Surprise: Social Alienation the Cause
No surprises in the conclusions reached by a study of the NYPD looking into the process of radicalization of young Muslim men in Western society. The results released pinpoint vital stages of the process, from the pre-radicalization stage, consisting of dissatisfied social misfits, to the discovery by these troubled youth of where their sympathies lie, to the succumbing of said youth to indoctrination, and the final step of militant training resulting in jihadization.Any armchair psychologist could have come up with the same results. But one supposes it is given a stamp of authority through the auspices of a social study conducted by a coterie of police psychologists, investigators and theorists. Young men who can't seem to fit into the society in which they live, who become petulantly aggrieved and search for purpose and a way to avenge themselves against the society that seems to deny them, look for answers. Always have.
The process isn't all that dissimilar to that which takes place among dislocated, dissatisfied, socially disaffected youth anywhere. Where the outcome is a release of tension through the use of violence. Through combining forces with other like-minded disaffected youth; the helpfulness of strength in numbers, of belonging. The clubs and gangs of violent-prone, social-upheaving youth who wage battle against society and against one another for primacy.
That these particular young men were of a heritage and a background religion that gave them purpose through the manipulation by radical recruiters on the lookout for such societal malingerers simply proved a good fit; useful for those on the prowl for recruits, and useful for those youth whose lives seemed to lack purpose. They were, in essence, being invited to join a club, a group whose purpose appeared agreeable to their bruised and brutalized spirits.
Once they're hooked and find a common purpose, an answer to their feelings of societal alienation, an offer to belong, to be one of the dedicated few, the special, the exceptional, it's but a gradual journey to introduce them and finally convert them to fundamentalism and the allure of jihadism. Convince them that the society that surrounds and engulfs them is to blame, and they have in their hands the answers to their own confused pain; they're secure.
If the jihadist-bound predators who frequent mosques and schools to dangle the temptation of belonging to a special group, a brotherly-bonded clique are sufficiently intent and dedicated there is no lack of potential converts in any society. Politicize these aggrieved youth, encourage them to believe that in their hands lie the answers to the insults thrown in the faces of Muslims by Western society, and they're ripe for the picking.
First it's the spiritual and political mentors, then support through the Internet and jihadist videos, and the adrenalin-rush of corresponding and communicating with other jihadist radicals dedicated to the violent overthrow of established government, from Bosnia to the United Kingdom, France and Holland to Canada.
It's like a psychological lobotomy, and very effective; the violence of jihadist purpose itself becomes their religion.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, August 16, 2007
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