Not everyone who went to fight in Syria goes on to live life as a Jihadi: Some return fed up with the experience

2014/09/15 Leave a comment

A caution that some policies meant to reduce radicalization can be counter-productive:

“The whole jihad was turned upside down,” the militant recently told Shiraz Maher, a senior researcher for the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London. “Muslims are fighting Muslims. I didn’t come for that.”

The fighter’s disillusionment, experts say, has become a recurring theme among some of the thousands of young men and women from around the globe who have answered ISIS’s call for holy war but have found the reality is significantly less glorious than what they were promised.

For those trying to stanch the flow of fighters and combat extremism here in Britain, it’s a perspective that could be the perfect antidote to ISIS propaganda. And yet it’s one that is seldom if ever heard here, in part because of government policy that focuses on keeping Brits who have gone to war from returning home — and locking them up if they even try.

“A lot of them feel trapped by [ISIS] not letting them go, and by the British government not letting them back,” said Richard Barrett, a former counterterrorism director with Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6. “But if you want people to understand that it’s bloody terrible out there, you have to hear from these people.”

Not everyone who went to fight in Syria goes on to live life as a Jihadi: Some return fed up with the experience

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Jonathan Kay: Thirteen years after 9/11, the debate about Islam is still dominated, on both sides, by hysteria

2014/09/09 Leave a comment

Good commentary by Jon Kay on the difficulty in having a rational, balanced conversation:

The larger problem here is that, 13 years after 9/11, we still can’t seem to manage to have an adult conversation about Islam. Express any sort of compassion or nuance about the faith, and you’re accused of universal prostration before the Mohammedan hordes. Speak up about the religious and cultural traditions that cause someone to cut a journalist’s head off, and you’re an Islamophobe. Sometimes, it feels like the conversation hasn’t progressed much since the Twin Towers were still standing.

Thirteen years after 9/11, the debate about Islam is still dominated, on both sides, by hysteria

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Isils Western converts are not motivated by Islam. They are motivated by boredom – Telegraph Blogs

2014/09/08 1 Comment

Tim Stanley’s  take on radicalization from a conservative perspective, noting the similarities to Islamic-inspired radicalization to the European young terrorists of the Baader Meinhoff and Red Army in the 1970s:

To this collage of conservative thought, I’d add two observations. First, alienation from Western materialism being expressed through revolution is far from new. It demands comparison with the urban guerilla movements of the 1970s – all of which were predominantly drawn from middle-class kids who saw their parents’ success as a form of collaboration with capitalism and fascism.

Is there any real difference between, on the one hand, Mahmood allegedly abandoning professional achievement and the life of a liberated Western woman for Jihad, and, on the other hand, Ulrike Meinhof of the Red Army Faction abandoning her children and sparkling literary career for a life of assassinations and bombings in the 1970s German terrorist underground? None, except the contrasting ideological manifestations of their malaise.

And, aside from bourgeois angst, Seventies Marxism and contemporary Jihad are linked by a an obsession with America/Israel as a nexus of capital and military power that is responsible for everything wrong with the world and b an unrealistic sense of their ability to do anything about it. They are, in reality, grubby little criminals poking at the system with a blunt dagger. But they believe they are heralds of a New Order. They all suffer from the arrogance of youth.

….I’m not convinced. Aside from the terrible idea of turning history classes into propaganda about how wonderful the Whigs were, I also don’t believe that alienation is generally reduced by attempts at indoctrination. And while theocracy is a wretched idea, it’s pretty self-evident that the undoubted appeal of Anglosphere freedom is limited. That would be – to return to Michael Brendan Dougherty’s observations – because it offers material rewards but little in the way of spiritual sustenance. Mahmood was perfectly aware of the benefits of Anglosphere liberty (Magna Carta, kangaroos and apple pie?) because she had the privilege of growing up in the midst of its wealth and freedom. Yet, still, her family say that she has rejected it. Perhaps because it was not enough. And that’s the challenge that the West faces when fighting for the souls of narcissistic revolutionaries. What we have to offer as an alternative is, for many of them, not enough.

Isils Western converts are not motivated by Islam. They are motivated by boredom – Telegraph Blogs.

From the National Post, a profile on Aqsa Mahmood, the woman mentioned in Stanley’s piece:

Inside the life of a 20-year-old Scottish woman who ran away to become a hardline supporter of ISIS  

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Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist

2014/09/06 Leave a comment

The Economist’s survey of Muslim Americans and the contrast with European Muslims. Same general pattern with Canadian Muslims (about 3 percent of Canada’s population) in terms of the diversity of communities and outcomes, although overall have a higher low-income percentage.

And like the US, we also have that small number of those who radicalize and go off to fight in Syria, Iraq or elsewhere:

America’s Muslims differ from Europe’s in both quantity and origin. The census does not ask about faith, but estimates put the number of Muslims in the country at around 1% of the population, compared with 4.5% in Britain and 5% in Germany.

Moreover, American Islam is not dominated by a single sect or ethnicity. When the Pew Research Centre last tried to count, in 2011, it found Muslims from 77 countries in America. Most western European countries, by contrast, have one or two dominant groups—Algerians in France, Moroccans and Turks in Holland. This matters because the jumble of groups in America makes it harder for Muslim immigrants and their descendants to lead a life apart.

Different traditions get squashed together. When building mosques, says Chris McCoy, a Kentucky native who is a prolific architect of Islamic buildings, “the question is usually not whether we should have an Indian- or a Saudi-style dome but, can we afford a dome?”

Mixing breeds tolerance: Pew found that most American Muslims think that their faith is open to multiple interpretations, making them the Episcopalians of the Islamic world.

America’s Muslims are better off than their European co-religionists. They are almost as likely as other Americans to report a household income of $100,000 or more. The same cannot be said of the Pakistanis who came to work in the now-defunct textile mills of northern England or the Turks who became guest workers in West Germany. Many American Muslims arrived in the 1970s to complete their higher education and ended up staying. Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America, which issues fatwas, or religious opinions, to guide the behaviour of the country’s Muslims, is typical: he was born in India and holds a Harvard PhD in comparative religion.

There is a stark contrast between this group and some of the more recent immigrants from Somalia, who have fewer qualifications and lower wages as do African-American Muslims, who make up about an eighth of the total. This divide, if anything, makes America’s Muslims look more like the nation as a whole.

Muslim America: Islamic, yet integrated | The Economist.

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Muslims can live faith more fully within Canadian society, Imam says in book aimed at ‘ostracized’ youth

2014/09/02 Leave a comment

Imam Delic’s book on the advantages Canadian Muslims have and the need for an intellectual renaissance within Islam:

Anybody who tries to destroy this creativity, who tries to block it, who tries to demean it, definitely does not understand what God Almighty was asking us with the first word that was revealed in the Qu’ran, and that is ‘iqra’ [read]. The first word that was ever revealed to the Prophet, peace be upon him, was not ‘pray,’ or ‘believe.’ It was ‘read.’ And ‘read’ came as a command. Why? Because if we don’t read, we will not learn. And if we do not learn, we will not know. And if we do not know, we will not understand. And if we do not understand, we will not be able to apply. Make sense?” Mr. Delic said. “Knowledge that does not actualize itself in positive action or ethical action is knowledge without base.”

The growth of Islam from the founding in Arabia through expansion as far as Moorish Spain suggests this intellectual command was once well understood, he said.

“At that time, when we stopped being intellectually challenged, or when we didn’t want to challenge ourselves, that creativity died out and that’s the reason why the Muslim community became stagnant, not progressive,” Mr. Delic said. “We need to re-read our historical texts in the context of modern times, modern societies, modern demands. I don’t want to take opinions of scholars from the 14th century that do not talk to my needs, my aspirations, even though I do respect them and their work for the time in which they lived. But their ideas do not apply to my time.”

In 2010, Defence Minister Peter MacKay cancelled a speech by Mr. Delic at an Islamic History Month event because he was then the new executive director of the Canadian Islamic Congress, which frequently indulged extremist views from 9/11 conspiracies to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel, and whose founder Mohamed Elmasry once made controversial comments about the Mideast conflict on a talk show that he later apologized for and retracted.

Mr. Delic’s speech was by no means extremist. It was, like his book, a call to active citizenship for Canadian Muslims, and a rejection of Islam’s orthodox, insular traditions.

The Government’s decision to disinvite him Imam Zijad Delic: The cancelled speech | Full Comment | National Post), as well as a narrow focus on relations with minority Muslim communities, created some challenges for the security agencies that recognized the role they could play in reducing risks of radicalization.

Muslims can live faith more fully within Canadian society, Imam says in book aimed at ‘ostracized’ youth

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Art Initiative Explores The Imagined Space Where Islam Meets L.A.

2014/08/30 Leave a comment

Art as a means for encouraging understanding and contributing to conversation and dialogue:

“What I was interested in doing is deflecting this idea of a certain line of questioning or a certain representational show that is so often associated with a group show organized around identity matrixes,” Sahakian declared to HuffPost. “One thats organized over this overarching rubric of Islamic arts in terms of what people might expect artists to talk about. Instead of pretending there was any artwork that could answer these questions, I wanted to curate an exhibition that would do away with this line of questioning.”

Los Angeles, the site where so many normative, and often false, understandings of Islam are produced, was the perfect space for this exhibition to take place. “Los Angeles has been responsible for the ways much of the world views people from South Asia, North Africa, West Africa, and its diasporas. We understand that a lot of this is contributing to Islamophobia.”

Of course, there are also many more positive reasons to select Los Angeles. “L.A. is a ripe environment because these communities exist here; they’re part of the fabric. These discussions are happening in very natural ways around the city, but we want to formalize them and bring them to the surface. And explore the aesthetic aspects as well.”

Art Initiative Explores The Imagined Space Where Islam Meets L.A..

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ICYMI: In Britain, School Report Cites Division Over Islam

2014/08/27 Leave a comment

I think the issue is not that this ‘turns’ students to or from terrorism, but the overall message it sends to students about acceptable behaviour in a multicultural and diverse society, based upon equality (see also UK: Michael Gove (Education Sec’y) accused of using ‘Trojan Horse’ row to push anti-Islam agenda):

British education inspectors investigated 21 schools after claims that Islamic fundamentalists had taken over leadership of schools in Birmingham, home to a significant Muslim population.

The inquiry found that the influence of hard-line school board governors sometimes left staffs polarized between those who favored a more Islamic approach and others who did not. In British state schools many governors are elected by parents or staff members.

Some teachers, for example, “actively discourage girls from speaking to boys,” the report said, adding that in one school “boys and girls are also taught separately in religious education and personal development lessons.”

At one school, Oldknow Academy, “governors have used the academy’s budget to subsidize a trip to Saudi Arabia for only Muslim staff and pupils,” the document said.

Among the striking details to emerge from the report was that a senior figure in one school was so scared of being seen talking to school inspectors that a meeting had to be arranged in a supermarket parking lot. Another school hired private investigators to check staff email, the report said.

Ofsted’s chief, Michael Wilshaw, described some of the findings as “deeply worrying and, in some ways, quite shocking.”

But the findings were criticized by the Muslim Council of Britain, which says it has more than 500 affiliated national, regional and local organizations, mosques, charities and schools. It argued that “extremism will not be confronted if Muslims, and their religious practices are considered as, at best, contrary to the values of this country and at worst, seen as ‘the swamp’ that feeds extremism.”

“There is scant evidence that the education system or the Muslim community are the reasons for why people turn to terrorism,” it added in a statement.

In Britain, School Report Cites Division Over Islam – NYTimes.com.

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Jonathan Kay: Sun News’ cynical attacks on Justin Trudeau have crossed the line into anti-Muslim hysteria

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

Kay nails it:

Moreover: If indeed it is true that al-Sunnah al-Nabawiah mosque remains a religious home for unassimilated Muslim immigrants with radical, un-Canadian views, shouldn’t that be all the more reason for Canadian politicians to let those congregants know that if they want to live and flourish in this country, they need to adapt to our values?

Justin Trudeau’s riding of Papineau is one of the poorest and most diverse in Canada. It is full of immigrants who are wrestling with the process of integrating into Canadian life. What sort of MP would we want for such a riding — one who brags to Sun News viewers about how he wouldn’t set foot within 50 feet of this or that house of prayer, lest he be tainted by association with the teeming Muslim hordes who pray therein … or someone who actually seeks to engage with these people and draw them into the political mainstream?

