ISIS Vandals Destroy Works of Art That Challenge Their Take on Islam

2015/03/05 Leave a comment

On the latest nihilism of ISIS and denial of the richness of civilization, Islamic and otherwise:

The enemies of modernity and tolerance and civility and liberty, and all the other values that classical liberals hold dear, believe that destroying the products of the arts and humanities will further their goals. They think the statues they are smashing to splinters and the words they are burning are important and influential enough to warrant their destruction.

This is not, it is worth noting, a radical innovation by ISIS. There is a long history of fundamentalist Islamic groups destroying cultural treasures. The Buddhas of Bamiyan. The “end of the world” gate in the ancient city of Timbuktu. Over 95 percent of ancient Mecca. Countless thousands of ancient manuscripts. Groups from ISIS to the Taliban to Wahabist Saudi clerics have made it clear: Everything must be obliterated.

They claim, of course, that these things must be destroyed because they are idolatrous in themselves or might inspire idolatrous thinking in others. But I think it is far more likely that ISIS wants them destroyed because these objects prove the falseness of their version of history.

From the 8th to the 14th centuries, the flourishing, trading, creative, scientific, philosophic, artistic and intellectual marvel that was the Islamic Golden Age produced a ringing argument against the ISIS narrative that their way—the way of extremism and the sword—is the only path to success.

Golden Age science, mathematics and medicine were the envy of the world. The tolerance and intellectual curiosity modeled by thinkers like Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd created a civilization where, more than anywhere else, Muslims, Jews and Christians were able to study, trade and live in unprecedented peace and productivity.

And this Golden Age died when people who would have been very much at home in ISIS began to gain power.

For ISIS to continue to spread their evil, they must destroy the history that gives evidence against them—by destroying the museums and libraries that protect it—just as they must destroy the living humans who fight them.

Are the arts and humanities important? Do they accomplish anything we should care about?

Look at those who want to destroy them. Consider what their ends are. Then tell me.

ISIS Vandals Destroy Works of Art That Challenge Their Take on Islam.

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Don’t equate radical thoughts with actions, academics tell senator

2015/03/04 Leave a comment

Sigh ….

Conservative Senator Daniel Lang told a crowd of students at the University of Ottawa’s Public Policy Conference on Saturday that “we need to recognize that radicalized thoughts lead to radicalized actions.” But just last week Lorne Dawson, co-director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society, told the committee that research on radicalization consistently demonstrates that very few individuals who hold radical ideas ever actually graduate to committing violence and that generalizations about radicalization don’t help the fight to counter extremism in Canada.

“Research literature is overwhelmingly clear there is a very poor correlation between espousing ideas and engaging in action,” Dawson told iPolitics on Monday. “Obviously some people on the committee heard what we were saying and some didn’t.”

Dawson’s co-director, Daniel Hiebert, also said he disagreed with Lang’s point and noted it’s important to keep in mind the distinction between having radical thoughts and acting on those thoughts.

“You can’t perform a radicalized action unless you had a radicalized idea so yes, there is a connection between those things but nowhere near everyone who has radical ideas will perform radicalized actions,” he said.  “The literature on these issues is very clear that it’s another conversion process. There’s one conversion process that happens between thinking mainstream ideas and having extremist ideas – that’s a pretty big kind of hurdle to jump over, it’s a pretty big conversion process that happens there. There’s yet another conversion process that happens between having extremist ideas and thinking that violence is an appropriate way to propagate those extremist ideas. So there’s no simple linkage between those two things. There’s sort of a necessary linkage — as I said, you can’t have B without A but A does not necessarily lead to B. “

Lang’s office sent an emailed statement in response for a request for clarification of his comments.

The statement reiterates the text of his speech at the conference.

“To be clear, I stated: We need to recognize that radical ideas lead to radical actions. It does not mean we should criminalize ideas, but we need to identify them; state that they have no place in Canadian society, even at university campuses – where sometimes the cloak of free speech is abused; and denounce those promoting them and facilitating such ideas – even if they are done in the name of religious ideology or doctrine,” the statement reads.

Don’t equate radical thoughts with actions, academics tell senator (iPolitics)

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‘Soft security’ measures also needed to battle home-grown radicalism, experts say

2015/03/03 Leave a comment

More coverage of the work by Lorne Dawson and Dan Hiebert on the need for greater emphasis on anti-radicalization and de-radicalization programming, the softer yet necessary prevention programming:

It would take an immense public education effort and support for families and Muslim communities to have difficult conversations, to provide support and resources. Dawson draws the comparison to how we now approach suicide. Just as parents and teachers should never ignore a 14- or 15-year-old who says he’s going to kill himself, Canadians have to respond to young people espousing sympathetic feelings for extremist ideologies from the get-go.

“If someone says, ‘Anyone who is not a Sunni is a kuffar and they should all be killed,’ that’s not a line you let pass. The trouble is if your only recourse right now is to phone the police or the RCMP, it’s not going to happen,” says Dawson.

That’s because the Canadian government has chosen to focus on “hard security” — boosting investigative powers, intelligence gathering, arrest powers. There is no provision in the Conservative government’s massive anti-terror Bill C-51 to provide new resources for de-radicalization programs — the kind of “soft security” measures that Dawson, Hiebert and others say are key.

By that they mean interventions involving law enforcement, teachers, social workers and psychiatrists — resources that are woefully lacking at the moment for Muslim communities across Canada, the Senate committee has heard.

The researchers say Ottawa should look to other countries, pointing to a program in Britain called Channel that draws in police, social workers, psychiatrists and teachers “to deal with the other aspects of that person’s life that need to be fixed, to get them to divert from that path towards radicalization and violence.”

“That’s expensive, but, again: an ounce of prevention, a pound of cure.”

And they urged continued funding for research projects such as theirs. “We don’t adequately understand radicalization yet,” said Dawson. “To put it in simple terms, we’re very worried . . . . If you don’t have a fine enough conception of what’s causing the problem, it’s difficult to develop the most effective counter measures.”

‘Soft security’ measures also needed to battle home-grown radicalism, experts say | Toronto Star.

And a good interview with Dawson:

The lure of terrorism: Q&A with cult expert Lorne Dawson (with video)

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Islamic Scholars Convene an Anti-ISIS Summit in Mecca – The Atlantic

2015/03/02 Leave a comment

Good piece contrasting the US-led CVE summit and the Muslim World League, a Saudi-backed alliance of Islamic NGOs, led summit in Mecca on “Islam and Counterterrorism:”

According to Will McCants, director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, there’s a logic behind the divergence in messaging from Washington and Mecca. “This conversation can’t really happen in the U.S., or in the West, because the [Obama] administration is determined not to frame this [conflict] or have it be interpreted as a religious war,” he told me. “It wants to take that talking point away from its enemies.” McCants added that Muslim leaders may also feel more comfortable speaking openly about an issue that is afflicting their own community. When the U.S. tries to adjudicate theological issues, he said, “it can discredit the people who reach the same conclusions we do. If Muslims and the U.S. government say these guys don’t represent Islam, it makes the Muslims look like pawns of the United States.”

The priorities of the CVE and Muslim World League summits were also distinct. The impetus for the conference in Mecca appears to have been the Saudi government’s belief that Islamist terrorism represents not only a threat to the security of the region, but also an existential threat to Islam itself. It would therefore have been impossible for the speakers to ignore ISIS’s Islamic roots. The conference’s organizers cast their mission as developing a coordinated campaign to promote a moderate, peaceful vision of Islam that disavows the violence and apostasy that ISIS thrives on. The program, above all, emphasized that this is a specifically Muslim issue, and placed the onus on the Muslim community to craft a narrative that overpowers the Islamic State’s.

In comparison, the CVE summit was more concerned with addressing radicalization in all its forms, and emphasized the economic and social conditions in which people tend to become radicalized. The agenda also had a largely domestic focus despite the United States being low on the list of countries contributing foreign fighters to jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq.

But whether ISIS’s deeds are labeled “violent extremism” or “Islamized terrorism,” the conversations in Washington and Mecca had at least one thing in common: They deepened the debate over whether ISIS and its fellow travelers are “Islamic,” and whether the answer matters in the first place. That debate is not just academic. It has real consequences for how the Islamic State’s opponents mount their counteroffensive.

Given the somewhat uncomfortable role that Saudi Arabia has played in encouraging the spread of Salafism (albeit non-violent forms), somewhat ironic that they now have to focus on some of the indirect consequences.

Islamic Scholars Convene an Anti-ISIS Summit in Mecca – The Atlantic.

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Islam and extremism: Looking within | The Economist

2015/02/28 Leave a comment

Good piece in The Economist on some of the challenges within Islam regarding radicalization and extremism:

Complicating attempts to shore up traditional sources of authority is the fact that the establishment is precisely what many extremists reject. Salafists (devout Muslims who seek to emulate the times of the Prophet), both of the quietist and the violently jihadist sort, see much of the centuries-old tradition of Islamic jurisprudence as distorting the true religion. When denounced by the emir of Kano, a former central banker who is now Nigeria’s second-most-important Muslim leader, Boko Haram retorted: “We do not practise the religion of Lamido Sanusi…but the religion of Allah.”

And Muslim-majority populations that have risen up against dictators are less willing to trust religious authorities—especially those they regard as captured by political or government interests. Egypt’s government appoints the head of al-Azhar. Members of Dar al-Ifta, Lebanon’s official body for teachings and fatwas (rulings on Islamic law), come from its two main political groupings. Middle Eastern rulers have a history of alternately backing religious groups and denouncing them as terrorists for short-term political gain.

The internet, social media and improving literacy in the region make other sources easier to find. “I think about religion myself by searching and seeing the different opinions,” says Muhammad Gamal, a chemistry teacher at Cairo University. Alternatives are often better packaged and more appealing to young people, too. A region-wide joke says that Mr Baghdadi, in his 30s, is the youngest person to head an Arab organisation.

“You see ISIS videos, all slick Hollywood style, and what a stark contrast with the turbans and robes of the sheikhs of Al-Azhar,” says Raphaël Lefèvre, a French scholar who studies Lebanon’s Sunnis. “Radical groups seem closer to the people. Institutions are seen as bourgeois, stuffy and speaking a language people don’t understand.” Some Muslim scholars compare the appeal of jihadism to that of fundamentalist Christianity: the message is clear and certain.

Firm government action against those who preach violence is probably worthwhile. And traditional centres of Islamic authority could surely do more to explain their interpretations of Islam, and in more appealing ways. But the result of the debate within Islam about the roots of extremism may not be entirely to the taste of liberal Muslims—or Western politicians.

Imposing state-sanctioned creeds has in the past pushed jihadists underground. And these versions of Islam are by no means sure to be more liberal: the Saudi regime uses harsh sharia punishments such as beheading and last year al-Azhar launched a campaign to rid Egypt of unbelief after a survey claimed the country held precisely 866 atheists. But the alternative, attempting to promote liberal doctrines in a free market of religious ideas, has dangers, too. Georges Fahmi, an Egyptian scholar, detects a conservative mood among Muslims: “What is shocking is how many people support IS’s actions even if they would not do them themselves.”

via Islam and extremism: Looking within | The Economist.

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If IS falls, Canada must be ready for the return of foreign fighters – Momani and Dawson

2015/02/25 Leave a comment

Sobering assessment of one of the major gaps in the Government’s overall approach in reducing the risk of radicalization and returning fighters by Bessma Momani and Lorne Dawson:

The provisions of Bill C-51 attempt to stem the supply side of terrorism, by censoring online conversations and beefing up CSIS and RCMP capacities. But the bill does not have a strategy to tackle the demand side of the problem, such as de-radicalization programs, building capacities and resilient communities through political empowerment, and supporting alternative narratives in vulnerable demographic groups. Security measures have a troubling tendency to feed back into the radicalization process itself. If IS is decapitated, the threat posed from returning fighters is theoretically higher than if it is simply contained, and it is unlike the consequences of defeating al-Qaeda for the radicalization of Western youth.

What can be done? Investing in prevention tools can help stop the feedback loop that could further radicalize new recruits and returning fighters. Prevention means we need to understand the appeal of IS as a cult, couched in medieval misinterpretations of an otherwise peaceful religion. Stemming the supply and re-offence of returnees requires detoxing wannabe fighters; understanding how vulnerable youth and misfits are searching for identity online; working with religious and community leaders to help would-be radicals discern the difference between scripture and propaganda; and de-glorifying the violence and militancy of travelling to Syria or other fronts. Disillusioned returnees can be used to describe the mundane and hypocritical life under IS rule. Some of the fighters who have returned to civilian life tell tales of how quickly they became disenchanted, as they were assigned to cleaning toilets and working Twitter accounts, and not trusted with combat or decision-making roles. This is not to say that we can expect a flood of ‘innocent’ returnees, but there will be some and we ought to be prepared with a variety of tools to suppress further radicalization other than our prison system.

Investing in de-radicalization/reintegration programs will address the demand side of terrorism that Bill C-51 does not. This will cost money and require considerable ingenuity, but other nations facing a much more severe threat from returnees, such as Germany and Denmark, have initiated such programs. The government should acknowledge that using the law may seem like a quick and cheap fix, but ignoring the need for a more “sociological” approach will cost more in the long run.

If IS falls, Canada must be ready for the return of foreign fighters – The Globe and Mail.

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National security: Australian PM Abbott would revoke citizenship as part of extremism fight

2015/02/24 1 Comment

Out of the Harper playbook, down to the flags and the event being outside of Parliament:

The prime minister chose to deliver his long-awaited national security address at an event at the Australian federal police (AFP) headquarters in Canberra, rather than to parliament.

Standing in front of six Australian flags, Abbott said the case of Man Haron Monis – the gunman involved in the fatal Martin Place siege in Sydney in December – showed how the country had been too willing to give “those who might be a threat to our country the benefit of the doubt”.

“There is always a trade-off between the rights of an individual and the safety of the community,” he said. “We will never sacrifice our freedoms in order to defend them but we will not let our enemies exploit our decency either.

“If immigration and border protection faces a choice to let in or keep out people with security questions over them – we should choose to keep them out.

“If there is a choice between latitude for suspects or more powers to police and security agencies – more often, we should choose to support our agencies. And if we can stop hate preachers from grooming gullible young people for terrorism, we should.”

Abbott made some broader comments about immigrants, saying he had “spent many hours listening to Australians from all walks of life” and they were “angry because all too often the threat comes from someone who has enjoyed the hospitality and generosity of the Australian people”.

Australia was a country built on immigration and was “much the richer for it”, he said, but citizenship was “an extraordinary privilege that should involve a solemn and lifelong commitment to Australia”.

“People who come to this country are free to live as they choose – provided they don’t steal that same freedom from others,” he said.

“Those who come here must be as open and accepting of their adopted country as we are of them. Those who live here must be as tolerant of others as we are of them.

“No one should live in our country while denying our values and rejecting the very idea of a free and open society.”

And the following comment, playing to the gallery, as Harper’s use of the niqab issue, basically accusing Muslim leaders, with whom Australian police and security agencies are likely working with to reduce the risk of radicalization, of bad faith:

“I’ve often heard western leaders describe Islam as a ‘religion of peace’,” Abbott said. “I wish more Muslim leaders would say that more often, and mean it.”

National security: Abbott would revoke citizenship as part of extremism fight | Australia news | The Guardian.

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How Obama thinks about Islam and terrorism: Why he chooses his words so carefully.

2015/02/23 Leave a comment

William Saletan’s analysis of the careful and nuanced thoughts behind Obama’s recent speeches on Islam and terrorism – his take on the 10 points of Obama’s strategy:

  1. Today’s terrorism is overwhelmingly Muslim, and its roots pervade the Muslim world.
  2. Our enemies want us to associate them with Islam.
  3. We must choose our language to thwart the enemy’s strategy.
  4. The links between Islam and terrorism are partial, manufactured, and severable.
  5. The president should bend over backward not to call out Muslims for terrorism.
  6. The enemy isn’t Islam or religion. The enemy is religious violence.
  7. We should talk about Muslim victims of terrorism.
  8. We should talk about Muslims who fight terrorism.
  9. Muslims have a greater responsibility to fight terrorism, because they have a greater stake in it.
  10. The rest of us need the help of Western Muslims.

Worth reading and sharp contrast to the Canadian government approach of playing politics (where the only public point of agreement appears to be the first one).

How Obama thinks about Islam and terrorism: Why he chooses his words so carefully..

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U.S. Muslims Take On ISIS’ Recruiting Machine – NYTimes.com

2015/02/23 Leave a comment

More on efforts within the US Muslim community to counter radicalization messages and recruitment:

Ms. Khan, who has four degrees from M.I.T., left lucrative consulting work to develop a prevention program that addresses extremism and the way that technology can be used for manipulation. At one of her events last year, about 30 young Muslims, both high school and middle school students, gathered at the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center in Avon, Conn., for what was billed as a “cybersafety workshop,” with Ms. Khan moving swiftly from how to detect online pedophiles to how to detect Islamist extremists.

“They are telling you, ‘Let’s go fight.’ They are asking you to share gruesome images,” said Ms. Khan, who wore a blue floral-print head scarf. “Be very careful. These people are not your friends.” She told the students, who were quick to raise their hands and ask questions, to avoid contact with strangers online, or with anyone who demanded secrecy. The sexual predators are usually male, she told them, but the extremist recruiters can be male or female, and some of them can be, or can pretend to be, teenagers, too. Her presentation included a picture of a wolf zipped into a sheep’s skin.

“Have you guys heard of grooming?” she asked them, using a term more often used in relation to sexual predators. “They will try to be your friend. They will be nice to you, spend lots of time with you. Some of them will be sending you gifts.”

Programs like this have not been embraced as a widespread priority by American Muslims, at least until recently, in part because the problem seemed to be overseas, not here, Muslim leaders say. And since many American Muslims are immigrants or African-Americans, there is substantial fear and suspicion of law enforcement officials, along with simple defensiveness and denial.

“The family says, ‘It’s not going to happen to me,’ ” said M. Saud Anwar, a pulmonologist and the first Muslim to be elected as a mayor in Connecticut, where he serves South Windsor.

Imam Magid, speaking upstairs at his Muslim center while a team of Muslim girls pounded out a basketball game below, said that real prevention meant programs that give young people as much purpose and inspiration as extremists promise. Once young Muslims buy into the ideology, he said, it is very hard to pry them loose. “You have to reach them before it happens,” he said.

U.S. Muslims Take On ISIS’ Recruiting Machine – NYTimes.com.

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After Attacks, Denmark Hesitates to Blame Islam – NYTimes.com

2015/02/21 Leave a comment

The debates in Denmark regarding the role Islam played in the recent attacks and the sophisticated response by the Danish Minister for Integration and Social Affairs, Manu Sareen:

Mr. Mann [a former Copenhagen gang member], who is now studying law and works part-time as a counselor to troubled Muslim youths, said Denmark and other European countries needed to defend, not stigmatize, Islam, as only this can combat “street Islam,” a toxic jumble of half-digested lines from the Quran and political passions plucked from the Internet.

Olivier Roy, a leading French expert on Islam, has taken a similar line, telling Information, a Danish newspaper, that Denmark should counter wild strains of Islam imported from the Middle East by building up a “national version of Islam” through state funding for mosques and preachers, just as it funds Denmark’s state church.

But Mr. Sareen, the integration minister, said such an approach would do nothing to “prevent scenes like we saw at the weekend” because young people were just as likely to get radicalized in jail or sitting at home watching videos on YouTube. “The state could finance dozens of mosques, but you would still see people getting radicalized,” he said.

The trigger for extremist violence, added Mr. Sareen, a self-declared atheist and former social worker, is rarely the result of a single cause. “You have a part that is social, part that is psychiatric, part that is brainwashing and part that comes from messages in the mosque or from radical preachers.”

Mehdi Mozaffari, an Iranian-born Danish political science professor, complained that mainstream Muslims and Western governments often play down the powerful pull of Islamist ideology, which mixes piety and politics.

“It is very evident that this ideology is playing a major role,” he said. “Without it we are facing just hooligans. But these people have an ideology that is very strong. It justifies their behavior and identifies their enemy.”

Sharp contrast to the rhetoric and pandering in Canada.

After Attacks, Denmark Hesitates to Blame Islam – NYTimes.com.

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