Studies on radicalization & comments

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

The asshole sounds like half the guys in my boot camp platoon. Bored kids looking for meaning and finding it in the wrong place. Sometimes I think 70% of our jihadi problem is the lack of a decent non-religiously oriented "cause" or institution in most Muslim countries --- a Marine Corps equivalent to join in order to find challenge and a sense of identity.

This has been a real problem in North America for about 40-50 years or so. A friend of mine spent a fair amount of time researching some of the radicalization amongst Jewish kids in the 1980's, and the pattern is pretty much the same. I saw a similar pattern looking at a lot of people who joined modern Craft and some of the Charismatic groups as well.

It is one of the central problems in large, secular societies - we don't have many good, functioning, rites of passage. Also, because there isn't a single, unifying, religious symbol system, we have a mishmash which has a really hard time working together. Personally, I think the Romans had a much better system with the Pontifex Maximus .

[Tukhachevskii]

I saw a similar pattern looking at a lot of people who joined modern Craft and some of the Charismatic groups as well.

Is that Craft as in World of Warcraft?

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to another observer Tim Stevens, Kings ICSR, who has pointed to this Dutch report; link:http://english.nctb.nl/current_topics/reports/ where it is the first report

Summary:

The Jihadist movement is the driving force behind the current worldwide terrorist wave that is carried out on the pretext of a religious armed fight, the ‘jihad’. This movement derives its strength largely from its ideology. There is increasing consensus that Jihadism should be combated not only by repressing it, in the form of a war against terrorism or by means of intelligence organisations and police, but rather by also addressing it specifically at the level of ideology. The knowledge of Jihadist ideology is, however, still limited. This study aims to provide insight into this ideology, the strategy derived from it, and the method of production, reproduction, and propagation of this ideology and strategy, in order to improve the capability to counter Jihadist terrorism.

Yet to be read fully, on a quick scan looks interesting.

[Tukhachevskii]

Hat tip to another observer Tim Stevens, Kings ICSR, who has pointed to this Dutch report; link:http://english.nctb.nl/current_topics/reports/ where it is the first report

.

I've read through it once quickly and am impressed with its grasp of the subject matter but (and it's a big BUT) I am still averse to describing Jihadists as some kind of fringe movement. Furthermore, and this irks me no end, the admonition to study the "ideology" of Jihadism when IMO it's not an "ideology" but a totalisitc worldview (or "religion", a word I have problems with in this respect too); being a Dutch (therefore dependant upon a post-modernist multicultural/relativist paradigm) product it is no wonder they are hard pressed to say the I word (thats Islam to you and I). Furthermore, the presentation and explication of Jihad follows almost to the letter what Muslim "moderates" would have us belive rather than revealing the centrality of Jihad to Islam (reminiscent of Calvin and the calling of the elect in extreme Protestantism). Also, and I think this is something not many have commented upon, is the strange prediliction we have of assuming that we and they inhabit the same "worlds" in which time and space are interpreted through similar paradigms but articulated through difficult languages (hence the priority of diplomacy, communication, radical- translation, et al) when in fact the conflict is not over "interpretation" (although that's a big part of it) but over "constituion" of the world according to different understanding of what the "good life" should be. It's not a question of somehow "getting through" to them (based on the assumption that we all want the same thing, see the world in the same way, and that everything is, at bottom, identitical with only our languages vielling reality) but instead its a question of whose "way of life" in the widest phenomenological sense is going to prevail in our respective AOs. We don't live (or "dwell" as Heideger would have said) in the same "world" and the until we begin grasping that issue (among others) we will always interpret the "jihadists" as we want them to see themselves and not as they actually do see themselves. Unfortunately, I can't copy and paste segments from the article to illustrate my point but I will attempt to do so in greater depth (and one hopes greater cohesion) later in order to more fully adumbrate my concerns.

OTOH here's an article I find better conforms to my own line of thinking although there are still issues I would accentuate and others I would relegate to the sidelines, S.P. Lambert, Y: The Sources of Islamic Revolutionary Conduct http://www.dia.mil/college/pubs/pdf/5674.pdf

[Bob's World]

Query:

Is one "radicalized" by the government that they believe is oppressing them; or are they radicalized by the organization that comes along and offers them an alternative to that oppression?

As I always say, the Pied Piper is a fairy tale. If the conditions (real or perceived) of poor governance do not exist, no amount of leadership or ideology is going gain much traction with the populace.

