Kratek povzetek predavanja francoskega profesorja politične filozofije Olivierja Roya: ‘What is the driving force behind jihadist terrorism? – A scientific perspective on the causes/circumstances of joining the scene’.
Glavna poanta: današnja islamska radikalizacija je strukturno zelo podobna radikalizaciji rdečih brigad v sedemdesetih. Gre za individualne zgodbe jeznih in razočaranih posameznikov, kjer je konkretna ideologija bolj slučajno zraven. Navajamo nekaj odlomkov iz predavanja na konferenci Bundeskriminalamt novembra 2015 (pdf):
Radicalisation is a youth revolt against society, articulated on an Islamic religious narrative of jihad. It is not the uprising of a Muslim community victim of poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts who did not share the “sufferings” of Muslims. These rebels without a cause find in jihad a “noble” and global cause, and are consequently instrumentalised by a radical organisation (Al Qaeda, ISIS), that has a strategic agenda.’
- Frustration and resentment against society seems to be the only “psychological” trait that is regularly shared.
- The majority of the radicals come from second generation Muslims born in Europe, the others are converts; almost none came as a young adult or as a teenager to Europe from the Middle East.
- Before turning born-again or converts, they shared a “youth culture” which had nothing to do with Islam.
- It is clearly a youth movement: almost all of them radicalised to the dismay of their parents and relatives.
- Very few of them had a previous story of militancy, either political or religious.
- The unusual proportion of converts has been systematically overlooked because it contradicts the (culturalist) idea that individual radicalisation reflects a radicalisation of a frustrated Muslim community.
- A more recent pattern is the recruitment of young women to marry “jihadists”… It has to do with the construction of the narrative of the “hero” (see next point).
- The main motivation of young men for joining jihad seems to be the fascination for a narrative: “the small brotherhood of super-heroes who avenge the Muslim Ummah”. This ummah is global and abstract, never identified with a national cause. … The narrative is built using schemes taken from the contemporary youth culture: video-games (Call of Duty, Assassins)…. Two “figures” are of particular importance: the suicide-bomber and the “chevalier”, the first being linked with what I call a “generational nihilism”, the second with the video-games. In both cases what is at stake is “selfrealisation” (as an answer to frustration).
- The revolt is expressed in religious terms for two reasons:
– Most of the radicals have a Muslim background, which makes them open to a process of re-islamisation (almost none of them being pious before entering the process of radicalisation).
– Jihad is the only cause on the global market. If you kill in silence, it will be reported by the local newspaper; if you kill yelling “Allahuakbar”, you are sure to make the national headlines.
The ultraleft or radical ecology is too “bourgeois” and intellectual for them.When they join jihad, they adopt the Salafi version of Islam, because Salafism is both simple to understand (don’ts and do’s), and rigid, providing a personal psychological structuring effect. Moreover, Salafism is the negation of cultural Islam, that is the Islam of their parents and of their roots. Instead of providing them with roots, Salafism glorifies their own deculturation and makes them feel better “Muslims” than their parents. Salafism is the religion by definition of a disenfranchised youngster.- Radicals have a loose or no connection with the Muslim communities in Europe. … This explains why a) the close monitoring of mosques brings little information b) Imams have little or no influence on the process of radicalisation; c) “reforming Islam” does not make sense: they just don’t care about “what Islam really means”.
What they are not:
- There is no theological dimension. Their knowledge of Islam is minimum (“Islam for the Dummies”) and they don’t care, although the religious myth plays an emotional role. We tend too much to identify religion with theology (what does Islam say about jihad?); while there is certainly an important religious dimension in the way they experience their struggle, it is not an ideological rationalisation of Islamic theology. “Religiosity” not theology is the key.
- They are not the vanguard of a European (or Middle Eastern) Muslim community that would tend to see them as heroes. On the contrary they have little connection with this community, they broke with their family (the fact that they desperately try to “convert” their family shows their degree of estrangement, not of proximity), and they did not arouse fascination except of course among their peers. They don’t even reconnect with a real Muslim local society in Syria or Yemen.
Consequence for fighting radicalization: To promote a “moderate Islam” to bring radicals back to the mainstream is nonsense. They just reject moderation as such. To ask the “Muslim community” to bring radicals back to normal life is also nonsense. Radicals just don’t care about people they consider as “traitors”, “apostates” or “collaborators” as long as they don’t choose the same path. To consider Islam only through the lenses of “fighting terrorism” will validate the narrative of persecution and revenge that feeds the process of radicalisation. The priority, beyond building a more sophisticated intelligence system, is to debunk the narrative of heroism, to break the “success story” of ISIS as being invincible (including on the ground) and to let Islam in Europe appear as a “normal” religion.
Še kratek intervju iz leta 2010:
