Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Traditions of French Terrorism
This piece is in French, but reasonably comprehensible through Google Translate. I’m happy to fill in any gaps that don’t make sense, just ask. It’s an interview with the sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, a very competent scholar of jihadism in Europe. The headline reads, “The less they know Islam, the more they are drawn to jihad.” His argument, essentially, is that French jihadis are better described as Islamized radicals than as radicalized Islamists:
Interviewer: You wrote in, Understanding Jihadism, so better to combat it, that what attracts young jihadists in Europe is less Islam as a religion than what it symbolizes. Does this mean that these young people know little about this religion?
Khosrokhavar: Exactly. They don’t have the slightest knowledge of it. Or a tiny, tiny bit. Many don’t even know how to practice daily prayers. The less they know about Islam, the more they’re drawn to jihad. But jihadism makes their hatred of society sacred. It gives it a form, but without religious meaning. The vast majority of these young people have been de-religionized. They share a massive identity problem, and this antagonistic aspect of radical Islam draws them in, gives them a structure. The religious dimension is blurred thanks to the antagonistic dimension of Islam, which they reduce to what they call jihad. To them, jihad represents a death struggle against the arrogant West, which they think they must destroy. The purely religious feeling is just ridiculous in their worldview.
Interviewer: Do you think the media’s treatment of the jihadist phenomenon plays a role in the process of radicalization?
Khosrokhavar: Yes, an important role. Especially for young people. It gives them stature. The media makes jihadists into a kind of “superstar.” This is perverse. But even if the media wasn’t talking about them, you’d find this stuff on the Internet. It’s what you might call the modern version of deep-seated narcissism in young people. They want to be somebody. Jihadization offers them the ability to feel important. I call them anti-heroes. The more you hate them, the more they feel their legitimacy enhanced. They do everything to ensure this legitimacy is enhanced by those who hate them, including the media. There is also, obviously, an exhibitionist dimension.
My intuition is that he’s probably right. I’d have to look carefully at the profiles of a random sample of European jihadis to see if it’s true that “many” wouldn’t even know how to practice daily prayers (or otherwise know much about Islam). But this seems a common view among those who study them. It would be supported by the stories we’re hearing about recently-radicalized Europeans heading off for Syria with copies of Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies in hand.
His description reminds me of what we know about school shooters in the US, doesn’t it? They seem to come from a psychologically similar cohort of alienated, narcissistic young men who view mass killing as a shortcut to seeing their miserable names in posthumous lights. They haven’t attached themselves to a global ideology (yet), but obviously they’ve been described in similar terms by, for example, Helen Smith (Instapundit’s lovely wife). She’s spent her life studying kids who kill. I’d love to talk to her about this, or listen to her compare notes with to the people who are collecting information on the psychological profiles of native-European jihadis. Perhaps I can invite them both to a podcast here. Would you find that interesting?
Above all, it’s making me think of Bakhunin. More particularly, it put me in mind of French anarchists such as Albert Libertad and Zo d’Axa, whose hatred of Europe involved a weirdly similar vocabulary — reading them is like reading Dabiq stripped of Islamic references, but fully as replete with similar criticisms of Europe and modernity — and who likewise championed “violent propaganda by the deed.”
Even the debates here about the State of Emergency remind me of the debates about the infamous 1894 French lois scélérates: Did they contribute to the abandonment of the anarchists’ violent tactics (I think so, yes), or was it state repression in the first place that legitimized their ideology? (I also think so, yes. These views may be held simultaneously with no real contradiction. Perhaps the moral is that if you’re going to repress these groups, don’t do it half-heartedly.)
Have a look at Bakhunin’s life and writings and see how, with just a bit of reorganization of vocabulary, you get something that feels very familiar to the latest issue of Dabiq. Think about the way he traveled so easily through all of these European borders. (I don’t know how, despite half of France having revealed itself last night to be working for the police, they lost Salah Abdeslam. Bravo, European security forces.) And his anti-Semitism and the conspiracy-mindedness seem almost genetically linked, don’t they?
