The problem of Islamic radicalism

[crazy canuck]

Berkut, I agree that it is important to attempt to analyze root causes but I think that by focusing exclusively on religious beliefs you are missing other important factors. I think the factors that motivate people are a lot more complex than just their religion.  Your proposition seems to be that if we can only help the moderates in the current religious conflict within the Muslim then there will be no more terrorism.  But there has been extremist religious beliefs for a very long time (within the Muslim world and in other religious beliefs) which have not resulted in the kind of terrorism we are seeing now.  I am not denying that religious ideology and indoctrination has played some part but I think it would be an error to identify it as the exclusive causal issue.  I think the deeper causal issues are political, economic and cultural.

To use one of your example, are the honour killings that rightly horrify us the product of only religious belief or are they also caused by strongly held local cultural beliefs and societal norms.  The fact that honour killings occur across multiple religious faiths and cultures gives us some indication that it is not an exclusive problem of radical Islamic beliefs.   Our society is so strongly influenced by liberal democratic norms that we have a hard time understanding behaviors that fall outside those norms.  To be clear I am not arguing that we should for a moment accept those other behaviors.  I think we should do what we can to spread liberal democratic values.  But that is an example of where blaming only the religious aspect will not get at root causes.

[KRonn]

And plenty of people who engaged I violence for the cause of Marxism were not people "lacking a perceived solution for their problems". Some of them came from wealthy, democratic states where there was a perfectly viable means of expressing their political views.

I think this is important to realize with Islamic radicalism. We see statements by people in the West saying that these people need jobs or better education or whatever other rationale, but it ignores that the movers and shakers of this extremism believe fervently in their extremist ideology. The leaders and many followers are well educated and prosperous and aren't doing this out of a sense of impoverishment; it's the lifestyle and culture they support and desire. However of course, many of the rank and file are attracted to this ideology/cause because they are poor or alienated from the societies they're part of, and then again many also just fervently believe in the ideology.

[Malthus]

And plenty of people who engaged I violence for the cause of Marxism were not people "lacking a perceived solution for their problems". Some of them came from wealthy, democratic states where there was a perfectly viable means of expressing their political views.

I think this is important to realize with Islamic radicalism. We see statements by people in the West saying that these people need jobs or better education or whatever other rationale, but it ignores that the movers and shakers of this extremism believe fervently in their extremist ideology. The leaders and many followers are well educated and prosperous and aren't doing this out of a sense of impoverishment; it's the lifestyle and culture they support and desire. However of course, many of the rank and file are attracted to this ideology/cause because they are poor or alienated from the societies they're part of, and then again many also just fervently believe in the ideology.

The true believers often aren't looking for an answer to the problems of a fucked up society (even if they say they are) - they are looking for a cause to embrace. The fucked up society provides the excuse for the cause.

Look at it this way: to use these people are terrorist scum, but in their own eyes, they are heroes. A big part of what motivates them is a desire for heroism. Living a comfortable humdrum wealthy or middle class life, many people find alienating and lacking in point (particularly if they grew up as kids who didn't have to work to earn it). Add a grievance based on ethnicity or religion, plus the chance to embrace a cause that demands absolute devotion, and a certain number will jump at the chance -- and a fucked-up situation breeds plenty of such grievances. The attraction is going, in their eyes, from a worthless drone to a hero at the very cutting edge of world affairs.

[Berkut]

Berkut, I agree that it is important to attempt to analyze root causes but I think that by focusing exclusively on religious beliefs you are missing other important factors.

Let me stop you right there.

I am not at all arguing that we should focus exclusively on religious beliefs.

I am arguing that ignoring religious beliefs as a motivating factor is a mistake - and that is what the left wants to insist on - not that religion is not the only factor, but rather that religion is not a factor at all, or at best is a minor factor, to be dismissed.

[Martinus]

I think the term "islamofascism" has been abandoned too soon. I think this ideally describes the ideology that is espoused by Islamic right wingers (which includes but is not limited to the violent extremists) - Islam is a component but not the only one.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Heh, not to rehash things, but it strikes me at least as interesting that the constant in the recent history of the ME has been terrorism - not Islamic terrorism. The latter is a Johnny-come-lately to the terrorism game, which used to be dominated by proto-Marxists and pan-Arabist ethno-nationalists. Whatever happened to them?

For this reason, it seems unlikely that a religious awakening will decrease the use of terrorism, because what is motivating the terrorism is some flaw inherent in the religion. Seems to me more likely that what is motivating the terrorism is a society riven by lots of problems and a lack of viable solutions, making extremism in whatever form - Marxist, ethno-nationalist, Islamicist - look like attractive opportunities. A religious reformation would, it is true, get rid of expressly Islamicist terrorism, but there is no guarantee that the discrediting of Islamicism as a plausible motive for terrorism will eliminate or even significantly dampen terrorism, any more than the discrediting of Marxism and pan-Arabism did in the past - as long as you have a significant population lacking any solutions to their perceived problems, extremism of this sort will remain popular.

Marxist/Pan-Arabist terrorism may or may not be present (or something akin to it for the 21st century) if Islamic jihadism magically went away, but what we can be pretty sure of is ideological jihadism is what attracts Muslims from Southeast Asia and Europe to travel to the Middle East to fight. They wouldn't have nearly the same cause to identify with other types of violence.

The Taliban is somewhat interesting an example. While they've long flirted with associations with international jihadist groups the reality of the Taliban is it's a largely Pashtun extremist group fighting a civil war in Afghanistan and any interest it shows to "jihadism" outside of Afghanistan appears to mostly be minimal and for show. The Taliban since it was driven from power has never attracted international jihadists like al-Qaeda in Iraq (and now ISIS) have, it did initially have tons of supporters from Pakistani madrasas, but those were typically Pashtun "fellow travelers" (and were largely facilitated in crossing over to join the Afghan Taliban by Pakistani security forces.) All this being said, the larger Middle East region may indeed have violence but like the Taliban's quest, it wouldn't be attracting Indonesians and Malaysian and Filipinos without the Islamic component. Those people don't care, for example, about carving out territory in Afghanistan or pan-Arabism.

[crazy canuck]

Berkut, I agree that it is important to attempt to analyze root causes but I think that by focusing exclusively on religious beliefs you are missing other important factors.

Let me stop you right there.

I am not at all arguing that we should focus exclusively on religious beliefs.

I am arguing that ignoring religious beliefs as a motivating factor is a mistake - and that is what the left wants to insist on - not that religion is not the only factor, but rather that religion is not a factor at all, or at best is a minor factor, to be dismissed.

Ok then.  But since I think I am on the "left" on this issue I don't think you are fairly characterizing the argument.   It is not that religion should be ignored as a motivating factor.  It is that people on the other side of the issue seem treat all of Islamic belief as being the problem.  And so we have people like Yi saying that Muslims need to rethink their religion or get a new one.  To the extent that radical Muslim belief and all the other factors intersect with terrorist ideology that is obviously an issue and should not be ignored as we think about these things.  The error is focusing too much on the religious factor to the exclusion of all the others. 

[Berkut]

To use one of your example, are the honour killings that rightly horrify us the product of only religious belief or are they also caused by strongly held local cultural beliefs and societal norms. 

I don't think it is really possible to separate "religious belief" from 'strongly held cultural beliefs and societal norms" especially in societies where the religion defines to cultural and societal norms.

These societies do not have the separation between religious belief and their cultural norms that would be necessary to evaluate them separately....which is the entire problem!

The fact that honour killings occur across multiple religious faiths and cultures gives us some indication that it is not an exclusive problem of radical Islamic beliefs.   

Again, just because a problem happens for reasons other than some particular reason, is not a justification to not worry about said specific reason. Just because people die in car crashes because they are texting is no reason to dismiss the problem of drunk driving. And noting that lots of people die because of drunk driving is NOT an argument that nobody dies from texting while driving.

I keep saying this, and then having to say it again, so I suspect that the problem is on my end, I cannot seem to communicate this idea for some reason.

The fact is that the people I am talking about who stone women (and that is just one example, you can pick plenty others, and it is likely that none of them will be the sole provence of Islamic radicalism, its not like they invented the various ways humans can be inhumane) *believe* that the act they are engaging in when they smash some womens brains out is a religious act.

