I just wanted to give a few words, because i know we are strapped for time, and i want to make sure that this important dialogue continues. Thank you. [applause] mr. Mavins thank you, brother bilal. Now we are going to hand it over to ibrahim aziz. Mr. Aziz when we discussed radicalization, it is done in an impersonal matter. We use terms for terrorist fighters come organizations, or homegrown violent extremists. However, there is no one reason or one cause why somebody in becomes someone becomes lost to extremism. There is a desire to connect, to be accepted, deep part of a unified body in something that is a way we define ourselves. What im asking us all here to consider is that in some cases, these acronyms, our lack of nuance when discussing this topic, and the overgeneralization can be dehumanizing and can lead to a bat blanket this categorization in labeling an entire group of muslims. My name is ibrahim aziz. My brother is charged was charged in december 2015 with providing Material Support isis. I can remember the frantic ca lls from my grandmother. During the call, she could hardly speak. I could hardly make out her words. Im trying to get her to calm down and explain to me, hoping she is overreacting to something minor. I cannot understand you. Yaya, these calm down. What are you trying to say to me . After turning trying to get her to calm down, i can make out what she was saying. They took him. I think the fbi. My little brother . There must be some kind of mistake. The house we grew up had its share of problems. It was riddled with undiagnosed Mental Health problems. My peers have unique view of the world. They would say it is very dangerous out there. Do not trust people. Do not trust her friends. It is probably better not to have friends at all. For the majority of my early childhood, we could either visit friends or have friends over at our house. My sister and i had each other. We went to Public Schools. We were exposed to other individuals and children. We had my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and as i got older i found comfort among the larger Muslim Community,after i moved out on my own, i had encountered tremendous difficulty adjusting to life. The real word was nothing described us, nothing for which i was unprepared. I could advise myself. It was not about income. I did not know who i was, and i lacked a positive selfimage. There was an older mode muslim social worker who suggested i receive professional help. It took about two years before i could really say that i like to otherwise, that i felt good about who i was, who i am. My little brother did not attend Public School as i did. My little brother was not allowed to commit kate or be with my sister and i. He was not allowed to interact with his answer articles. My little brother had no friends, and he was intentionally ostracized and sequestered from everyone. And while i cannot discuss the details of the case, i can tell you he was isolated. How do i know . Because i was isolated. I continued he felt alone. How do you know . Because i felt alone growing up. His case was more severe than mine, and i was searching for acceptance, and so i know he was searching for except. On rare occasions, when i was allowed to interact with him and meet with him, he was conversationally behind, inappropriately shy, a brother, withdrawn. He was at 17, you could equate to talking to a 10yearold. He was socially behind. When my family went to see him during my court hearing, my grandmother, aunts, uncles, parents, and we were photographed by the local newspaper after leaving the courthouse, in the comments on the photo of that news article was, who are they . Were they muslim, too . We should kill them all. In the picture was an 85yearold woman in a wheelchair. My brother was isolated by the family, and in that isolation he looked for acceptance, and in searching for acceptance, he was targeted. Jalil, my little brother is not an anomaly. There are many people looking for acceptance. Now we have a group or groups that say we will accept you with all your imperfections. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. Mental health challenges, isolation, yearning to be loved and accepted can be a catalyst and precursor to violent ideology. It breaks my heart that my mother has gone from living in 1 it breaks my heart that my brother has gone from living in a cage to living in another. As we look for solutions, there can be no onesizefitsall, and my little brother needs help, he needs his help, and not the kind of help that a six by eight cell provides. Thank you. [applause] mr. Mavins thank you, ukraine, for sharing such a personal story, and we really do appreciate use sharing that. Part of breaking down the stigma of Mental Health. So without further and do, because of our time, we will start with brother Mohammed Hussein. Mr. Hussein i think i need a moment after hearing that. Quite it was emotional. I would like to on behalf of the tam for taking time out of your day to join us. It started at 10 00 a. M. Joining us online, and what we feel is a really relevant, pertinent, and essential conversation, and that is how to effectively challenge extremism. It is something which is near and dear to my heart and something that really impacts the lives of each and every one of us here. I would like to thank the newseum for a 40 us this venue in a Freedom Center specifically for affording me to be a student and study and dig deeper into the intersection of religious, civic, and legal this course as a relates to the first amendment. I myself am the executive director of an Organization Called safe. The somaliamerican youth foundation. I am Second Generation somaliamerican, the son of somali immigrants, someone who is considered a leader especially in the Somali Community. What i would like to talk about in these brief moments is radicalization in the Somali Community, radicalization with somali youth. And some of the many factors that do contribute to this radicalization. As you heard, time and time