In Western countries, the jihadists are like a gang. The gang recruits young men, usually second-generation immigrants, who are looking for an identity, real values, a purpose, and friends. The allure of jihad wouldn't be so strong if the separation between Muslim immigrants and white (and sometimes black) Britons wasn't so big. They don't feel at home in their adopted country, although their parents brought them there to escape the extremism and privation of their Muslim homelands.
We can also thank the strong and well-funded and extremist Saudi Wahhabist influence in Britain for creating so many extremists. "Saudi literature is everywhere in Britain, and it's free," said one ex-jihadist.
One notorious (now reformed) jihadist named Maajid never even attended mosque as the son of liberal immigrant parents. His journey toward extremism started when he and his white friend were attacked by skinheads. One by one, a group of neo-Nazis targeted his white friends and attacked them! From there he started associating with blacks, then read Malcolm X, then met a radical Muslim group when he was in college living among mostly fellow Muslims, and the rest was history.
You should also note how he says it was hard from him to recruit extremists in Egypt after 9/11, because of the people's sympathy for America, but then the bombing in Afghanistan and Guantanamo made recruitment "much easier." His turnaround really started after he was arrested and tortured by the Egyptians, abandoned by his Islamist erstwhile comrades, and forgotten by the British government. Amnesty International, despite knowing who he was and hating his beliefs, fought to have him released on the grounds of free speech. "I felt," he said, "maybe these democratic values aren't always hypocritical. Maybe some people take them seriously." Then he met two of the repentant murderers of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in prison, who told him he had "got the theology wrong," and, "It was always left for people to decide for themselves what interpretation [of the Koran] they wanted to follow." Moreover, he realized that "the idea of enforcing sharia is not consistent with Islam as it's been practiced since the beginning."
Other ex-Islamists all report similar experiences. When Bush invaded Afghanistan and imprisoned Muslims in Guantanamo, world events seemed to confirm their radical ideology. But when they saw white non-Muslims standing up for human rights and protesting the war in Iraq, "their jihadism began to stutter." These British ex-jihadists also couldn't help but notice that "whenever Islamists won a military victory, they didn't build paradise, but hell."
It's not really that complicated. If white Western societies can successfully integrate Muslims, they will not feel alienated and look for a radical identity. (I cannot fail to mention that, for whatever reason, I haven't yet figured it out, the USA is light years ahead of Britain in this regard.) And if white Christians would be, well, more Christian, and embrace Muslims with love and acceptance, there would be many fewer terrorist recruits. That is not to say, "It's all our fault," but we do have a role to play, and a responsibility to build tolerant, loving societies -- as saccharine and heretically un-military as that solution may sound in today's post-9/11 world, where violence is always the answer.
By Johann Hari
November 17, 2009 | The Independent UK
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