This whole Jewish world, comprising a single exploiting sect, a kind of blood sucking people, a kind of organic destructive collective parasite, going beyond not only the frontiers of states, but of political opinion, this world is now, at least for the most part, at the disposal of Marx on the one hand, and of Rothschild on the other … This may seem strange. What can there be in common between socialism and a leading bank? The point is that authoritarian socialism, Marxist communism, demands a strong centralisation of the state. And where there is centralisation of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, speculating with the Labour of the people, will be found …
Today the anarchists are numerous enough to overthrow the current state of things, and if that hasn’t yet happened, it’s because we must complete the education of the followers, give birth in them to the energy and the firm will to assist in the realization of their projects. All that is needed for that is a shove, that someone put themselves at their head, and the revolution will take place.
“He who blows up houses has as a goal the extermination of all those who, by their social standing or their acts, are harmful to anarchy. If it was permitted to openly attack these people without fearing for the police, and so for one’s skin, we wouldn’t set out to destroy their homes though explosive devices, which could kill the suffering classes they have at their service at the same time as them.”
Among turn-of-the-century European anarchists, you even saw similar debates about the use of terror, with figures such as Kropotkin desperately eager to assure the world that “by no means all anarchists supported terrorist acts.” (Where have we heard that before?)
This is not to diminish the role of Islamism in this violence — that would be insane — but it’s to suggest that this group of terrorists, in Europe, is drawing — consciously or more likely, unconsciously — on other European traditions, too — which is somewhat ironic. They may be more assimilated than they realize.
Or perhaps we shouldn’t think in terms of “European,” but rather “modern.” After all, the US is no stranger to anarchist violence, either. Lost a president to it, even.
Leaves me wondering: Is this purely a modern phenomenon? It seems to me you can’t have modern terrorism without a modern state, a modern media, without modernity itself to rebel against. But I’m just not sure: Did we have equivalent phenomena in antiquity? The middle ages? I don’t mean, “Were there violent Islamist armies” (of course there were); I mean, “Did we have narcissistic losers who expressed their disgust with the soulless and anomic medieval or Roman world by going on spree killings, often glossing the act in some kind of Utopian varnish?
Historians?
Published in General, Islamist Terrorism
Professor and Mrs Instapundit? Yes, please. (On the other hand, I don’t actually listen to the podcasts any more, so treat this with a grain of salt.)
In addition to the Anarchists, I’ve been wondering at the parallels (and lack thereof) to the Weathermen, SDS, Symbionese Liberation Army, Black Panther axis of an era of US (deadly) craziness. An era which passed. Perhaps because they won, of course.
He’s probably right that the average jihadist doesn’t fully know his religion. I carpool with a young Muslim man (definitely no jihadist) and it amazes me how little of the rudimentary parts of Islam he knows. But his family traveled about and were not rooted in a cultural Islamic context. The average person of every religion probably doesn’t fully understand their religion. That’s why you have priests, pastors, rabbis, and imams.
Still while the average jihadist (as well as the average moderate) may not know his theology, that doesn’t mean that those driving the jihad don’t know their religion. It strikes me that they know it better than most. They certainly provide specific Koranic quotes while when I hear moderates talk they seem to imply this and that are supposed to be taken as metaphor, rather mushy readings. When I listen to the specific quotes in dispute (I haven’t read it, so don’t think I’m an expert) it sounds like categorical language to me, not metaphor. Literal language always trumps implied metaphor in rhetoric.
Now who knows? The Koran strikes me as a rhetorical mess, so perhaps it was supposed to be implied metaphor. Unfortunately it was written the way it was, and sacred texts don’t ever go away. You might convince a generation or several that it’s not to be taken literally, but you won’t change the literal meaning for other generations to pick it up.
I’m no historian, but some pretty (non-state) nasty stuff happened on the fringes of the Thirty Years War, or indeed any long and chaotic conflict where fantasies of destruction of the weak could play out in the absence of settled authority.