Jonathan Kay: Sun News’ cynical attacks on Justin Trudeau have crossed the line into anti-Muslim hysteria

Andrew Lawton, also in the National Post, piles on this critique:

 

When the PMO arranged my interview with James, I was looking forward to hearing what the government had done or was doing to address the radicalization alleged at the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque. Shockingly, what I presumed was the most relevant question to the discussion, appeared to dumbfound James, who skirted it no fewer than three times, offering up only scripted condemnations of Justin Trudeau.

“I think it was completely outrageous. I think it’s completely unacceptable that the leader of the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau, would associate with a group that allegedly radicalizes Canadians to join al-Qaeda and has even been listed by the Pentagon as a location known to them,” James told me during the live interview.

I asked, “Why is this a politics question and not a question of Canadian public safety and intelligence?”

I was expecting anything but the answer she gave.

“I thank you for that question, but as you know, I probably —I cannot comment on operational matters of national security, Andrew,” she said. “But I think the real question is here — Justin Trudeau knew about this. He knew about this and instead he went into this mosque, did a whole lot of handshaking and trying to win votes. He will stoop at nothing to try to win over terrorist organizations. I can’t believe this.”

Embarrassing. But even intelligent MPs sound stupid when they have to stick to stupid talking points (e.g., Chris Alexander defending the government’s handling of the F-35, among others).

Not sure this helps them.

Andrew Lawton: If Trudeau is schmoozing with terrorists, why aren’t we arresting any?

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Don’t politicize women’s bodies

2014/08/08 Leave a comment

One take on the risks of banning the niqab. See also her previous piece (It’s Muslims themselves who give voice to verse) as well as a previous post on the CCMW study of Canadian women wearing the niqab and the individual stories and backgrounds of the women interviewed (Study dispels stereotypes about Ontario women who wear niqabs).

I still find that wearing the niqab (as distinct from the hijab) sends an anti-integration message:

In this context, it is especially important to put women first, to give women space to chart their own journeys, and to allow the veil and lack thereof to have meanings beyond their patriarchal origins.

Importantly, Muslim women ought to be free to make their own choices – which necessarily includes the right to make their own mistakes – as they navigate their way through multiple identities. As a woman who wore the niqab for 10 years in Canada through public high school at Streetsville Secondary School in Mississauga, and undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Toronto, I am grateful to have belonged to a liberal democracy that allowed me the space and time to have my own journey and find my own way. I am proud of Canadians for rejecting a copycat proposal to ban the face veil in Quebec earlier this year. In this instance, the EU has much to learn from the Canadian model.

Don’t politicize women’s bodies – The Globe and Mail.

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Progressive U.S. Muslim movement embraces gay and interfaith marriages, female imams and mixed prayers

2014/08/06 Leave a comment

On a progressive strain of Islam in the USA:

Nearly 40 per cent of the estimated 2.75 million Muslims in the U.S. are American-born and the number is growing, with the Muslim population skewing younger than the U.S. population at large, according to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey.

Advocates for a more tolerant Islam say the constraints on interfaith marriage and homosexuality aren’t in the Qur’an, but are based on conservative interpretations of Islamic law that have no place in the U.S. Historically, in many Muslim countries, there are instances of unsegregated prayers and interfaith marriage.

“I think it’s fair to say the traditional Islam that we experienced excluded a lot of Muslims that were on the margins. I always felt not very welcomed by the type of Islam my parents practiced,” said Tanzila Ahmed, 35, who published an anthology of love stories by Muslim American women in 2012 called “Love Inshallah.”

…. In Los Angeles, a religious group called Muslims for Progressive Values has been pushing the boundaries with a female imam who performs same-sex and interfaith marriages, support groups for gay Muslims and a worship style that includes women giving sermons and men and women praying together. The group has chapters in half a dozen major U.S. cities and at least six foreign countries and last year was recognized by the United Nations as an official non-governmental organization.

Founder Ani Zonneveld, a Muslim singer and songwriter of Malaysian descent, started the group in 2007 after she recorded some Islamic pop music that generated a backlash because it featured a Muslim woman singing.

“For us, the interpretation of Islam is egalitarian values — and by egalitarian it’s not just words that we speak. It’s practice,” she said. “It’s freedom of religion and from religion, too.”

Progressive U.S. Muslim movement embraces gay and interfaith marriages, female imams and mixed prayers

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