A new book analyzes regarding particularly Muslim terrorists “what engenders that incredible will—what prompts young Muslims and others to abandon current life pursuits, drop everything, and embark on a journey from which there may be no return.” The Three Pillars of Radicalization: Needs, Narratives, and Networks provides critically important insight on terrorism for a world wracked by the global jihadist scourge.
A research project at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), the book examines the “3Ns of violent extremism.”
The first pertains to the individual’s motivation—the need to feel that one is significant and that one matters. The second N pertains to the ideological narrative that enshrines violence as the means best suited for the attainment of significance. Finally, the third N pertains to the social network—the group or category of people whose acceptance and appreciation one seeks and whose validation of the ideological narrative is essential to its believability for the individual.
“Significance loss can happen due to a personal failure or humiliation or as an affront to one’s social identity,” the book’s authors write, while examining a variety of individual and collective factors. Palestinian female jihadists “volunteered for suicide missions after they had suffered some kind of stigma in their lives caused by, for example, infertility, divorce, accidental disfiguration, an extramarital affair.” Such individual motives interact with group traumas as asserted in a globally broadcast Al Qaeda video concerning Muslims under Algerian military rule. For Muslims the video “alleges their humiliation by oppressive deeds committed toward other members of their religion in a faraway land.”
“Opportunity for significance gain” therefore arises out of a “violence-justifying ideology” that celebrates fighting against a group’s perceived suffering. This pursuit creates “megalomaniacal hyper terrorists” like Osama Bin Laden. Meanwhile, “‘breeding in the bone’ of suicide bombers in kindergartens and summer camps” of groups such as Hamas teaches children to “become shahids and thus earn vast glory.”
“Substantial and enduring significance gain through violence requires societal license and authorization,” yet the START researchers clearly differentiate that “not all ideologies promote violence.” Like Christianity, “some are emphatically humane and prosocial. They affirm that significance is earned by kindness, tolerance, and empathy toward others.” Similarly, a “person may exhibit a high ambition, a craving to be respected, famous, and recognized yet channel it in various constructive, nonviolent directions (e.g. as a scientist, physician, inventor, or athlete).”
The book’s illuminating analysis of why jihadists and others “engage in untold acts of callous cruelty” decisively refutes the common misperception that societal disadvantage is decisive in producing terrorism. Socioeconomic “[f]rustration could lead to withdrawal, depression, escape, or aggression against the self rather than outwardly.” Empirically, “countless people who experience poverty, oppression, and/or social stress do not turn to violent extremism.” By contrast, jihadists exemplify the fact that ideologically “devoted actors are vehemently opposed to trading off their sacred values for material incentives.”
Specifically, “research on the Salafi jihad movement uncovered that its leadership and its largest membership cluster had come mostly from the upper and middle classes.” Thus the “root cause notion seems to have garnered little empirical support or conceptual grounding.” In general,
thousands of individuals who end up as violent extremists seem to have preciously little in common. They come from different cultures, are of different genders, vary in educational level, and differ in how happy or satisfying their personal life has been.
The authors qualify that, although “economic development policies do not eradicate terrorism, they do weaken local support for terrorist activities.” For example, jihadists in Iraq conducted attacks against American forces for payments as low as $100. Accordingly, “those who join radical organizations may not do so exclusively for ideological reasons but for material incentives as well.”
Egypt’s Islamic Group (IG) also exhibited the interrelationship between material concerns and jihadist ideology when the IG waged a terrorism campaign against Egyptian tourism in the 1990s. Yet the “Egyptian population, which sees tourism as a main source of revenue on which many Egyptians depend for livelihood, strongly disapproved.” Therefore Egyptians “turned against the extremists, who soon found themselves in prison, their weapons’ caches confiscated, and their safe houses compromised.” In response, IG leaders abandoned their jihad “and instead preached tolerance toward others, even if they were nonbelievers.”
Among the various elements needed to vanquish terrorists, the authors note that “defeating extremists on the ground is important in reducing the attraction of their enterprise.” For example, Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers suffered “conclusive defeat by the Sri Lankan military” in 2009. Thus “violence and fighting could hardly qualify as a means to significance and, in fact, could be perceived as a road to a vast humiliation” with the result that Sri Lankan terrorist rehabilitation programs have no recidivism.
Such terrorist rehabilitation programs are part of a “battle for hearts and minds” among jihadists that so far has had questionable results. Such a “soft approach seeks to convince supporters of violent extremism through argumentation and social influence to abandon their aggression-justifying beliefs and/or relinquish their engagement in violence.” The authors conclude that “given the correct approach, violent extremists are capable of reforming and relinquishing terrorism.”