But isn’t there an important difference between the lone-wolf western loser and the internationally-co-ordinated ISIS/AQ commando team?
Obviously youngsters who want to blow themselves up have problems. Different ages produce different narratives to justify suicide, murder or reasons to join the mob. Such people are always useful to some. Islam has always been a useful narrative for murder, suicide and for joining the mob. It’s not useful for building successful modern civilizations so the Islam we’re seeing and must deal with isn’t a modern thing, indeed modernity is the problem. Sharia, lack of the rule of secular law, property rights, make a modern economy impossible and that failure makes the transition from artisan production and trade to entrepreneurial capitalism so difficult. That failure to re ravel in modern directions produces lots of disconnected young people willing to blow themselves up or join the mob. Islam is the problem.
And so it remains. Journalism: enabling the state since 1700.
One of the most compelling narratives I’ve seen, both about lone wolf terrorists (of all ideologies) here in the US, and radical jihadists abroad, is The Radical Loser. Not a fun read, but the explanation for terrorist’s actions make sense to me (caveat: I’ve done little research to confirm or contradict the theory). The fact that it was written in 2005 and provides an explanation for ISIS is even more interesting.
Read a piece yesterday on how Black Friday saw the largest single filing day for background checks since the Feds instituted that requirement for firearm sales. There seems to be an underlying sentiment that the world is spiraling toward a very violent outburst.
And why should we not believe that to be true? Universities throughout the western world have institutionalized the teaching of revenge. Women are being taught to exact revenge on men, blacks and Hispanics against whites, gays (and their lumped fetishes) against straights, poor against rich, and everybody against Christianity and Judaism. They literally offer degrees in being disaffected. The jihadist, I must say, is getting the better deal. He’s learning to hate at a better rate. The western idiot is paying an arm and a leg to get radicalized.
Thanks for reminding me of that — I read it years ago, I think I also have Europe, Europe somewhere in my apartment. I really admired it. I wish I knew where I put it. It was one of the few books I read when I was beginning to read and think about what was going on (wrong) with Europe that made me feel, “He senses what I do, but knows much more about it.” I’d like to re-read it to see why I thought that; all I can remember is that I thought well of it.
Hard to say, and I think they have to be studied on a case-by-case basis. These ideological categories are so capacious that it’s hard — which is my point — to distinguish the genuine ideologues from common-variety, narcissistic spree murderers who find an ideology that justifies their homicidal impulses and wrap themselves in it.
What I find interesting is the question of whether European jihadis are significantly different from their counterparts elsewhere in basic Islamic learning and commitment to (or even knowledge of) sharia. I trust no one who says “I’m an expert on this, trust me,” because the subject is too politicized, but if I had the chance really to study it on my own, I’d find it fascinating. My personal experience is like Manny’s: Most Muslims I know have little idea what’s really in the Koran, would be quite surprised to know, and see being Muslim in much the way many self-identified Christians see being Christian: they celebrate the holidays (and this is a big deal, family-wise), maybe give to the poor, they fast on Ramadan — maybe, if they’re feeling very pious. No Muslim I know and am close to has been on the hajj. Some would do a bit better at Koranic recitation; some would be completely stuck. I’d say the other thing that unites them is 1) anxiety that someone’s going to think they’re a terrorist, and b) a loathing of the violent and extremist wing of Islam that far surpasses anything ever expressed on Ricochet — when they say Muslims have overwhelmingly been the victim of the jihadi/enforced Sharia/violent strain of Islam, they’re not kidding. Talk to Algerians here who consider themselves Muslims — and just as legitimately Muslims as the luminaries of the Muslim Brotherhood — about what they think of the FIS. Their hatred burns so bright (and rightly so) that you figure if France gets serious about fighting ISIS, these immigrants should be in the front line. Although I’d have concerned about whether they could be controlled sufficiently to avoid utterly indiscriminate massacres, as indeed French forces did commit in Algeria — and in Paris, too, although I don’t have evidence that ethnic Algerians were involved in that:
It’s only recently (2012) that the French state has even acknowledged that this happened, so I think there will be a lot of interesting work about this to be done by historians in coming years. We know that Papon — also convicted for his role in deporting Jews — was the mastermind, but I think we know less about the foot soldiers who carried it out:
I know people here who would be far more informed than I about what really took place and what we know; I should ask.