Personally, I find the whole concept of "deradicalization" just one more blame shifting tactic to soothe ourlselves that we are merely victims here. This is not helpful, and it will not work.

[bourbon]

Query:

Is one "radicalized" by the government that they believe is oppressing them; or are they radicalized by the organization that comes along and offers them an alternative to that oppression?

Sir, I would make a distinction between groups like Palestinians and Tamils that become suicide bombers and Muslims in the West who radicalize. This material is more applicable to the later. The Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki’s or Hamburg Cell’s are not oppressed by their governments. I believe the organization that comes along offers the Salafi Jihadist script, which they reach for to fill an internal psychological void.

As has been mentioned by others before, the book/film Fight Club illustrates this dynamic substituting Salafi Jihadism for a revolutionary-anarchist movement.

"We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives." - Tyler Durden, Fight Club

[Bob's World]

Sir, I would make a distinction between groups like Palestinians and Tamils that become suicide bombers and Muslims in the West who radicalize. This material is more applicable to the later. The Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki’s or Hamburg Cell’s are not oppressed by their governments. I believe the organization that comes along offers the Salafi Jihadist script, which they reach for to fill an internal psychological void.

As has been mentioned by others before, the book/film Fight Club illustrates this dynamic substituting Salafi Jihadism for a revolutionary-anarchist movement.

I think you are whistling past the cemetery if you take the position of holding western governments blameless; be it in regards to shaping and supporting despots down range; or in subtle policies at home that create perceptions of disrespect or injustice among some segment of your nation's own populace.

When you combine foreign policies that support oppressive regimes of a country elsewhere, that has provided a significant immigrant populace to your country at home, and that populace holds such perceptions; I would advise you that you are sitting on a powder keg of your own making.

To simply blame the messenger or the message that actually motivates members of that populace to action is naive and dangerous.

[marct]

Hi Bob,

Query:

Is one "radicalized" by the government that they believe is oppressing them; or are they radicalized by the organization that comes along and offers them an alternative to that oppression?

The answer to that question is "Yes" .

On a more serious level, we have a very nasty tendency in the West to want to assume mono-causal models since, if we can identify them, we can in theory gain some form of control over them. Personally, I'm part of that annoying emergentist camp.....

As I always say, the Pied Piper is a fairy tale. If the conditions (real or perceived) of poor governance do not exist, no amount of leadership or ideology is going gain much traction with the populace.

At any given point in time and space, I might agree with you but, at a general level, I have to disagree. Ideologies, actually grand narratives is a better term since "ideology" implies a secular worldview with a political focus and they are only a sub-set of the totality of grand narratives, can spread within a population without requiring either a Pied Piper or going kinetic. Once spread, however, they can act as an emergent base from which political change emerges and, as part of that emergence, brings moral entrepreneurs - your Pied Pipers - to popular attention. "Governance", good, bad or indifferent, may have nothing whatsoever to do with the spread of a grand narrative that will, latter on, act as the wellspring for latter political contests that may go kinetic.

Personally, I find the whole concept of "deradicalization" just one more blame shifting tactic to soothe ourlselves that we are merely victims here. This is not helpful, and it will not work.

Not in the materialist sense of immediately diminishing the pool of "radicals". Where it does, however, play a major part is in constructing and maintaining the, hmmm, the technical term would be "mana" or "spiritual power", of the opposing grand narrative. It allows for the process we could call "witnessing" to take place which, when we look at it at the population level, can be a pretty potent way to kill off key components of an opposing grand narrative.

Now, having said all that, I don't mean in any way to imply that they people setting up the deradicalization programs have a coherent theoretical model of what they are doing and why they are doing it, at least in the terms and sense that I see them. IMHO, this is just another example of the emergence of a process from a dynamic situation that is pretty much probable (BTW, I've seen and documented similar patterns in other areas).

Cheers,

Marc

[Dayuhan]

Query:

Is one "radicalized" by the government that they believe is oppressing them; or are they radicalized by the organization that comes along and offers them an alternative to that oppression?

As I always say, the Pied Piper is a fairy tale. If the conditions (real or perceived) of poor governance do not exist, no amount of leadership or ideology is going gain much traction with the populace.

Personally, I find the whole concept of "deradicalization" just one more blame shifting tactic to soothe ourlselves that we are merely victims here. This is not helpful, and it will not work.

