Understanding Islamist Terror: Radicals, Moderates, and Reformists

Islamist Free Speech

Expressing their identity crisis...

(Image from Wikipedia)

As I noted yesterday, part of the problem that we face in Islamist terrorism is understanding the preconditions and the triggering factors.

Later in the day, I happened to read an International Herald Tribune article that addresses some of these very issues. Written by Peter R. Neumann, director of the Center for Defense Studies at King's College London, the article is titled "A crisis of identity and the appeal of jihad" and can be found in the Friday, July 6, 2007 issue (Seoul edition) of the IHT (or here online).

Neumann begins by noting the 'surprising' fact -- surprising, anyway, to those who haven't been paying attention -- that the recent terrorist wave in England has been undertaken by highly educated, even affluent individuals with highly respected career prospects. Everyone 'knows' that terrorism, especially suicide terror, is committed only by the dispossessed or the disturbed. Neumann isn't surprised, though, for he has been studying this phenomenon for some time and can report:

With Islamist militants, ... the sociological dynamics seem to be different. No researcher has yet been able to construct a single profile based on simple socioeconomic indicators that would accurately describe the "typical" jihadist. A senior British intelligence officer summed it up as follows: "The pattern is that there is no pattern."

In other words, the popular and oft-repeated mantra that poverty spawns terrorism does not fit the facts for Islamist terrorists. Some are poor, some are comfortable, and some are fabulously wealthy:

Indeed, social scientists are overwhelmed by the diversity of backgrounds and attributes that can be found among known Islamist terrorists.

Despite this diversity, many Islamist terrorists are (or were) well-to-do:

In fact, a fair number of them are highly educated, often holding advanced university degrees. Many seem to have trained in the sciences, with chemists, engineers and medical doctors playing a prominent role in jihadist movements across the world.

Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the Hamburg cell that was responsible for the Sept. 11th attacks in the United States, had just completed his post-graduate degree in urban planning and was set to join the professional elite in his home country. And let's not forget Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, who trained as a medical doctor and whose family is among the most influential in Egypt.

Newmann directs us to a study by a Dutch intelligence agency:

So, if it's not the social and economic background, what connects the people who have become involved in jihadist terrorism? The Dutch domestic intelligence service recently published a study of jihadist recruitment in the Netherlands, which identifies three types of personalities that can be found in extremist cells.

First are the so-called new immigrants, who grew up in Middle Eastern and North African countries, came to Europe as students or refugees and had no previous involvement with jihadism before they arrived in the West. This applied to Mohammed Atta, but it could also be true for the suspects who have been arrested in recent days.

The second group are second or third generation "immigrants" whose parents or grandparents settled in European countries as "guest workers." Most are citizens of European countries and speak the language of their home country fluently.

Finally, there is a small but growing number of converts who have embraced militant Islamism shortly after they became Muslims.

This is a rather broad spectrum and, moreover, includes millions of individuals, so it doesn't have much specific predictive value, but it may help us in thinking about preconditions and triggers.

Neumann also notes the difficulties posed by these Dutch findings but introduces the work of Marc Sageman, whose writings I'm aware of through my subscription to the FPRI E-Notes, for I received an email by Sageman on this topic nearly three years ago: "Understanding Terror Networks" (November 1, 2004). According to that e-note, Sageman "was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan between 1987–89 and is now a forensic psychiatrist." I think that these two things qualify him rather well for thinking about the motivations of Islamist terrorists. I'd recommend that those interested in this issue read Sageman's work. Here's what Neumann has to say on Sageman's findings (though he seems to have interwoven Sageman's views with the Dutch study):

Marc Sageman, an American psychologist who carried out an extensive study of the profiles of Al Qaeda members, found that, indeed, there is very little that would connect these groups in terms of quantifiable socioeconomic indicators.

What they share, however, is that they have all experienced tensions in their personal lives, or were faced with deep and sustained crises of identity that they resolved by embracing jihadism.

A crisis of identity? That 'might' be useful:

The "new immigrants" felt alienated and isolated when they left their home countries, and extremist Islam not only provided them with new friends but also with a new identity and a place in the world.

The children and grandchildren of immigrants frequently experience a tension between the traditional, cultural Islam of their parents and an unaccepting Western society. Extremism gives them an identity that allows them to rebel against both.

And the converts, by definition, have gone through a personal crisis that led them to adopt a new identity.

Useful, yes, for understanding, but not for predictive purposes or for profiling:

None of this will be of much help to the security service in constructing a profile of the "typical" terrorist suspect. But it provides a glimpse into the internal tensions through which some of these people have gone before committing themselves to jihad.

And it also explains why doctors and engineers are as vulnerable to jihadism as petty thieves and the unemployed. After all, personal crisis -- a sense of being isolated and the search for identity -- is not a privilege of the poor and uneducated.

The biggest problem that I see with this finding about the significant role of identity crisis is that, in principle, it includes just about everybody in our postmodern times. Who doesn't undergo an identity crisis? If it serves as a trigger -- but a trigger that gets pulled for everybody -- then what explains the Islamist terrorist?

I don't claim to know specifically, but we should consider Irshad Manji's point that "For Muslim extremists, religion matters" (The New Republic, July 6, 2007):

[A] former jihadist from Manchester wrote that the "real engine of our violence" is "Islamic theology." Months ago, this young man informed me that as a militant he raised most of his war chest not from obscenely rich Saudis, but from middle-class Muslim dentists living in the United Kingdom.

These are well-to-do professionals, a point noted by Neumann above. Manji observes:

In short, it's not what the material world fails to deliver that drives suicide bombers. It's something else. And, time and again, the very people committing these acts have articulated what that something else is: their religion.

Consider Mohammad Sidique Khan, the teaching assistant who masterminded the July 7, 2005 transit bombings in London. In a taped testimony, Khan railed against British foreign policy. But before bringing up Western imperialism, he emphasized that "Islam is our religion" and "the Prophet is our role model." Khan gave priority to God, not to Iraq.

Now take Mohammed Bouyeri, the Dutch-born Moroccan Muslim who murdered Amsterdam film director Theo van Gogh. Bouyeri pumped several bullets into van Gogh's body. Knowing that multiple shots would finish off his victim, why didn't Bouyeri stop there? Why did he pull out a blade to decapitate van Gogh?

Again, we must confront religious symbolism. The blade is an implement associated with seventh-century tribal conflict. Wielding it as a sword becomes a tribute to the founding moment of Islam. Even the note stabbed into van Gogh's corpse, although written in Dutch, had the unmistakable rhythms of Arabic poetry. Let's credit Bouyeri with honesty: At his trial he proudly acknowledged acting from "religious conviction."

Manji doesn't analyze. She's more activist than thinker. But if we think about this, then we can see that the problem lies in very extreme forms of Islam that look to the past as a model for the present. And extremist Islam seems rather widespread, for we find it preached in mosques, promulgated on the internet, and propounded by political leaders, sometimes even heads of state. There exist, then, widespread, extreme forms of Islam easily available to the millions of young men (and sometimes women) undergoing crises of identity.

Not very encouraging news, that.

But Manji makes an interesting suggestion about one way to deal with the problem:

While the vast majority of Muslims aren't extremists, a more important distinction must start being made -- the distinction between moderate Muslims and reform-minded ones.

Moderate Muslims denounce violence in the name of Islam but deny that Islam has anything to do with it. By their denial, moderates abandon the ground of theological interpretation to those with malignant intentions -- effectively telling would-be terrorists that they can get away with abuses of power because mainstream Muslims won't challenge the fanatics with bold, competing interpretations. To do so would be admit that religion is a factor. Moderate Muslims can't go there.

Reform-minded Muslims say it's time to admit that Islam's scripture and history are being exploited. They argue for re-interpretation precisely to put the would-be terrorists on notice that their monopoly is over. Re-interpreting doesn't mean re-writing. It means re-thinking words and practices that already exist -- removing them from a seventh-century tribal time warp and introducing them to a twenty first-century pluralistic context.

The distinction between "moderates" and "reformists" is useful, in my opinion, for it acknowledges that Islam is at least partly the problem and that something has to be done to transform Islam itself. Moderates cannot be depended upon to do anything other than be moderate. Reformists understand that Islam has to change.

Change won't come easily.