again, not just one thing, there are many different issues and factors that contribute to radicalization. We just heard the story of abraham and his brother, the isolation, the social app court notice awkwardness, the inability to converse even with family members. Before i begin, i would like to give a brief background about the Somali Community, the somaliamerican community. There are, as many of you know, there are hundreds of somali have been americans living in the u. S. , and they are concentrated in certain pockets. The twin cities, minneapolis and st. Paul, those are one of them. Columbus, ohio, seattle, washington, to name a few. In the past 15 years or so, there has been well over 100,000 immigrants, refugees, who have been admitted to the u. S. The somaliamerican population in the u. S. Is different in this sense. Theres some immigrant populations which are relatively new who have been in the states were 10 or 15 years or less, and some somali communities like the community here in the d. C. Metro area, the community in san diego, and others, you have been around for 40plus years. It goes without saying that radicalization, even in the somaliamerican communities and the factors that do contribute to radicalization are going to be different. When you think about the Somali Community, when you think about somali youth, you think, did you watch the news, you hear alshabaab out al qaeda affiliates, between 2007 and 2012, over 40 somali, young somaliamericans, including two or more young girls went overseas with legal means to fight to join these terrorist networks. You also may acts of terror here at home in the u. S. Might have heard about the recent 2016 shooting at the ohio state university, which were nearly a dozen people were shot and injured. Heard about the stabbing in st. Cloud, minneapolis, where the assailant stabbed people before he was shot and killed. Heard about the young man in portland, oregon had the intention of detonating a bomb at a holiday Tree Lighting ceremony before he was caught and thankfully no one was injured. In this particular situation, his family actually spoke to the fbi about some intuition or some worry that they had that their young son was being radicalized. So this kind of goes back to the issue thats been reiterated, especially in the first panel, about that there has to be a level of trust between the governments or the organizations and the communities that they serve. Without that, you may have a situation like this young man, whose family may feel that their son was, after they informed law enforcement, that their son was illegally entrapped. There are many factors that contribute to radicalization in the community Somali Community, particularly somali youth. Many of these factors are social economic have nothing to do with religion. Most studies will show you that there is no relation between religiosity and uptick in extremism. There are other external factors which contribute to this. They could be poverty, lack of housing, for education, crime, drugs, gangs, theres one interesting study in 2007, 2009, there were around 20 somali youth who went overseas to join. At the same time, in the twin cities, 11 young somalis were killed in Gang Violence. I think this goes back to dr. Bakers street approach where you see this correlation between Gang Violence and extremism. If you speak with community members, radicalization to them is just one of the many issues that is concerning to them. Isolation is another issue. Isolation is another issue which whether it is self isolation or community isolation, which may enable a platform where radicalization can fly. But the focus here is Mental Health, so i will stick to that. Mental health in the Somali Community has been stigmatized for a very long time. Somalia is a muslim majority country. Over 99 of somalis are muslim. For a very long time, if you were to bring up this issue of Mental Health, a person being depressed, or a person even being stressed out, you would be told that you are possessed. You are possessed by demons. You need to go and recite more koran. You need to pray in the mosque. There is nothing wrong with your Mental Health. Thats not an issue. Its not surprising that young kids would go to their parents and say, im feeling stressed out. They would say, there is no such thing as stress. So for a very long time, due to lack of education, even lack of correct islamic education, again because islam does not say anything negative about Mental Health. It is something that is important, and we treated just like we treat physical health. We take care of it, we maintain it, we take the proper steps to ensure that that part of ourselves remains healthy. So thankfully, over time, as the education barrier, the language barrier, the cultural a barrier has eroded over time, the Somali Community has been more proactive in discussing these issues. Just as recent as this past june , there was a conference at the university of Minnesota School of social work in conjunction with the somali Mental Health network. To discuss some of these problems. And what are some of the things that first generation, Second Generation even thirdgeneration somali americans are facing . Many somalis, especially those who immigrated in the past 20 years, were fleeing from civil war. Going from refugee camp to refugee camp, waiting for the day you get that phone call or letter that your application has been accepted and you and your family are not safe. And you leave with a heavy heart, knowing you left the life that you built, the homes you won, the degrees you obtained, you left all that behind in pursuit of a safer life and a Better Future for your children. So, ptsd is something that is common. In these somali communities. But again, it was something that was not addressed. I believe its the journal of the American Medical Association that says, ptsd and refugees can range anywhere from 4 to 86 . So, this is a real issue. It is a true issue. My generation, secondgeneration, somali americans, may not have