By Professor Ramón Spaaij
Victoria University
We all have a need to belong. It’s a need, as basic as hunger or thirst, that drives us to create and maintain relationships that make us feel we matter – where we feel connected, valued, respected, worthy.
Communities are central to this. They give us a shared identity, mutual recognition, and social and emotional support. They are especially important in an age of loneliness and social isolation.
Local sports clubs, community gardens, youth programs, places of worship, local markets, food banks, online support groups; all of these are spaces where community building happens.
But the need to belong can have a darker side too.
How extremist movements exploit unmet needs
Violent extremist and terrorist movements recognise the human drive to belong and exploit it to advance their ends: promising group identity, purpose, status, a social network and validation to people who feel isolated, rejected or threatened elsewhere.
This is why countering radicalisation means addressing unmet needs. Focusing on extremist ideology isn’t enough. Research has shown that when you remove someone from an extremist network without replacing the belonging it gave them, that unmet need can pull them straight back.
Successful disengagement is about finding something meaningful to replace what was lost: something that supports a person to thrive in a healthier, pro-social environment. That is why rehabilitation programs focus on rebuilding pro-social relationships (family, mentors, peer groups) and resilience around the person; combining ideological re-appraisal with mentoring, employment, coping skills and social reintegration.
Australia’s longest-running program for rehabilitating people convicted of terrorist offending
Victoria University’s Applied Security Science Partnership, which is led by Professor Debra Smith, Associate Professor Muhammad Iqbal and me, alongside colleagues, has studied Australia’s longest-running program for rehabilitating people convicted of terrorist offending. The program offers holistic, tailored support through a diverse team: religious mentors (community imams), case managers, clinical psychologists, an officer who helps participants (most of whom are incarcerated) move from prison back into the community, and a family support officer.
As well as ceasing reoffending, we found some participants were able to build the skills and strengths for meaningful, non-violent lives in line with their own values and interests.
Through in-depth interviews, we learned their journeys into terrorism were often driven by what they believed were moral considerations: justice, compassion, and self-sacrifice; which, in line with extremist ideology, they extended to some people and denied to others. Leaving terrorism behind, for these participants meant finding new, legitimate ways to express their moral values: through service, family, community, faith, and connection with people they had once viewed as unworthy.
Sport as an outlet for belonging, purpose and significance
My research has looked at how sport can offer people leaving violent extremism a positive outlet for belonging, purpose and significance. One of the hardest parts of leaving violent extremism behind is rebuilding identity. That is, stepping back from an intense identification with the extremist group or cause, and finding new social identities to fill the space.
Well-designed sports programs are well suited to building this kind of support structure.
Take martial arts for example. Training offers a structured environment for pro-social interaction across diverse backgrounds, built around shared goals of learning and improvement.
The idea of training partners rather than competitors can create a sense of interdependence with people a person might once have viewed as the enemy. The mentoring relationships common in martial arts provide the guidance and trust many people need during this transition, with coaches serving as role models for channeling intensity into something constructive.
It also offers new markers of identity, such as belt ranks and roles within the dojo, along with philosophical traditions that provide a framework for ethical living as an alternative to extremist ideology, and a way to reconnect with an identity separate from group membership. A former violent extremist can become a karateka, a judoka, a martial artist; identities that carry respect and belonging without requiring hatred of anyone.
Creating spaces to belong
These kinds of initiatives should not be viewed as a standalone solution but rather as one component of holistic support services. Nor will they appeal to everyone. Programs need to be tailored to individual needs, addressing the core psychosocial needs that underlie vulnerability to violent extremism in the first place, and delivered by trusted staff trained in trauma- and violence-informed approaches, with real expertise in extremism and disengagement.
Ultimately, the answer to violent extremism may lie less in what we take away from people, and more in what we enable them to belong to instead.
