“A neglected but devastating, low-intensity war is unfolding in our communities,” said A. Rashied Omar, as part of his presentation in the seminar, “Gangsterism and Social Dysfunction in the Western Cape,” which was recently hosted at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.
“Local and national governments have not been fully successful in curbing gang violence and addressing its root causes. In this context, faith communities, civil society movements and community-based actors must raise their voices with clarity and courage,” he said.
A native of South Africa, Omar is a teaching professor of Islamic studies and peacebuilding at the Keough School’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies during the spring semester of each academic year. In general, he spends the rest of the year in Cape Town; there he serves as an imam at the Claremont Main Road Mosque and produces research and leads public engagement efforts that are interfaith-grounded, community-based approaches to prevent and reduce crime and gang violence. He also serves as a research advisor to students in the Keough School’s Master of Global Affairs (MGA) program doing their field work in Cape Town.
“I am particularly interested in how faith communities contribute to justice-centered social transformation, community safety and sustainable peace in contexts marked by inequality and social fragmentation,” said Omar.
The “Gangsterism and Social Dysfunction” seminar stemmed from a conference hosted in November 2025 by the Jaap Durand Chair at the University of the Western Cape in partnership with the Cape Crime Crisis Coalition (C4). Omar’s gang violence research was a focus of the November conference and he serves on the crisis coalition’s steering committee, which made him a natural to participate in the “Gangterism” seminar. The gathering identified the rise of organized crime, violence and systemic neglect of marginalized communities in the Western Cape, especially across the Cape Flats located southeast of Cape Town.
“The meeting attracted affected residents, faith leaders, law enforcement agencies, policymakers, researchers, academics and media,” said Omar. “Together, we explored new pathways and partnerships to bridge the divide and address enduring social fractures and inequalities inherited from the legacy of Apartheid.”
Historically a place of forced removal, the Cape Flats region was designated for non-white residents under Apartheid resulting in a dense, underserved region far from the city center. The area is marked by significant socioeconomic disparities, high levels of poverty and intense gang violence, with gangs often recruiting youth. Despite its challenges, the Cape Flats is also known for its resilience, with many community-driven initiatives underway aimed at improving local life.
“Faith-based engagement must call for decisive action against drug cartels and illegal arms networks,” said Omar. He outlined other calls to action for faith communities, including advocacy for strengthened social services and accessible youth recreation facilities; promotion of skills development and sustainable job creation; and affordable social housing to address overcrowding.
“This isn’t partisan politics; it is the work of moral accountability,” said Omar. “A healthy religious and vibrant civil society will call out these structural injustices that reinforce the status quo.”
An alum, teacher and practitioner
Omar earned his master’s degree in international peace studies at Notre Dame in 2001. He was attracted to the program because of the university’s reputation and that of the Kroc Institute, and wanting the skills-building he knew the program offered. Twenty-five years later, he intentionally seeks to align his research and peace and justice work in South Africa when teaching at the Kroc Institute and advising graduate students.
Whitney Hedlund (MGA ‘26), who majored in international peace studies and graduates this month, completed her field placement in Cape Town with Omar as her advisor. She interned with Cape Town Interfaith Initiative, an organization Omar helped establish. There, she was a liaison for its youth programs made up of high school students from different faith groups, and helped coordinate community dialogue and resource space for them.
Her capstone project in the spring semester focused on housing occupation in Cape Flats, specifically those who were displaced from the Woodstock area in Cape Town during Apartheid due to gentrification and who subsequently occupied an abandoned hospital. The government considers them “squatters” and has issued multiple eviction notices for the more than 1,000 occupants, but has not issued penalties.
While in South Africa, Hedlund was joined by her husband, and together they accompanied Omar to events, conferences, gang consultations and meetings with religious clergy. In addition to helping run the youth programs and facilitating dialogue sessions, Hedlund wrote grants.
“Professor Omar made us feel as though we were part of his family,” said Hedlund, “and through him, we became part of the community. He took us to places in Cape Town that a tourist wouldn’t get to see. We didn’t ‘parachute in’; rather we saw the interconnections of real life and the crossover between and among so many groups of people in Cape Town.”
She also gained a deeper understanding of the longtime impact of colonialism, specifically spatial apartheid: the deliberate, legal segregation of people by race through urban planning, enforced in South Africa to create white-dominated cities and isolate marginalized communities from economic centers.
“Settler colonial violence and spatial apartheid is manifested in today’s gentrification in Cape Town,” said Hedlund, “and this is in part why gangsterism is able to thrive in areas like Cape Flats. My eyes were opened, and I was able to reflect on different ways of dealing with legacies of violence and how to work against institutionalized structures that seek to keep people separate.”
Wasal Faqiryar, a doctoral student studying peace studies and anthropology, has served as Omar’s research assistant for the past year. As part of his work with Omar, Faqiryar undertook a literature review on the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative, known as ARLPI, in northern Uganda. This was new ground for Faqiryar, a native of Afghanistan, to learn about ARLPI, the Lord's Resistance Army violence and the trauma of the Aboke abductions in 1996, and how Catholic, Anglican, and Muslim leaders came together not just to pray, but to construct an institution that mediated with rebel commanders.
A second assignment was a literature review that Omar called "The Moral Blind Spot of Peace Studies." Faqiryar’s review tried to answer one question: Why has the discipline of peace studies, which has produced enormous theoretical and practical resources for addressing wars between states and civil wars, been comparatively silent on gang violence, extortion, criminal homicide and what some scholars now call ‘armed social violence?’
“I believe people in peace studies sometimes take up tasks as a way to step out of the comfort zone of the specialization they have built,” said Faqiryar. “To do a literature review or an investigative project on dimensions of the field that lie outside their primary focus—like these literature reviews—has been, for me, exactly the kind of opening I needed.”
In June, Omar will participate in the Kroc Institute’s international kick-off of its 40th anniversary in Nairobi. On the heels of the university’s Pamoja Summit, the Kroc Institute will host panel discussions focused on strategic peacebuilding that align with the work of its many African-based alumni, as well as faculty and programs with Africa-focused projects.
“I consider Notre Dame my second home,” said Omar. “I continue to be inspired by the interfaith focus of the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., who always welcomed and encouraged me to apply my Islamic religious framework at the university and to learn from others, so that we could serve as religious peacebuilders.
“I am honored to be part of the Notre Dame family and to contribute to peacebuilding work in service of a more compassionate and just world.”