faced this. But they grow up in a household where these issues are not addressed, where you dont talk about depression, you dont talk about stress, you dont talk about ptsd, any of these things. And because of that, there is an intergenerational transfer of trauma. Now you as a second or Third Generation somali american may start to take on the trauma of your parents, because they never got any closure on those issues. They never got treated great they never even talked about it, not even with their children. Treated. They never even talked about it, not even with their children. Some of these numbers highlight that this is a real issue, and not just an issue that is going to go away anytime soon. Because again, you have the transfer from generation to generation. Many young people have been radicalized that are secondgeneration. May have never seen somalia a day in their life, may not even speak somali. But some of these factors here, they contribute to them becoming vulnerable, and not having anybody to talk to about these issues, isolation, coupled with these Mental Health issues, makes it really vulnerable for those who choose to exploit them. There are several organizations, some that have, you know, been established in the past 10 to 15 years to try and discuss some of these issues or even deter somal i youth from being radicalized. I say somali youth because thats where i spent a lot of my time, a lot of my focus, but i have Service Youth director in organizations where somalis made up less than 5 in the community. These issues are not specific just to the Somali Community. Ive seen issues, very similar to the issue that ibrahim spoke of him with his brother. I was a youth director in a community, and there was a young person who was being charged with providing Material Support to isis. And, he lived in the same city at the organization as a youth director but he would never come to the mosque. I have never seen him a day in my life. I just heard about him in the news. So again, try to reiterate that point that radicalization does not actually happen in the mosque. I heard about this young person on the news. Almost none of the youth in our youth group who who he was. And those who had met him at summer camps and thinks like that in the past, that he was very isolated, to himself, and things of this sort. So, id like to include by saying that conclude by saying that it is important that we do take a holistic approach to deradicalization, that the professionals, be it in islamic theology or Mental Health or corrections, are put in positions to deradicalize. And these people have to really be people that are trusted by the community. Because this is a grassroots effort. You cant have a grassroots effort without having the Community Involved and engaged, and having community trust. And, i hope that the experts, all the other experts you seen today on the panel, are empowered and put in a position to help eradicate and the radicalize deradicalize not only the Somali Community, but in the Muslim Community as a whole. [applause] thank you for that very informative talk. For the sake of time, we will keep it moving. Any questions you may have, please write them on the cards. Next we have dr. Baker, who is the trooper here. Hes been here since the beginning. Hopefully he has enough steam to keep it rolling. Youve got a very personal story from ibrahim. There was a case similar to that in the u. K. , a white convert. Same thing, isolated. I wont go into detail, but it mirrors what ibrahim has said. We have spoken looking outwardly to again, government agencies, social agencies, social work agencies. Theres a sense of denial amongst muslim communities as to the problems happening to our families and our children. Too often we hear when its too late, that child was a good child, we didnt realize, we didnt do this, we didnt do that. Were not saying we should spy on them with regards to social media. So where is that parental engagement . Where is that parental responsibility . Where is it that we have given a space for our children and those young and the community to articulate their thoughts, even if wrong . And that needs to happen because what were finding is, when i moved up, i became part of a gnag. Gang. When youve got protagonists a protagonist is similar to those like the military, totally different, but they look for foot soldiers. We heard about academic intelligence, literacy. Theres also emotional intelligence. You find a number of these individuals who are susceptible to violent extremism are emotionally illiterate. We did have a demo which we were going to show you, one that deconstructs we did. No heads being beheaded and things like that, to show their propaganda. When i show that two Police Officers training in the u. K. , i show that, a minute of it. They heard the martyrdom rhetoric. I asked them, you have five minutes, discuss amongst yourselves, how would you address this propaganda video with vulnerable youth . They were honest enough to admit. One put his hand up and said, i was convinced by the narrative. I was actually convinced. I dont know. How would you do it . I took them through a process that we go through of the construct, a video we actually look at. The point is, we are doing that when at a more rudimentary stage we should be engaging with the youth regularly within the mosques. The mosques shouldnt just become places of worship. If we are really going to engage, we should be having social works, academics coming in, engaging with the youth, save spaces in this way. I will go back to that for stage fourstage model i developed in my phd. I want to show you the stages we need to bring these youth through to help them nurture themselves. The first phase, that comes about through research creation. Those of the stages they are at. They are research ring, researching, gathering information, but they dont know how to process the information. A 16yearold looking at isis videos and beheadings . Really . Us sitting here now, we know some of us wont even