The debate rages in social and editor-controlled media about radicalization. How can it be that one becomes radicalized and jihadist when growing up in Europe? Is it poverty? Is there anything that lies dormant in Islamic theology? Professor Olivier Roy recently summarized what research says about these issues.
Roy, who work at the European University Institute in Italy, writes in a note to the German intelligence agency Bundesverfassungsschutz November 19 that radicalization seems to be related to personal stories rather than radicalization of an entire environment.
Low status
According to Roy, psychologists have found that there is a specific psychiatric pattern of radicalization. Some come from dysfunctional families, others from “normal” families. They come from urban and rural areas, poor families and middle class. Frustration and anger against society seems to be the only feature that is shared by many. There is a gap between expectations and actual social status, a need for recognition, which lies behind.
Roy still has an answer to who they are radicalized. He distinguishes between those who support extremist jihadist ideology (around 7000 people in Europe) and those who actually travel to Syria or Iraq to fight because they are motivated by such ideology (around 1,500 people).
When it applies the acting group, the majority second-generation Muslims born in Europe. The second largest group are converts. Almost none have come as young adults or teenagers to Europe from the Middle East.
Criminal past
Many have a history of petty crime and drug trafficking. Before they were newly saved or converts, they took part in a youth who had nothing to do with Islam. But most of them go through a sudden and rapid return (or conversion) of religion. Before that lacked most of them even basic knowledge of Islam, according to Roy.
The pattern in Norway is reminiscent of that in the rest of Europe, although Roy emphasizes that there are variations between countries, and that in countries like Austria are eg several mosques linked to radicalization than elsewhere in Europe. One of those who have come insightful input on whom foreign fighters from Norway is, the TV2 journalist Khadafi Zaman. He sums so on his blog:
– In total, around 85 people traveled from Norway to war. TV2 know the identity of most of them. Between 30 and 40 people with ties to Norway residing currently in Syria. Of them there are at least nine women, he writes and continues:
– The interesting thing is that almost none of the Norwegian foreign fighters have higher education. Almost none have Syrian background, and almost none have theological education in Islam. It has however many are drug and violence judgments, mental disorders and a cordial relationship with NAV and Loan Fund.
Not from Muslim environment
This is clearly a youth movement, writes Roy. Almost everyone gets radicalized against parents and relatives will. Most parents are not only disagreed children radicalization, they actively try to bring them back or even get them arrested by the police.
Radicalization is also a peer phenomenon. The young radicalized often within the framework of small networks of friends, only a minority today. Very few of them, however, has belonged to Muslim movements or religious congregations. Contrary to what many think, they have never mobilized for Palestine and almost never spent any time with the Muslim Brothers or other familiar gestures. In short radicalization their not the result of “maturing” within a political or religious environment, writes Roy.
Prisoner of narrative
According to Professor Roy is the primary motivation for young men from Europe who join the jihadist often fascination for the narrative: “the small fraternity of superheroes who retaliates on behalf of the Muslim umma “. Most radicalized have either broken with parental Islam or have not received any Islamic upbringing at all. Their knowledge of Islam is small. In Iraq identifies the volunteers themselves not with the local Arab population, which explains why they need either imported wives or sex slaves. The narrative is built by templates taken from youth culture (computer games like Call of Duty and Assassins).
There are two reasons why this youth rebellion still getting a religious expression, explains Roy. Most radicalized have firstly Muslim background. Secondly, jihad is the only issue on the global “market”. If you kill someone in silence, it comes in the local newspaper. If you shout “Allahuakbar” and kills someone, it comes guaranteed on the face of all the country’s newspapers, he writes.
The reason that these young people do not turn against such leftist or ecological ideology is that these are “bourgeois” and intellectuals for them. Once they become religious, select the Salafi movement. It is both easy to understand and has a rigid structuring effect. Moreover Salafi movement counterpart of cultural Islam, ie the Islam parents belong.
Must normalize Islam
consequences of research findings for combating radicalization, is according to Professor Roy yourself, firstly, that the promotion of “moderate Islam” to get the radical return to the mainstream, is meaningless. Radical rejects moderation per se. Praying “Muslim communities” to lead the radicalized back to a normal life is equally meaningless. The young radicalized have in most cases not had any contact with these groups, or they have actively breached them. They radicalized do not care about the people they see as “traitors”, “apostates” or “collaborators”.
We must therefore, in addition to building up a more sophisticated intelligence, giving the lie hero narrative. We must leave Islam emerge as a “normal” religion. The way we deal with Islam, should not be regarded primarily as a security question, this will only intensify the fascination with rebels looking for a good cause, he writes.
External assistance
But it’s not just here in Europe one has noticed that foreign fighters have little relation to traditional Islam and the extremists’ narrative must be challenged.
New York Times writes about how IS ‘understanding of Islam is now being challenged by Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), an Indonesian Muslim organization with all 50 million members.
– The abundance of a superficial understanding of Islam makes the situation serious. Loud votes within the Muslim population – extremist groups – justifies its heavy-handed and often barbaric behavior by claiming that they are acting according to God’s will, even though they take dreadfully wrong in this, says A. Mustofa Bisri, who is spiritual leader of the group to newspaper.
He recalls that most foreign fighters from Europe do not speak Arabic or have not lived ii a Muslim country. Bisri claims tolerance is an important value in traditional Sunni Islam, and his organization is now collaborating with research institutions in the West (among them the University of Vienna) to build up theological opposition to the IS ‘propaganda.
– We challenge directly tank with IS, which is that Islam should be one, which means that if there is no other conception of Islam who do not follow their, these folks unbelievers who must be killed, says Yahya Cholila Staquf, which is generalsektretær in NU New York Times.
He is supported by Nico Prucha, a researcher at King’s College London and working to analyze network propaganda to IS.
– I look at motnarrativet as the only way western governments can deal with IS-propaganda, but there is no strategy for this right now, he says.
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