However, the book itself examines the problems of jihadist deradicalization programs. During the Iraq war the “US military made a concerted effort to rehabilitate tens of thousands of suspected militants in Iraq.” Ultimately “numerous former detainees…proceeded to join IS [the Islamic State] and lent it considerable military expertise,” an indication of these programs recurring failings in places like Denmark, France, Indonesia, and the United States.
The authors particularly note that the “Saudi deradicalization program initiated in early 2004 is the best endowed and most sophisticated enterprise of its kind” and has “served as a model to other nations.” Nonetheless, many have wondered whether this program’s ideological content, based upon Saudi Arabia’s official Wahhabi understanding of Islam, can “deradicalize the detainees in any fundamental sense.” The authors explain that
Wahabism justifies violence and aggression against nonbelievers if they are seen to occupy a Muslim land, like in Iraq or Afghanistan, for example. Because the ideological distance between the detainees’ beliefs and that of the program officials isn’t considerable, the task of converting them to the state version of the religion is relatively easier.
Accordingly, although often overlooked, “when graduates of the Saudi programs rejoin the fight outside of the country’s borders, this does not unequivocally qualify as recidivism, because the program’s essential narrative permits it.” Correspondingly, American experts have claimed that the program’s recidivism rate is much higher than the official 20 percent. One Department of Homeland Security consultant who inspected the Saudi program in 2009 starkly stated that its detainees “are not being de-radicalized,” but simply “are being encouraged to disassociate from terrorism.” One program detainee who returned to Al Qaeda after his release dismissed the program as a way to “drive us away from Islam.”
In contrast to this jihadist, the authors in their assessment of deradicalization programs optimistically proclaim with little evidence Islam’s fundamentally benign nature. “Theological dialogues and discussions about the true nature of Islam and its rejection of wanton violence represent the narrative element of deradicalization,” the authors write. They hereby highlight Singapore’s Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG), “one of the most comprehensive and carefully administered programs of this kind.”
Disturbingly, one of RRG’s featured speakers, Egypt’s former grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, a man who has denied the existence of female heart surgeons, casts dark shadows upon RRG’s reputation for moderation. This viciously anti-Semitic cleric and slanderer of Israel supported Hezbollah in its 2006 war with Israel and has condemned Christians as infidels in his paranoia. He also gave theological incitement to Egyptian security forces in their August 14, 2013, massacre at Cairo’s Rabaa Square, termed by one observer a “Gomaa-sanctioned jihad.”
Gomaa’s haphazard opposition to jihadist violence exemplifies the authors’ qualification that “radicalization isn’t an all-or-nothing phenomenon. It is a matter of degree.” An “individual who delimits engagement in violence to a certain place and time, or to a certain type of targets…is less radicalized than one who supports violence more broadly, such as against Westerners in general.” Likewise, “more radicalized individuals may be ready to commit acts of violence, while the less radicalized ones may believe that violence is justified and desirable though they themselves may not be prepared to perpetrate it.”
Unsurprisingly, the deradicalization programs examined in the book often emphasize verification of released detainees’ good behavior rather than any trust in changed hearts. The “graduates of the Saudi deradicalization program are explicitly told they will be monitored in the community,” the authors note. Analogously,
one of the reasons for Singapore’s perfect scorecard on recidivism is their effective monitoring system: a massive network of hundreds of surveillance cameras, on closed-circuit television (CCTV), mounted across the city and recording every whereabouts of its citizens.
While the book’s authors provide a refreshing, invaluable analysis of the ideological factors that contribute to jihadist violence and thereby dispense with shopworn myths, the authors’ search for antidotes to jihadism is unfortunately less conclusive. If only this mayhem had materialist “root causes” such as poverty or ethnic conflict; then practical solutions could bring peace, but jihadists follow theological visions. Muslims and non-Muslims alike face a daunting challenge to end this fanatical nightmare turned reality.
Michael Copeland says
The authors speak of “the true nature of Islam and its rejection of wanton violence”.
Where does Islam reject violence?
“Violence is the heart of Islam” – Ayatollah Yazdi
“Muslims must kill non-muslims wherever they are unless they convert to Islam” – Ali Gomaa
This shortcoming undermines the authors’ whole thesis.