look at those videos because psychologically we are at a stage where it would cause trauma to just watch. A child doesnt know that read why do we have parental guidance on movies . We dont temper what our children are doing and what the youth are doing. They are at that exciting stage of research, x duration, creation, looking at, gathering information. The next stage is idealistic, the youthful phase. Now they have information. They are trying to place it in discernible context that its abstract. They are hearing things from a different land and we are crying trying to say, we can practice islam in the societies we come from. They are not mature enough to contextualize process, take out some of the things that are not practice civil and western society as opposed to that which can be practiced, ok . So data, the earliest stage, the founding stage has turned into information as its presented this is what protagonists do. We want to move them to the next stage, educationally and psychologically. Knowledge, remember this adult phase, the third stage we were moving along . Thats the knowledgeable phase. It has the complexity of experience which comes about by seeing it from different perspectives. This is why training and education is difficult. One cannot count on one persons knowledge transferring to another. Knowledge is built from scratch by the learner through experience. Information is static. But knowledge is dynamic as it lives within us. That is the adult stage. Im shattered, i can tell you that much. We moved to the final stage, which is the mature phase. The phase we all want to get to. Listen to the description here, this is when wisdom is acquired. Wisdom is the ultimate level of understanding. As with wkknowledge, wisdom operates within us. We can share our experiences to create the Building Blocks of wisdom radio needs to be communicated with even more understanding of the personal context of our audience than with knowledge sharing. I will conclude on this part here with this particular summary. Data and information, the first two stages, deal with the past. They are based on the facts and add in context which they are not able to do. We need to help them do that in the formative stages. Knowledge deals with the present. We moving to the adult phase now. It becomes a part of us and enables us to perform. However, when we gain wisdom, the mature stage, we start dealing with the future as we are now able to vision and divine for what will be rather than for what is or was. We need to move our childrne, our youth, our selves through this process. You need to work with us on that. I will conclude, if we choose not to, ive already mentioned to you what we are looking at at the grassroots. We know some have returned from syria and iraq. We know some of them. Were in touch with some of them. Some of them are lying way below the radar. Had they come back, they appreciate the values of the society they return to. This was during the balkan conflict in the 1990s. Those coming back from iraq and syria have no appreciation. They hate our way of life. I say our, including muslims. Some of the muslim communities here and in the u. K. Continue to be insular, inwardly. Social conservatism to an extent where they wont engage and participate in society. Those of us who are converts, we need to be conduits between the Wider Society and muslim society. We need to be bridges. We have our foot and one door by the virtue of our nonmuslim relatives and familiarity of the society we converted from. And also because of our familiarity with the community, the muslim communities we are now engaged in and interfacing with. Is that a cause for psychological issues and trauma . No. What we need to do is embrace of our identities as muslims, in this case americans. Theres a duality of identities which are complement three. Which are complementary. Until that message comes about from those in government, until that comes from within the muslim communities, so the youth can see the wider engagement, the opportunities are there for nonmuslims are also there for them. There are different nuances. We have different values, just like the christians and the jewish faith. But if were not doing that, you are going to continue to see psychological issues bubbling at the surface, and only coming out when its too late, and the heads of the extremists. What are the extremists doing . Some will say utopian. Lets call it dystopian, like those who went out to iraq and syria. They will tell you, forget every other identity you know. Black, white, brown, whatever. Somali you are part of the muslim nation. They cant define it themselves as to what that actually means today. But they give you a dystopian vision and tell you to run with it. So then you begin to hate everything youve ever come to know and love, because to love it means youre not muslim enough. To hate it means you are a true muslim, and therein lies the challenge because thats a psychological quagmire in itself for someone young who has not processed or moved through those 4 stages and has not been helped through those 4 stages by the wider Muslim Community and Wider Society. I think hes got some key elements he needs to bring to the table. Thank you for listening. [applause] show less text again, i want to thank all of my fellow partners here. I would like to thank my partners here who gave us the opportunity to come here. I would like to thank our partners who came outside of the group to support us today. And i particularly use the word partners because in this effort of creating change, the keyword and key drive has to be partnership. But to get there, we need to know who each other really are. Im one of the young ones, as you probably can tell. I think its really important that we talk about who we are, because who we are as individuals means something. Who we are is what can possibly create change. So to leave out who we are, we are doing you and ourselves and injustice. When we started, you start it with i think at this point, we all know