Studies on radicalization & comments

[davidbfpo]

A different focus, the English Defence League (EDL) seen by many as an extremist right wing group and short article:http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpo...civilisations/

The summary:

Joel Busher reflects on what his 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork with the English Defence League tells us about what distinguishes them from the ‘ordinary English people’ that they claim to represent. His research highlights the importance of linking the attitudes and ideology of EDL activists with their lived experience, and questions what role society at large plays in shaping that experience.

[davidbfpo]

A really interesting critique by two academics, thanks to WoTR:http://warontherocks.com/2015/12/cur...ticism-wrong/?

They end with:

The result is that public policy in the West ignores fanatic agency and responds instead in self-consciously depoliticized ways. In effect, this criminological therapeutic model treats the converted zealot not as a danger to the wider society but as a victim pumped full of ideological steroids by unscrupulous online recruiters who, like predatory pedophiles, groom their otherwise innocent prey. The approach becomes even more suspect when extended to the case of the young women who happily trip off to Islamic State-controlled territories to offer themselves as jihadi brides. De-radicalization paints these young women as the deluded subjects of brainwashing. The simple but harsh truth is that like the men they embrace, they too have found meaning in an enthusiasm, which the wider society finds rebarbative, but which inspires action.

Neither “radicals” nor victims, they are largely immune to community sensitive de-radicalization programs promoted by Western governments because there is not much that is particularly radical in jihadist self-understanding. Arguably, it is we in the West who are deluded and we should make a start by “de-radicalizing” our own thinking.

[davidbfpo]

Malaysia has a long established counter-radicalization programme for those who are interned / detained without trial and rarely do I spot any reports. Here is one after a regional conference:http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/m...sts-says-zahid

[davidbfpo]

A curious mixture of thoughts in this short article, mainly as it is based on East African and Australian experience:https://www.issafrica.org/iss-today/...lent-extremism

[davidbfpo]

Alison Jamieson is an author from way back, with a focus on IIRC on Italian terrorism and the linked memo to a UK parliamentary inquiry on 'Prevent', has many useful points. Not only on 'Prevent' in schools, but also other approaches to the issues:http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevi...ten/28666.html

[davidbfpo]

A FP article that challenges the traditional narrative to explain radicalisation:http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/13/...adicalization/

Here is one passage:

...perhaps the more realistic — and in some ways more unsettling — scenario is that the Abdeslam brothers drifted in and out of jihadi activism and that this owed more to who they knew and how they lived than anything they believed.....

Later (CVE uses) the transformational view of radicalization: Implicit in their language and rhetoric is the idea that terrorism is the end stage of a process in which people come to adopt an extremist worldview that justifies violence.

[davidbfpo]

From an international research project by ICSR @ Kings; the summary ends with:

Fighters’ families are among the most powerful assets in the struggle against IS. Their stories highlight the pain and suffering that aspiring jihadists are causing to their loved ones. Families can be key to stopping their sons and daughters from leaving; encouraging them to defect; and helping them re-integrate once they return. They need to be empowered, not left alone.

Link:http://icsr.info/2016/04/icsr-report...tate-families/