The Islamic Assassins, while I don’t think societally atomized, detached, anomie permeated “losers,” I think prefigure modern terrorists and their nihilism. From Nietzsche’s Genealogy, chapter 24, third essay:
Nietzsche’s insight moreover aligns quite nicely with Chesterton’s insight into the nihilistic core of Islam (h/t: Pseud):
“There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets.”
Biography of Lord Kitchener, G.K. Chesterton (1917)
Yes, I agree, and would tend to put them in a different category. Maybe that’s circular, though, because I’m defining the “detached, anomie permeated losers” as necessarily railing against modernity.
I continue to be amazed at the clarity and freedom with which men of earlier eras — Voltaire, Tocqueville, Churchill, Chesterton, etc. — were able to see and express what is rather plainly true about this religion; utterances which today would be branded hate speech and which certainly would find no hearing on our Main Feed…
Good question. There were anarchist terrorists in the U.S. in the late 19th century. And there are several Russian movies that feature anarchist terrorists in the last decades before the 1918 revolution; many of them based on actual historical characters and events. I think those generally thought they were trying to take down the imperial aristocracy, though who knows if they knew what they were rebelling against. In most (not all) of the Russian films you can make out the anarchists by their hair style and facial appearance – basically the way the Jesus of the Master and Margarita films is made up (though he is an exception in that he isn’t made to be a bomb-throwing anarchist). I presume this says more about the worldview of the film-makers than of the anarchists, but I don’t know.
The Russian state of the time was one of the least modernized of the modern states, but it was modernizing.
Rebels go way back, of course. And there were the Hebrew Zealots, whom the historian Josephus considered to be terrorists. Was Rome a modern state?
There sure does. An “underlying sentiment” isn’t the same thing as a “good reason for believing it,” but I believe I have good reasons for believing it, too.
Entropy.
I forget where, but I recently saw a comparison (by an LEO, I think) between ISIS and the social dynamics of inner-city gangs in the US. To me, that seems a better comparison than most US spree killers. A lot of jihadis don’t seem to be true loners–many times it’s at least a partnership (e.g. the Tsarnaev brothers).
I also agree with Manny above that the leaders are more educated and ideologically driven.
Even if this were correct to what extent would it truly matter?
In any armed conflict how often has the average soldier on the ground had a clear sense of what the war was about and why it was being fought?
Did the army private slugging it out in Vietnam have a clear understanding of the Cold War? Domino Theory? Not very likely, yet that does not mean that the war was not about those concepts.
Perhaps the average ISIS recruit is indeed a rather poor practitioner of Islam, that would hardly disqualify the fight from being about Islam. Al-Baghdadi with his background in Islamic studies is no doubt quite cognizant of what his followers are fighting for and why.
It depends on the definition of “terrorist.” The Sicarii probably fit, the Assassins probably do too, though they aimed at the upper echelons of their opponents. The actors in the Sicilian Vespers progressed from a street fight to a riot to a massacre to a general insurrection – it all evolved too fast to have a definitive “terrorist” phase, though their French victims ended up just as dead. For that matter, firing aimed shots at commissioned and non-commissioned officers from behind stone walls was pretty unpopular, at least to the officers.
Terrorism predates mass communications, but definitely makes use of them.
Watching kids grow has given me a greater appreciation for the need they have for peer groups and their search for identity through those groups. I suspect it is deeply rooted in our nature as humans but it has only been possible fairly recently for large numbers of ignorant and disaffected people to communicate and act together in these peculiarly toxic and anti-social ways.