our brother is well known not just here, but well known worldwide, has worked with the u. N. , has worked with his statutory partners, along with at some point our government. Its important to know who he is. Because we muslims worldwide come in contact with this person. We know that muslims travel to do what we call making muslims travel when they go to omron, they are going to the land of saudi arabia and mecca. And they go to medina. One of the things they do when they go to medina, they seek out our brother here. They want to learn from him. And hes here with us. Hes here with us. Hes on the television. We can see him live. We can ask them questions. And this is one of our scholars in islam. This is not a small thing. So when we talk about creating change, you are talking about these two as leaders. So with their leadership, from an ideological standpoint, from an experience standpoint, how does he get better . We have many people that come to us as experts. Yet the actual handson experience is null and void. It doesnt exist. They read a book. They talked to this one and that one. But these people have hands on it. And then we go on. We have our brother joe bradford. Both who are known throughout our country. These brothers are man within and without. These other two, joe bradford and ingram, we seek them out here in the u. S. These are who muslims seek out, to learn from, to take from. This is who helps to create that positive ideology. We have them here. We are learning from them. And then, you have myself and mohammed. [laughter] we are the young ones. But we bring something to the table. We bring something to the table because we are those individuals on the ground who are directly connected to individuals we are talking to. Individuals we worry about. Those youth. Those adults who have useful thoughts. I have my phone in my hand and i usually do because in my community, when theres a crisis, im usually being called. When theres a crisis in my community, mind you, i didnt say the muslims, i didnt say with the muslims, when theres a crisis, whether its muslim or not, we are called because of what we do for the community as a whole. Not just for the muslims. So what i do, yes, practice. I am a Mental Health clinician. I help people deal with problems. I run an organization, a Mental Health clinic. I have therapists, advocates, mentors, who take my direction to create change. In the schools with youth. Outside of the schools with families. It is not directed towards muslims. We have success to the point that ive been appointed currently to the team that deals with safety. Not just muslims. For everyone. The mayor of baltimore, my mayor , im an advisor to several state delegates. Im advisor to several City Council Members when it comes to issues of violence in the community. So who better to talk to about violence within individuals who happen to be muslim than one who has the expertise of dealing with violence . Some individuals are radicalized due to faulty understandings of islam. And theres another side that we have to get a grasp on. There is the side that individuals are socially affected negatively, and our brother ibrahim gave us an example. So, in this, muslims, i will get to this piece, that muslims are now the citizens of our countries who have dual citizenship. But they werent always the persons with dual citizenship. This isnt something new to our country. And this isnt something new to africanamericans. Because africanamericans have a history of dual citizenship in our country, that we made an effort to fight, that we made effort to resolve, that we made effort to stop individuals from becoming radicalized, and joining with their fellow brothers and sisters as americans. Africanamericans have accomplished that. It took time. But mind you for me, i have to create change. My job is to put it where the goats can get it. Ive got to make sure that we as a group understand what pans up and how we do it. So, thats what i intend to do. You all have to excuse me. I use notes because i kind of developed what i want to talk about based on hearing the questions, plus being said, and whats not being said. So our brother talked about catching individuals at an early stage. Our goal is not to allow individuals to become radicalized. We dont want this to happen. We can stop it. We, the individuals, we can stop it. Because we are directly in those communities, and we have the same experiences that they have. So when you ask someone who studied, read a book, talk to someone talked to someone, they might answer your question. They might talk about it right but when you talk to someone it. But when you talk to someone whose name is mujahedin mohammed who grew up going to muslim schools, who grew up with dual citizenship, sometimes it was double dual citizenship, who every time that i fly, i expect and somewhat understand why im going to get a special check. And i understand that. But, things that i will say radical things can happen. Even to us as muslims. Just this summer, i flew. I wont state the airport, out of respect. But i flew down south to a smaller area. And when i came into problems, when i was leaving this airport, coming back to the baltimorewashington area, i was going through the checkpoint. My wife went first. I was carrying my 15 month old son. I was stopped. I wasnt allowed to go through. We have to check you out. I said, ok, no problem. Let me give my wife the baby. I was not allowed to pass my wife my child. I am normally a calm, civilized person. When i have my child in my hand and you stop me from passing my child over to my wife, now you have crossed the line and i am angry. The difference between me acting on that anger and someone else acting on their anger is called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is having two conflicting beliefs or thoughts. I will give you an example. Problems that relate to a lot of us. One example would be, an individual who speeds. Especially if you speed in d. C. Dont do it. Its not worth it. An individual who