And we need to understand that if we want to try to stop the behavior. The behavior is motivated by their religious beliefs, so if we want to change the behavior, we have to at least be willing to acknowledge that they truly believe they are doing what their god wants them to do - if we try to find a bunch of other reasons because we don't want to accept their word for their motivations, we are going to end up taking a lot longer to resolve the underlying issue.

There are, of course, other contributing factors. Social development, education, equal representation, lots of secular issues that need to be addressed as well - but lets not kid ourselves, because THOSE issues in these places are all tied up into religion as well. Education? Of course that is critical. But in many of these places, education is provided by religious teachers. Ooops. So we cannot educate our way out of that in those places, at least not without addressing the religious issue first, otherwise we are just educating them in how to be intolerant.

Political voices? Equal representation for women? Also critical....and also tied up into the religion that pervades the culture.

You see where I am going here - yes, it is not ALL about religion, but it is a LOT about religion, and religion pervades these cultures so thoroughly that it is really tough to get at a solution without running straight into it...

[OttoVonBismarck]

Hmmm, I am not sure what you are referencing here, but your own post here is mixing up your measure. Saying that religion is the reason for "most" wars, and refuting it by using body count as a measure of the number of wars, doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense. And I am not sure I would even agree with the claim that religion is the cause of most wars anyway, so I am skeptical that I said that - or if I did, I meant something else.

Because I'm more interested in the damage inflicted by war, not a large number of arbitrarily declared and barely fought wars. The "War of Jenkins Ear" isn't the same as World War II or the Seven Years War or the Thirty Years War in terms of the number of deaths or the amount of destruction it caused. Most of the large destructive wars for the past two hundred years have been called by expansionist political ideologies (not religious ones), rampant nationalism, and Great Power politics in the multipolar era.

Has nothing to do with fault - just pointing out that those engaging in this activity believe they are doing so for religious reasons.

It is great that YOU think that is the case, and it is great that there are a billion Muslims who agree with you, and disagree with the tens of millions who think that stoning women is justified by their religious views.

But you are doing exactly what I am talking about. This is not about what the reasonable Muslims believe, we all agree that they are right, or at least more right.

It is about what the non-moderates believe, and more importantly, how their beliefs drive their behavior.

Claiming that this isn't about Islam because lots of Islamic people do not agree with it is missing the point entirely, and in a really dangerous way.

It IS about Islam, and the fact that there are perfectly rational and reasonable ways to interpret the religion in a manner that does not involve these kinds of horrors is the point - but if we pretend like this is not a religious problem at all, then that fact is no longer really relevant to the problem, while I think it is probably the MOST relevant point.

The point to me is that these terrible practices towards women would be happening in very backwards countries regardless of the religion. We know this because such terrible practices are seen in lots of very uncivilized countries that do not practice Islam. That makes them not really a good example to me of an "Islamic problem." Because I don't think Islam is any particular cause of societal backwardness in places that have never had running water. International jihadism, on the other hand, is something unique and specific to Islam and cannot be logically divorced from the religion since it crosses racial, economic and political boundaries.

[crazy canuck]

These societies do not have the separation between religious belief and their cultural norms that would be necessary to evaluate them separately....which is the entire problem!

You are missing the point.  You blame a particular religious belief for, as an example, honour killings.  But honour killings are committed by people in other religions as well.  Therefore, as a matter of basic logic, there is something else going on then just that particular religious belief.  Honour killings also, for example, committed by men who are Hindu and Sihk.  This seems to just be another formulation of your other thread that all religious belief is bad.

[Berkut]

And plenty of people who engaged I violence for the cause of Marxism were not people "lacking a perceived solution for their problems". Some of them came from wealthy, democratic states where there was a perfectly viable means of expressing their political views.

I think this is important to realize with Islamic radicalism. We see statements by people in the West saying that these people need jobs or better education or whatever other rationale, but it ignores that the movers and shakers of this extremism believe fervently in their extremist ideology. The leaders and many followers are well educated and prosperous and aren't doing this out of a sense of impoverishment; it's the lifestyle and culture they support and desire. However of course, many of the rank and file are attracted to this ideology/cause because they are poor or alienated from the societies they're part of, and then again many also just fervently believe in the ideology.

The true believers often aren't looking for an answer to the problems of a fucked up society (even if they say they are) - they are looking for a cause to embrace. The fucked up society provides the excuse for the cause.

Look at it this way: to use these people are terrorist scum, but in their own eyes, they are heroes. A big part of what motivates them is a desire for heroism. Living a comfortable humdrum wealthy or middle class life, many people find alienating and lacking in point (particularly if they grew up as kids who didn't have to work to earn it). Add a grievance based on ethnicity or religion, plus the chance to embrace a cause that demands absolute devotion, and a certain number will jump at the chance -- and a fucked-up situation breeds plenty of such grievances. The attraction is going, in their eyes, from a worthless drone to a hero at the very cutting edge of world affairs.

This is a pretty damn good counter point Malthus, thanks.

I don't think we really disagree all that much.

One thing we need to do better is counter the kind of propaganda that appeals to these people, or the propaganda that appeals (as another example) to young women being enticed to going to ISIL.

And we need to be as brutal in our portrayal of what awaits you should you make these choices as ISIL is in their propaganda.

You are thinking about going to Syria to be married to some freedom fighter? How about some counter propaganda showing what is really awaiting you - rape, torment, and a very likely end in a ditch somewhere.

You want to consider being a suicide bomber for Allah?

How about we show what you really will become  - another pawn killed to expand and extend the power and wealth of a bunch of power crazed assholes with a god complex.

How about we have some moderate Muslims saying in no uncertain terms that people who kill for Allah are going straight to hell? And saying so with the passion and conviction that the radicals display?

The problem is that to take the gloves off, we are inevitably going to "offend" people who will claim that we are attacking Islam...which brings us back to this discussion, and this frankly bizarre unwillingness to name Islamic terrorism for what it actually is...

[crazy canuck]

International jihadism, on the other hand, is something unique and specific to Islam and cannot be logically divorced from the religion since it crosses racial, economic and political boundaries.

Sure, if you narrow something to Jihadism which is itself exclusive to Muslim belief.  But there have been international terrorist groups that were not based on or motivated by religious belief.

[Tamas]

I agree backwardness is not an Islami-specific thing (of course).

However we are talking about a larger region that is the cradle of civilisation and was largely at par with Europe in terms of societal and scientific development up until some centuries following the Islam conquest.

We cannot dismiss the notion that Islam had an influence on how these countries developed, when they have been islamis countries for the past, what, 1500 years.

[Berkut]

These societies do not have the separation between religious belief and their cultural norms that would be necessary to evaluate them separately....which is the entire problem!

You are missing the point.  You blame a particular religious belief for, as an example, honour killings. 

No, no, NO!

I do NOT blame the religious beliefs for "honour killings" in general, I blame them for those honor killings where the people doing the killing say "I am doing this because god told me to".

Fuck, you keep cutting out my explanations, and then pretending like the only thing I post is the little snippet you quote.

But honour killings are committed by people in other religions as well. 

I addressed this. Several times.

Therefore, as a matter of basic logic, there is something else going on then just that particular religious belief.

That would be a great response to an argument someone might make of the form "Honor killing are particular to Islam". Since nobody is making that argument, I don't understand why you've cut out one little piece of my post to imply that I am, and ignored the rest.

Honour killings also, for example, committed by men who are Hindu and Sihk.  This seems to just be another formulation of your other thread that all religious belief is bad.

Not at all. If you want to discuss why honor killing by people for religious reasons other than Islamic ones are bad, then fine, but that isn't the subject here.

If you want to discuss why honor killing is bad even if done for non-religious reasons (although I think you will be hard pressed to find significant examples of that), then that is fine as well, but again, not the subject in question.

I've never claimed that Islam invented humans doing terrible things. So pointing out that other humans do terrible things for reasons having nothing to do with Islam is both irrelevant, and, well, kind of obvious.

[crazy canuck]

These societies do not have the separation between religious belief and their cultural norms that would be necessary to evaluate them separately....which is the entire problem!

You are missing the point.  You blame a particular religious belief for, as an example, honour killings. 

No, no, NO!

I do NOT blame the religious beliefs for "honour killings" in general, I blame them for those honor killings where the people doing the killing say "I am doing this because god told me to".

Fuck, you keep cutting out my explanations, and then pretending like the only thing I post is the little snippet you quote.

But again there is something else going on then just religious belief but you insist on focusing on religious belief.  You claim to have addressed the point many times but your argument is circular and really ends up concluding religion is the problem.