Refugee Camps And Political Violence

Scholars on security studies have been studying the relationship between refugee camps and extremism. There is evidence to suggest that refugee camps have become breeding grounds for political violence and religious extremism. But there are also examples that extremism has very little impact on the refugees who lived in these camps.
Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East are one of the cases that scholars have been studying. They concluded that these camps have become the focal point of political violence and religious extremism. From al-Fatah to Hamas, al-Qaeda to Islamic Jihad many religious and nonreligious organizations were either born in these camps or grew up in them.
One of the key reasons why extremism takes root in these camps is a sense of “homelessness” or “non-existence,” as the Palestinians put it. It is a fact that Palestinians have been living in these refugee camps since 1948 and they are not granted citizenship of the countries where the camps are located but treated as if they do not exist; they have no future and no hope. Under such circumstances the extremists, with the hope of creating a home and a future for these people, find fertile ground to flourish among these young refugees.
The second reason why extremism grows in refugee camps is related to the duration of the camps. If people live in these camps for years, it is likely that they will have encountered one or more extremist networks operating inside the camps aiming to recruit from the camps.
Historical data from the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to the Makhmour camp in Iraq and Palestinian camps throughout the Middle East have been related to one or more forms of political violence.
The international community tends to turn a blind eye to the issue because there are two sensitive issues related to this issue. The first and most understandable reason is that political authorities and international policy makers do not want to label and associate these camps with political violence and further alienate these people from the rest of society. The second reason, which is totally unacceptable, is that they do not want to share the cost of the problem that created refugee camps all around the world. Once they accept the fact that the existence of these camps has became a regional and global problem they have to develop a plan to prevent it.
Local authorities who face the crisis are aware of the fact that these camps could be a breeding ground for political violence but they either have very limited resources to deal with it or they do not want to deal with it as long as the extremism that comes out of these camps does not pose a threat to their own countries. Given the fact that most political violence that gathers in these camps usually manifests itself in the country where those refugees come from, and not the host country, the local authorities who host these camps do not see it as a problem.
From time to time countries that host these refugees also exploit these refugees to destabilize their neighbors, the home country, as well. Arab authorities that host Palestinian refugees are prime examples of such an attitude. Turkey, which hosts Syrian refugees, is another example of this group.
It seems that if the international community does not take the Syrian refugee issue seriously and develop preventive measures, the next generation of extremists will emerge from the Syrian refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and other countries to where these people have fled.

EMRE USLU (Cihan/Today's Zaman)