speeds, who knows, if i speed, i will get a ticket. And they do it anyway. And when they get that ticket, when they get that ticket, they literally feel bad. I knew i shouldnt have. I knew there was a camera coming up somewhere. You actually feel it, even though you know you shouldnt do it. Yet you validate your reasons for doing it. I was running late, i had to get there. Another example. Some of us, the individuals on the street, and they ask for money. And we dont give it to them. And some of us feel bad about it. Like man, maybe he was real. Maybe he needed that dollar. Or, i had water in the car. I could have given him that. And after that, the next person, we give them something. That feeling at that time is cognitive dissonance. You have a belief and i thought and they dont agree with one another and you dont know what to do. As muslims, some muslims live a large portion of their life in that period and its stressful. And when i say cognitive dissonance, im talking about a muslim who is not ok being muslim. And this is what we need to worry about. This is the person who is vulnerable to being radicalized. Because they live in a place where i know im muslim and i want to grow my beard, and i know im muslim, but im at work but i want to pray, but if i do, this and this happens. Bad things will happen. Im not ok with losing my job. Im not ok with not working. And because of that, i dont do it great but yet i feel bad because i want to do it. And i build up this frustration for everyone who does not agree or i dont think agrees with me being muslim. And i also build up a hatred for myself. And when i start hating myself are not doing the things i know i should be doing, i fall into this place of cognitive dissonance, and keep me away from people who will turn me the wrong way and release that energy out. Thats what we are targeting. We are targeting that group, we are targeting the group affected by that, and thats where the Mental Health peace lies. Ptsd is real. Depression is real. Cognitive dissonance, we all feel it. We are all susceptible to it. I appreciate it. [applause] thank you. That was real powerful. I guess we will move on to the questionandanswer session. One of the questioners and this goes for anybody who would like to take the question does the radicalization of women follow the same general patterns as that of men . How does the family dynamic inform the womens radi calization . It takes on a similar path to a certain extent. And one of the things we see is that especially in the west, in the u. K. For example, we see the process for the women is a lot more intense as the house builders, the mothers of the children, and the isolation they actually have, youll find from what weve done from the Research Perspective and when i was looking at my research, that because they are in the home, because they are more isolated, because they are more below the radar, their radicaliation, the extent to which they can be radicalized can be very drastic. And, if we want evidence of that, what we saw in the u. K. Was unprecedented with the amount of young ladies who went over to syria to join the islamic state. You all would have seen the images of the three young ladies going over, you would have seen and heard of the stories of families of 12 going over. And those who were pushing and driving these individuals were women. And then we saw the social media between these women, those that arrived in syria. Communications. A colleague british colleague said, can i pass someone on to you. Hes in a real state at the moment. He contacted me and told me his exwife was married to an individual, and his starter of 12 years old used to contact him regularly, every week. She asked him in december of not last year, the year before, what he thought of syria and traveling to syria. He wondered why she asked that. He said, thats crazy. What are you talking about . And her response was to the contact became less frequent and she contacted him one more time and then that was it. He found out he contacted his colleagues, his family, even his exwifes parents. And they said, theyve gone. With the husband. Theyve left two of the children from the stepfather with the exwife and theyve taken his daughter. And they were en route to syria. Now, the asked me to do what i could. I spoke to colleagues and contacts. We found out they went from the west to guyana, south america, where my mothers from, back to the u. K. , stopped in the u. K. They performed on rough. From turkey they went to syria. I still have the voice recording he sent to me of his daughter. Ive written about this, if you look at one of my articles on the website, i transcribe some of what she said. She actually said, we are here now. I knew you would be upset if i told you i was getting here. They give us pepsi. Its really peaceful here. We love it. You could hear the mother in the background, schooling her daugh ter to speak. Tell ouryour father, i love you. Not only for the mother and that female network driving others to travel and encouraging others to travel, but what worried us was the inculcation taking place amongst some of the children. For men, assign this task to their wife because they know their wives will be very effective in propagating that. Youve got women, you saw the single men in syria, british, and you have women encouraging them, saying this is the peak of heroism. This is the peak of being a major mujahedin. We will comment marry you. He felt it was romanticized. The process of women, females, is when we have to take very seriously because it will cascade to their children as well. Im talking still about syria. One of the more extreme and brutal brigades was that of the women from the west, british women. And they would parade, and make sure the syrian women, the Indigenous People of this land, were not showing the eyes except one eye, not showing the legs or socks, not coming out at a particular time. It was the british women who had gone over and formed this brigade. Why . Because they were founding, youthful, idealistic stage where extremism was allowed to proliferate. I hope ive answered that. The evidence is there. You can just go and google and look at the amount of women, young ladies, and the networks of those young ladies. I think the american muslims are more grounded to an extent, from what ive seen and experienced. Thats not my area of specialty. But in the u. K. , that is what has happened. Thank you, dr. Baker. We will move on to the next question. This is regarding being able to inform or impact at the policy level. White american policymakers, what we could or should provide. I think that what we are doing right now is just that. We are making it clear that there are professionals who have the ability, have the experience, the wherewithal, and the acceptance from the Muslim Community, from the Muslim Community. So the top thing with regards to advising our political communities is that everybody wants to advise that. And they have a test job with recognizing who to listen to. Because everybodys pulling at their coattails. But here today, we see there is a group who has those core needs that we need to be able to advise. How do we do that . Im raising my hand. I have cards. The other brothers have cards. Get information and reach out to us very. Show less text 01 06 01 unidentified speaker if i can just add, if policymakers and all of you ask, the framework of the crop solutions, policymakers ask whta does tam bring to the table, we bring the damn table. [laughter] [applause] appreciate it. They put it up. Im actually going to take this up real quick to run through our crop solutions. What this is, is really an outline of what we really do. We do a lot of talking, we understand, but how do we actually actualize it . Really quick, im going to run through this and we will keep it moving without questions. But, my first piece, we intend to develop an internet and social Media Outreach program. What this does weve heard over and over, and most of us know, the majority of radicalization happens over the internet. People can type in something, and there is someone waiting out there to tell them the wrong thing and steer them the wrong way. So we have to start with saying, ok, its important to tackle this and work with our partners to where people type in certain things and are looking at certain things, that they are transferred over to someone who will give them something correct. Not just anybody, but somebody who has the ability to deal with that on an ideological level, and on a behavioral level, and someone who they respect. I know that when most muslims type in something and they get Something Else pro, ok, ive got to listen. Thats really important to have that. Our second is a 1800 number and an extremist hotline. This is important because often, there are a lot of signs. There are a lot of symptoms that can be seen. Too often we ignore them, not because we dont care, but because we dont know what to do with it. Generally as people, as parents, we see certain things and sometimes we dont know what to do with this. Itss a phase theyre going through. They will get out of it or i hear the same thing with parents with regard to their children who are being radicalized. They are going through something, they will get out of it. What if as a parent you could call a 1800 number to say, i need help, what do i do . This is highly important because if this was active, there are hundreds of parents, if not thousands of parents, who would like to call someone, not the fbi, but they would like to call someone with the safety of knowing, im not going to get in trouble for calling and im not going to be on a watch list because my child looked at the wrong thing and i want somebody to talk to them and straighten them up. This is our ability because i touch parents, i touch youth. Being in the community, i can make people aware of this. The amtam prison program, you heard a little bit about why its important. We actually have already completed the program here in washington, d. C. Weve already started that. The Pilot Program was a huge success. And we intend to continue and kind of scale that up. Our tam podcast, media is important. There needs to be a constant voice to deal with the constant voice out there, making an attempt to radicalized, as i ilke to say like to say, our babies. That means to be a constant voice to deal with this. And having actual podcasts that people can tune into with names of who they know, theyll tend to listen. Our tam treatment facility. Now, this is important because unfortunately there are individuals that the poison is going to touch. And that poison is dangerous. That poison is dangerous. Now, we know that we want to stop it before it ever gets to that point. But some individuals need to be as a treatment model, right, youre talking about Mental Health as a treatment model, what individuals can effectively be treated in the same environment in which they were impacted. So we have to have the ability to remove those individuals and put them in a different environment. And this is what allows this to happen. Community outreach, we also heard him talk about their needs to be tens, if not hundreds, of people, who are trained to go into communities and train parents, train community partners, our police department, and ive got to say in baltimore, particularly in the northwestern districts, they do a great job of this, to train them on what those signs are. And when to call, and what to do. And be aware of all of the resources. Our refugee program, so this is something that we have in essence as individuals already done. You heard our brother Mohammed Hussein talk about the somali population. Radicalization and extremist Research Center can you touch just in a nutshell, that would be similar to the hotline for more detailed. But more dteailed. It would be doing with all kinds of radicalization, where we will enlist the expertise at any given time of harris parents, schools, institutions to call in if they are concerned about any type of online or radical