Violent extremism - We ignore ethnic issues at our peril

The stories told at last week’s gathering in Dublin of former gang members from around the world at the Summit Against Violent Extremism (SAVE) should be a salutary reminder of the dangers of ignoring underlying social and ethnic problems.

Their stories were varied. TJ Leyden was a former member of a neo-Nazi racist gang, while Maajid Nawaz joined a revolutionary Islamic gang in Britain, where he was born, and Susan Cruz, a childhood immigrant from El Salvador, joined the most notorious Latino gang in Los Angeles. All joined gangs as young teenagers.

Within the gang or organisation, Maajid Nawaz explained, members began to fear and hate each other more than those they were supposed to hate and TJ Leyden explained: “I didn’t fear being killed by other gangs, I was more scared of being killed by people inside my group.”