Education is both the victim and the best weapon in Central Sahel conflict
By Craig Bailie
South Africa’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, captured the value of education when he said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
The UN has had the protection and provision of education during armed conflict on its agenda since 2010. This was when the General Assembly adopted a resolution on
the right to education in emergency situations. On 9 September 2020, the UN commemorated the
first International Day to Protect Education from Attack, specifically in the context of armed conflict.
The
purpose is “to raise awareness of the plight of millions of children living in countries affected by conflict”. The General Assembly’s
decision to commemorate this day coincided with the fifth anniversary of the international
Safe Schools Declaration.
The attack on education by armed groups fuels a vicious cycle of underdevelopment and insecurity, causing more violence.
Some have described such attacks as a “perceptible shift in modern terror tactics”.
Africa features prominently in a 2020
report published by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack. It lists Sudan, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo as “very heavily affected” countries.
Another region of high concern is the Central Sahel, which includes Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. A Human Rights Watch
news report published in early September claims that attacks on education in this region have been surging.
Between 2014 and 2019, the Central Sahel experienced a significant
increase in “security incidents”. These include battles, explosions or remote violence and violence against civilians. One feature of this violence is how perpetrators have targeted school infrastructure, staff and students.
Violence caused a six-fold
increase in school closures across the Central Sahel between early 2017 and end 2019. Prior to COVID-19 lockdowns, and
in 2020 alone, 4,000 schools in the Central Sahel closed because of insecurity, affecting 650,000 students.
A key feature of the attack on education is the way children are made victims of killing, sexual violence, maiming and abduction, and are
recruited and used by armed groups.
What drives attacks on education?
Civilians across the Central Sahel have endured attacks from Islamic militant groups, state security forces and ethnic or religiously based militias. While state security forces use schools for military purposes,
Islamic armed groups have deliberately targeted education facilities.
One highly publicised incident just beyond the borders of the Central Sahel was the 2014 kidnapping of the
Chibok schoolgirls by the militant group
Boko Haram.
The reasons
terrorist groups or
other armed actors attack education institutions are varied. A
school is a “relatively unguarded site where people congregate, normally in large numbers, thus offering the potential for mass casualties”.
They’re ideal targets for terrorist groups who aim to portray a government as incapable of protecting its most vulnerable citizens.
Islamic militants, specifically, attack schools perceived to be Western or modern, as part of their
strategy against Western civilisation. And where there’s prolonged intra-state conflict, schools can become centres for
recruiting child soldiers.
Another reason for targeting schools is the
intensive media coverage that follows. Media coverage provides terrorist groups with a platform.
Political will
What can be done to fix the problem?
There’s no straightforward answer to this question. The attack on education is one element of the broader challenge of armed conflict and insecurity. The causes reside not so much with religious fundamentalism, Islamic or otherwise, as they do with
poor governance.
It’s
questionable whether political leaders in the Central Sahel have the will to follow
recommendations that emphasise the role of the state in protecting education from attack. Governments that are
self-serving and
don’t really want to promote freedom don’t have an interest in education.
The ability of communities to hold their governments accountable becomes restricted in countries where governments are oppressive and devalue education. This gives impetus to the involvement of foreign actors in the Central Sahel.
Militarised partnerships
Western states have been among the more prominent foreign actors in Africa’s security landscape. They have resources and concerns over migration and fundamentalism.
The
relations between Western governments and the governments of the Central Sahel are
a case in point. The militarised partnerships
worsen the underlying causes of violent extremism, including attacks on education.
I cautioned in
2017 that if emphasis on military solutions to the Sahel’s security challenges persisted, countries were likely to experience an increase in extremism. Since then, the
foreign military presence in Africa and in the
Sahel region has increased. The increase in attacks on education in the Central Sahel suggest that violent extremism has followed the same trajectory.
The militarised partnerships pursued by Western administrations have proven
counter-productive to education.
Perhaps the victims of attacks on education in the Central Sahel can rely on democratically inclined constituencies elsewhere for assistance. These could pressure their governments to hold their African allies in the war on terror
to account. For these constituencies to do so effectively, however, they will need knowledge and motivation. This will require education
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