Steve says
Thanks for the info. Will wait to read it at the library if they ever get it.
gravenimage says
Good point, Michael. Even many who understand somethng about Jihad still whitewash Islam.
Walter Sieruk says
This new book about Muslim terrorism with the title of THE THREE PILLARS OF RADICALIZATION should be a much need information book in this “War of Idea'” I
In other words, the more well researched written material explaining this heinous deadly phenomenal of jihad terrorism.
Nevertheless, as for the specific word in this book’s title, WHICH IS “RADICALIZATION” it’s best to define what the word “radical “means . Likewise is wise to further define the term Violent extremist ” and violent extremism . As one of those two terms was used in the above above ,top, article
Foe the terms “Radical Muslim” and “violent extremist” is actually a misuse of terms. “Moderate Muslim” are actually Western term and not that well known in the Islamic Middle East. This is because what In the Islamic mindset in the Muslim Middle East as well as in Indonesia and other Muslim controlled countries what the non-Muslims of the Western nations view as “radical and “extremist” the Muslims of those places in the world see as “Normal” and even Devout and committed to the Cause of Islam”.
Likewise they view those who Westerns see as “Moderate Muslims” those of the Islamic worldview and non-devout and non –committed Muslims. The violent jihadists even see them as “hypocrites.” Therefore, this explains the jihadist chant of those jihad-minded Muslims in different Islamic terror organizations. When they chant out loud “Death to infidels and hypocrites.” Meaning Death to people who and not Muslims and people who are non- jihadist Muslims.
Concerning the last part of this above essay, the violent spirit of that vicious jihadist chant “Death to infidels and hypocrites.” The later word of the chant “hypocrites” in the jihad –minded Muslim worldview is further explain in the book titled JIHADIST PSYCHOPATH by Jamie Glazov , for on page 42 the reader is informed that “Islam mandates that devout and real Muslims must punish , and in some circumstances kill, those Muslims whom they regard as neither legitimate nor properly devout.”
Walter Sieruk says
The news book titled THE THREE PILLARS OF RADICALIZATION even covers the topic of female jihadists who have had volunteered to engage in a Islamic “suicide mission”
Of course the imams who sway those women to become human bombs in murderous jihad violence, many times, keep on telling those the women they they are carrying out “martyr operations” As if changing the label of it to a “nicer ” sounding term will change the deadly wicked essence of such a mass jihad murder attack.
For the phenomena of females who are jihad suicide /homicide bombers is tragic, sad, yet t interesting in a negative sort of way. The reasons for the delusional and murderous behavior by brainwashed, girls and women is the mind programming inflected on them by the Muslims clerics, as the imams, who keep telling them lines and lies. Such as “We will honor you” and “You will go to paradise” and “We are doing this for Allah.” That’s some strange kind of “We.” For the reader might ,very well ,notice the those same Muslim clerics who so thoroughly mind indoctrinate them into actually wanting to become human bombs are never, ever, the ones who strap bombs vest on themselves and then go out and blow themselves up in a suicide bombing. Those Islamic clerics just mind condition and then manipulate them to become, literally, dangerous to self and others by engaging in murderous bombs attacks. Ten the same Muslim clerics sit home safe all the while the deadly bombing are going on. Therefore those Islamic clerics who use those girls and women as stooges for the jihad are both despicable and cowardly.
In addition, Islam gives female be they girls or women, little to no value or worth because Islam because is, in essence, a religion of extreme misogyny. Nevertheless, the Muslim clerics and the jihadist leaders of different jihad organizations will not hesitate to use girls and women for the advancement of their jihad agenda for Islam. How Ironic. How unconscionable! How callous! They are so very wicked.
The Bible does informs its reader that “The counsels of the wicked are deceitful.” Proverbs 12:5. [N.K.J.V.]
Walter Sieruk says
In this twenty-first century conflict between the Judeo- Christian West and the Islamic East which also has been termed “The war of Ideas” the West needs a good well research informational book as THE THREE PILLARS OF RADICALIZATION may be.