Claire,
Doesn’t this all the more emphasize the contribution of those who are spreading Jihad. An Imam knows full well who is religious from birth and who is searching for his identity. If the Imam is selling Jihad he will see the disaffected coming in the door. He can take his time to poison the minds of the angry with truly diabolical ideas. This works on the internet but is less effective unless someone is delivering the Jihadist goods personally.
If it’s Hillary follow the money. If it’s terrorism follow the Jihadist Imam.
Regards,
Jim
France also had the OAS, who were conservative terrorists – in that they engaged in terrorism to conserve French Algeria.
Along these lines, John Batchelor interviewed Adam Lankford about Lankford’s new book, The Myth of Martyrdom.
Capsule summary: it’s a socially acceptable way to commit suicide, and suicidal people are drawn to it or recruited for it. Rather than being seen as a loser, the “martyr” improves his/her family’s social standing, and in many cases gets them a stipend.
The most developed model in this is the Palestinians.
Whatever the Sicarii might have been, they aren’t the martyrdom paradigm for Judaism. That would be Rabbi Akiva and the other martyrs from the Yom Kippur liturgy. Samson, not so much; and in contrast to the model from the liturgy, he actively caused his own death
The Christian model of martyrdom likewise doesn’t run to kamikazes and homicide bombers.
Islam views both Christianity and Judaism as corrupt and at best second class religions (in contrast, many Christian churches regard others as doctrinally (mostly) acceptable, and some view Judaism as in some degree a valid religion; Judaism regards Islam and many Christian denominations as legitimate forms of worship for non-Jews.) In its eschatology, in contrast to Judaism Islam makes unlimited territorial claims.
And, Islam (per S.J. Malik) views rejection of dawa (as in George W. Bush’s rejection of Bin Laden’s call for the US to accept Islam) as aggression, and so can justify preemptive attacks and invasions of new territory as self defense.
Malik also states that Islam and the nation-state are incompatible.
Uh that would be Mohammed himself. I’d also throw in brilliant and Schizophrenic.
Good point. It’s the leaders using the ignorant to do the dirty work. Those leaders must be pretty good at it if they can talk you into blowing yourself up. With Islam it’s a virgins in paradise type promise. Kids are especially easy to manipulate. Check out the anarchy in colleges; the riots in U.S. cities, young and old with grievances real or imagined.
It’s not just the Islamic suicide vest version of warfare. It could even be excessive nationalism driving soldiers into an impossible attack: suicide missions they are called I believe.
The drivers of Jihad know more theology, but so do the heads of subversive movements everywhere. The clever, better informed in the philosophy of the moment, know how to instill a sense of patriotism for the cause in their followers. They think and speak for them. Some are students, others scholars. They might not die, but they would if necessary. Why? Because they are fanatics.
Years ago, I read “Le Phenomène Humain” by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic Priest. He was silenced by the Church and the book published posthumously. In it, among much else of interest, he likens society to a biological organism. I have ruminated on this concept off and on for many years. Things come up, as likening the internet to a nervous system of the “organism” which is society.
Lately, in that regard, I have begun to entertain the notion that the individuals we are discussing merely represent societal cancer cells. Their motivations may have no more meaning than a point mutation in DNA giving rise to a malignant line of cells whose mindless objective is to kill the host; they are not parasites. Just maybe, among the billions of us, living densely in the what we call modernity, certain environmental factors promote such “mutations.” Many of the ideological spokesmen of jihad delight in telling us they worship death as we worship life.
I was once accused of being capable of intellectualizing flatus. Since, I am prone to pause when undertaking profound analyses. Perhaps this topic is not as complicated as we are positing here? Saddened and confused as I am by all this (and the rest of the wall-to-wall messes of the world) I will content myself by remaining part of the immune system. If this is disseminated warfare like metastatic cancer, it is the only effective defense which does not sicken the host.