Confronting radicalism

With the recent attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris and the ongoing conflict with ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in the Middle East, Islamic radicalism has been at the front of the headlines.

One of the many questions raised by these developments and others is how young people — at home and abroad — become “freedom fighters” for these radical movements in the first place.

Amarnath Amarasingam, a postdoctoral Fellow in the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie and an expert on radicalism, has been instrumental in shaping the narrative around these concerns. Dr. Amarasingam, who completed his masters at Wilfrid Laurier University before entering the Laurier-Waterloo PhD joint program in Religious Diversity in North America, researches radicalization and terrorism, social movements and the sociology of religion.

Throughout his work, Dr. Amarasingam has looked at a range of push and pull factors which contribute to youth radicalization. While misconceptions exist about the “kind” of person who is most likely to become a freedom fighter, the reality is there’s a lack of uniformity in profile data.

“I think part of the confusion for the public is that we’re always looking for a certain kind of profile for these individuals — where they must look a certain way, [where] they must either be poor or have a mental illness or come from a broken home — but most of the research seems to suggest just the opposite,” he says.  

“They come from a wide variety of backgrounds: some are rich and some are poor; some have very lucrative professions, have families of their own… and so this quest for individual profiles doesn’t really lead us anywhere.”

Push and pull

While the factors that push individuals towards radicalism vary depending on location, the ideological pull factors have warranted more investigation and, in turn, produced a clearer picture of the jihadist narrative. At the most basic level, youth are drawn to radical movements out of a broad search for meaning and significance and a desire to be involved in a part of history.

As for the narrative itself, it is based in a puritan outlook about Islam and promotes the rigorous study of the Quran and writings of early scholars of the religion. The most militant advocates attract individuals with a sense of underlying obligation for all Muslims to stand up for and defend fellow Muslims struggling overseas.

In the wake of the proliferation of jihadist movements comes a tremendous sense of uneasiness for the public — leading, at times, to the unfortunate scapegoating of the Muslim community as a whole.  

“It’s not fun to be a member of a community that is increasingly stigmatized and part of law enforcement scrutiny,” says Dr. Amarasingam. “If they’re not under direct law enforcement attention, then Muslims are expected to have a level of expertise and awareness of what’s going on in their communities and be the front line in the defense as if they have a collective responsibility.

“Whether that’s true or not is one thing, but it does have an impact on how Imams go about their day and how they interact with their congregation, so there is an element of pressure.”

Considering the camera's focus

Along with the stereotypes plaguing Islam, Muslims are also dealing with concerns of their own. According to Dr. Amarasingam, most Muslims themselves are aware that the narrative of jihad, and see the jihadist sector of their broader community as a source of worry and something that is interfering with the development of their youth. However, it’s important to make the distinction between this specific sect of Islam and the religion as a whole.

“It’s about developing an adequate understanding of what the threat is and what the threat’s not, and the media plays a big role in that,” he said. He notes that while there was extensive media coverage of the Paris attacks, the reactions that occurred in its aftermath — which involved dozens of violent incidents focused on the city’s Islamic community — didn’t receive the same coverage.

“It matters quite a bit where the camera is focused at any given time.”