What more what the West also needs is wisdom. As the Bible instructs “Wisdom is better than strength.” Ecclesiastes 9:16. [N.K.J.V.] Likewise, this same book of the Bible also teaches in 9:18 “Wisdom is better than weapons of war.” Therefore, wisdom is in strong contrast to opinion. Also greatly opposed to wisdom is folly and deceit. As the Bible in Proverbs 14:8 informs the reader ‘The folly of fools is deceit.” The deception of deceit may be seen, by all those who are willing to see, in the Islamic doctrine of a virgin filled paradise designed specify for the male Muslim jihadist who dies in the jihad for the cause of Islam, in what they so inappropriately call a “martyrdom operation.” Many a times a jihadist/Muslim is so very deluded the he actually put on his video recording that after he dies in the jihad as a “martyr” he will then in paradise have a “wedding with virgins.” This firm but blind unquestioning folly is the result of such a man believing in deception of a false doctrine. With Light of the Wisdom of Jesus a belief in a “wedding with virgins.” is the outcome of a person accepting as the “truth” an invalid and false. For Jesus taught “you are mistaken, not knowing the Scripture nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angles in heaven.” Matthew 22:29,30.
A jihadist will after dies and such a murderous way,in a suicide /homicide jihad attack, will have a very hard and harsh “reality check” In that “his expectation will perish…” Proverb 11:7. For he will then discover that he was deceived by false doctrine and lie of “a paradise with virgins” and to his shock and horror he will find himself trapped and suffering ,with no hope of escape, in the fires of hell. As the Bible teaches a murder “will not inherit the kingdom of God,” Galatians 5:21. This is sad and tragic but nevertheless it’s the reality of the truth.
Walter Sieruk says
THE THREE PILLARS OF RADICALIZATION is a book the West might very much need in this “War of Ideas” on this twenty first century .
In addition, any jihadist just after his Islamic suicide /homicide attack right after he died ,to his shock and horror, he found himself trapped and suffering in the fires of an awful place the Bible calls “hell.” Luke 16:19-31. That jihad minded Muslim of ISIS was dangerous to self and others because that he was indoctrinated with and likewise believed in the doctrine found in the Quran, 44:54. 55:56. 78;31.,of a lust –filled sex paradise with many virgins, in in for his use only, because he died as a “martyr” for the cause of Islam. That jihadist will discover the hard way that he was instructed in and put his faith in a false doctrine that is from a false religious book of false religion .This doctrine of a paradise for the jihadist who died fighting for Islam was only an enticing religious story of fiction. The Bible does give warning against giving “heed to fables…” First Timothy 1:4. [N.K.J.V]
As for in a murderous jihad attack, in spite, of the Muslim clerics falsely calling it a “martyrdom operation.” That jihadist after in dies in a jihad murder attack, and learn too late, the truth of Bible with informs its reader that a murderer “will not inherit the Kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:21.
Moreover,, such false teachers, as those imams and mullahs, who teach and ingrain false yet enticing doctrines as that a lust /sex fill place with virgins into the hearts and minds of others had been predicted in the Bible. For it is written, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine , but according to their own desires , because they have itching ears , they will heap up for themselves teachers ; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.” Second Timothy 3,4.
Walter Sieruk says
This titled New book THE THREE PILLARS OF RADICALIZATION and the article about is ,somewhat , of a reminder when it uses the term “Violent extremist” of the strange but common phenomena in America Europe’s modern PC culture that when it comes to Islamic terrorism there are many people who are afraid to call it what it is. For the term “violent extremists ” is used and not Muslim terrorist”
That’s very odd because no one is afraid to call a person who engages in violence for anarchy and “anarchist terrorist”. Nor are people afraid to call a Marxist who engages in violence for the ideology of communism a “Communist terrorist.” Likewise, a person who commits violence for Environmentalism an “Environmentalist terrorists. “Nevertheless, when it comes to a Muslim terrorist who engages in deadly violence because of the theology and ideology of Islam, many people fear to call that person an “Islamic terrorists.” Strange but true.
Angemon says
Only wahabism?…
Again: only wahabism?…
Kerry Wade says
I’ll give this book a wide birth. If the title were The Pillars of Islam maybe I’d be interested. Islam equals violence, it is anti-human.
Paul says
I’d love to read it, but at $46 for the e-book, I’ll give it a pass. Unfortunately, it is published by one of these academic houses that charge exorbitant prices, thinking that only university libraries will be interested in buying it. They don’t realize they might make a lot more money of they would sell it for a reasonable amount.
rubiconcrest says
I wonder how the authors view sharia and the resultant acceptance of death for apostasy and blasphemy? I would think these society wide attitudes lay the foundation for honor violence and violence against ‘others’ which provide a staging platform of jihad for those so inclined.
Eric Jones says
To counter terrorism you must deprive the jihadi of weapons, ammunition, safe houses and supplies. The jihad must be convinced that he will receive a swift death or life in prison.
Eric
UNCLE VLADDI says
Excuses, excuses.