In some environments yes, in others perhaps less so. In this case we're not talking about mass radicalization of a populace, but of disaffected individuals. Looking back at recent history we can see that these individual radicalizations generally have nothing to do with quality of governance. They're more likely to be driven by a combination of boredom, youthful energy with no immediate outlet, and in many cases generalized anger, often with "society" standing in for resentment toward parents and other immediate authority figuresd.

I'm not convinced that any level of quality governance will completely eliminate that fraction of a percent that comes out with a chip on the shoulder heavy enough to drive a turn to violence.

[marct]

Is that Craft as in World of Warcraft?

Nope - Craft as in Witchcraft .

[William F. Owen]

Has anyone done any work on why people became communists, nazis or fascists?

Anyone inquired as to why some Native Americans got "radicalised" and rejected the authority imposed upon them?

My point is, if what is radicalising them is "the political reality" then the only real issue is do they express their politics using violence. - if they do that, then kill or incarcerate them, in line with what the law allows.
Nothing you can or or say, will stop some kid becoming a suicide bomber - and if you can, then he's not one of the ones to worry about.

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

Has anyone done any work on why people became communists, nazis or fascists?

Tons of work done after WW II, especially on the ability to compartmentalize (this is just an example).

Anyone inquired as to why some Native Americans got "radicalised" and rejected the authority imposed upon them?

Funny you should mention that - I'm talking with a colleague of mine about looking at that in the Canadian situation. And, yes, a lot has been written on that particular topic. The same can also be asked about why the Irish "got radicalized and rejected the authority imposed upon them" .

My point is, if what is radicalising them is "the political reality" then the only real issue is do they express their politics using violence. - if they do that, then kill or incarcerate them, in line with what the law allows.

[tongue in cheek]

Well, I certainly would agree with the first part of that. As to the second, I'm sure some of our colleagues who are descended from the violent, godless, anarchist insurgents under MAJ Washington, might, possibly, disagree.

[/tongue in cheek]

Nothing you can or or say, will stop some kid becoming a suicide bomber - and if you can, then he's not one of the ones to worry about.

Maybe nothing you can say or do can stop him or her from becoming one, but it can certainly start them becoming one .

[davidbfpo]

(Taken from and only partial) Has anyone done any work on why people became communists, nazis or fascists? Nothing you can or or say, will stop some kid becoming a suicide bomber - and if you can, then he's not one of the ones to worry about.

Wilf,

Over the decades lots of academic work has been done on radicalization; I assume in the past this research has reflected contemporary issues and after WW2 the totalitarian temptation. There are some continuities and what appear to be new factors.

Contemporary terrorism or political violence, is assumed to be the end result of radicalization and is best described as "an old wine in a new bottle". It is possible to dissuade and prevent a 'kid becoming a suicide bomber'. There is plenty of evidence to that effect.

There are many unresolved aspects to the preventative aspects of counter-terrorism, not helped when even the experts do not agree on the process, the signs and how to respond (as reflected in other threads).

Just a quick, considered response.

[William F. Owen]

Tons of work done after WW II, especially on the ability to compartmentalize (this is just an example).

Maybe nothing you can say or do can stop him or her from becoming one, but it can certainly start them becoming one .

....and you will probably never know what that was or when it occurred.

Over the decades lots of academic work has been done on radicalization; I assume in the past this research has reflected contemporary issues and after WW2 the totalitarian temptation. There are some continuities and what appear to be new factors.

Contemporary terrorism or political violence, is assumed to be the end result of radicalization and is best described as "an old wine in a new bottle". It is possible to dissuade and prevent a 'kid becoming a suicide bomber'. There is plenty of evidence to that effect.

Guys, basically what this research is trying to do is ascertain why some people have the political beliefs they do. Essentially why did anyone vote for Tony Blair or George W?
The "kids" we are supposedly worried about have a political belief and they believe it enough to fight. .... so what?
Anyone asking which members of the USMC was "radicalised by 911?" Was George W. Bush?

I know why Palestinians and Tamils become suicide bombers. It's all pretty obvious once you get on their value ladder, but I very much doubt the practicality of any work that would be able to make them change their mind. If it were that simple, why do not folks simply do it, because the flow down is "Please accept our occupation of your land peacefully." - THAT IS WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO BELIEVE!