material being looked at, they can send that to this center. We will then disseminate, deconstruct, and return the deconstruct response to you, and if need be, come and get involved, try to find a suitable, trade partner with you to come and help in that. That will be a hub that will be enlisting the expertise of extreme experts, counter radicalization, religious extremist experts. So thats what this will actually be. 24 7, being able to contact or email or send material you are concerned about. As we aisaid, parents contacting, seeing links or information on the website. Schools, colleges, un iversities at various levels. We have a couple of minutes left, so we are going to move on. Ok, so the tam legal legislation division. Of course, this question came up. This is something thats in the plan. This is something that we have to tackle, that our policies have to make sense. We cant have policies that further push people into radicalization. The policies dont make sense. And when those policies arent working, we have to do something about them. So having those advocates to be able to work with our legislators, it has to happen. This is part of our third seed but in essence, this is our framework. This is what we come to bring you. This is what we are saying, this is how were going to actualize a lot of the theory, belief, and knowhow. Appreciate it. Show less text 01 15 22 unidentified speaker we are actually coming to the end of our session here. I would really like to thank all of our panelists for volunteering their time, and really informing us on the programs. And also, id ilkelike to thank ill pass the mic to. We havent gotten to all of the questions, so we will try to address those questions. Let me also, on behalf of tam, thank everyone for their patients. I know weve been here since 8 00. It started at 10 00. We started on time. Hopefully god willing we will end on time before the end at 4 00. Its now 30 seconds before. Let me do the final housekeeping items, if i may. One, those questions we did not get to, and everyone asked very good questions, though he could not answer all of them in the time allotted. We will make every effort to post them on our website. Youve seen the twitter accounts and theas you are in the bathroom washing your hands, the tam website. We want to thank the prelim the president of the Freedom Center, and told him i was impressed on the professionalism. This team has made this effort a success. As i said before in the morning session, we went to several entities come and no one would give us the mike, but nate gave us the mike, and as dr. Baker said, we brought the dam table. God willing, were going to make every effort make what we said a reality. It will take eight time, but we have the team and the professional knowhow to get this done. This thing that we have already been in the works, people have already called us even. I got a text from a senator who said he had spoken to the governor and the lieutenant governor. When he left, he was impressed with what he saw, and he wants to meet with us in the next 30 days to talk about our project. Hopefully that could be happening. I think the main focus is to gear towards the lowhanging fruit, which is dealing with the use, use youth who are in trouble, and look at the urban centers, d. C. And baltimore, where we have the preponderance of the tam members to talk throughout through that, but at the end of the day we want to take the show on the road because we know the prisons are in dire need of our assistance. We want to debunk the issues of homegrown terrorists emanating from the prism and terrorism emanating from the i would like to write things done, because i get loquacious, and nate is giving the sign, so i thank you all very, very much, and again, they threw the patients and listening to us, and made the piece of allah be upon you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up this morning, the associate professor of chinese studies in seoul, south korea and patrick cronin, senior director of the asiapacific Security Program at the center for a new america security, discuss how the region is responding to threats from north korea. Then dr. Matthew hahn and his new book open distracted. Be sure to watch cspans washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Join the discussion. , on cspan, on monday, former National Security adviser that served the last two president s including Stephen Hadley i am a little worried. I think we are in a dangerous period with russia. I think amid i think he believes that americans have decided to be antirussian. Saying if you think i am an enemy, i will show you what it is like to have an enemy in russia. House iny, the white rim chief digital officer. We are talking about how new platforms supplied people with information that they already think. I not like they say will show you conservative content. Show you i will information from people that you know. And i will figure out whose content you seem to like. That,ebook had not done we would not be talking about this. Wednesday, with more on the changing roles of cities. This is a transition period. Major roles ofy fighting against populism. Thursday, an indepth look at the Opioid Epidemic including Ohio Attorney general mike dewine who is suing several marketing companies. What is different about the drug problem we have is how pervasive it is. It is in the smallest communities, in our cities, and our most affluent suburbs. And friday, a conversation with a elena kagan. You said at the beginning of our conversation that we are not a pure democracy. We are a constitutional democracy and the judiciary has an Important Role to play. Can make the judiciary and unpopular set of people when they say to a president or a congress coming you cannot do that. It is not within your constitutional powers. Cspan andis week on cspan. Org at 8 00. Listen using the free cspan radio app. Gorermer Vice President al and Elizabeth Warren were among the featured speakers in atlanta. We begin with senator warren