COMMENT

THE FALCON AND THE FALCONER

To more effectively combat terrorism, we need to understand why homegrown Western converts turn against their own societies, argues Miranda Darling Tobias

The best lack all convictions, while the doctrine that urges followers to harm the society worst that has, in their eyes, humiliated them. While this Are full of passionate intensity. dynamic does not belong to radical Islam alone, W B Yeats The Second Coming the al-Qa’eda-inspired terror network is the only militant religious movement that has such growing militant Islamist ideology is feeding and global appeal. Al-Qa’eda and the Islamist on the unfocused anger of young internationale have become the ‘parasites of anger’, men all over the world. The numbers as Christopher Reuter neatly refers to them in his speak for themselves: 9/11, 7/7, 3/11, book about Palestinian suicide bombers, My Life 10/08—the latest being the date a is a Weapon. Amega-terror attack on planes leaving Heathrow Interviews conducted with terrorists reveal was foiled. Some, born in free and prosperous recurring themes of humiliation and frustration. countries, are embracing this theology and turning Jessica Stern, a Harvard lecturer and author of against their societies with great hostility. These Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants home-grown terrorists are not born fl aming with Kill, personally interviewed Islamic, Jewish and righteous religious rage. A few are not even born Christian terrorist leaders. She writes that while Muslims. Their anger begins rather as unfocused local grievances play a part in their motivation, frustration, a sense that they have somehow been the common link is an overwhelming perception denied something by twenty-first century life. of humiliation. She quotes a former Kashmiri This disaffection colours their interpretation of fundamental religious beliefs; it makes them Miranda Darling Tobias is a Research Fellow susceptible to al-Qa’eda’s worldview, a hostile at The Centre for Independent Studies.

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militant leader: ‘Muslims have been overpowered Policy magazine: ‘International Muslim revivalist by the West. Our ego hurts. We are not able to movements. . . have encouraged this concept of a live up to our own standards for ourselves.’ These “cultureless” Islam. The revivalists often dominate sentiments were echoed in conversations with an Islamic gatherings due to their commitment, Identity Christian cultist and a man involved in a pre-existing networks and defined ideological violent wing of an anti-abortionist movement. agenda.’ While the idea of a culture-free form of Stern put it to another terrorist leader that it religious community may appear tenuous, the idea seemed to her that terrorists were motivated by is propagated on the web and becomes in a sense their perceived humiliation, relative deprivation quite real. and a sense of personal and/or cultural fear; that Al-Qa’eda’s strategic application of the new all the other reasons that terrorists the world over information technologies has allowed them to reach gave were ‘just sloganeering and marketing’. The and radicalise new groups of recruits, to shape their terrorist leader responded: ‘This is exactly right. general world view and to link them to likeminded Sometimes the deprivation is imagined, as in online communities. The internet is playing a vital America. In Kashmir, it’s real. But it doesn’t really role in building widespread ideological backing matter whether it’s real or imagined.’ among young Muslims, from rallying support to For members of the Muslim diaspora who turn providing detailed instructions on how to set up to violence, this shame could be civilisational, or a terrorist cell. The virtual networks are replacing linked to cultural ideas of honour and manhood. defunct training camps and removing al-Qa’eda’s For western converts to militant Islam, the organisational and educational efforts from the humiliation is more likely to be personal. Offered an reach of law enforcement. These virtual networks extreme religious belief that demonises the society will become more dangerous as they spread they hold responsible for their pain, and that shows and grow stronger, more numerous and more them they are superior to it, is surely attractive to technologically sophisticated. both groups. Young Muslims who have no link to any country other than the western one they were born in, and Islamic radicalisation who have had a secular upbringing with all the The burgeoning phenomenon of global religious western life experiences of girlfriends and alcohol, militancy is examined in the work of French are now able to access this virtual ‘universalist’ Islam, terrorism expert Olivier Roy. Roy looks at how which replaces traditional cultural ties. The young future Islamist terror could arise from within people drawn into this transnational form of Islam western societies, from Muslims born, bred and become, in Roy’s words, ‘born-again Muslims’. radicalised in the west, and completely familiar This uprooted form of Islam is also obviously easily with western culture. He believes radicalisation accessible to western converts. Disconcertingly, can happen in two ways: the fi rst is ‘diasporic Roy’s argument that radicalisation requires a total radicalism’ which can occur in a community that ‘re-Islamisation’, a virtual ‘starting from scratch’ still has very close ties with its country of origin; the approach, leaves the door to radical conversion open second—and far more dangerous—way is through to much larger pools of young people. ‘universalist’ or ‘ideological’ Islam, whereby a virtual Muslim supranational community or umma is Islamist ideology emphasised over all other ties. Religiously-motivated violence the globe over has In this transnational form, Islam is separated risen in the last decade: the Rand Corporation’s from any country of origin and takes on new Bruce Hoffman has calculated that of the thirty characteristics. ‘Unmoored from traditional Islam, fi ve terror networks operating worldwide, thirty second-and-third generation jobless males provide one are jihadi. Hoffman’s data shows that there were fertile ground for recruiters to radical Islam’ twice as many terrorist attacks in the two years after (Roy). Western converts to radical Islam fi t this September 11 than in the two years before. This social profi le just as easily. Echoing Roy, Tanveer increase has not been instigated by US imperialism, Ahmed wrote in the Autumn 2005 edition of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, abject poverty,

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western cultural insensitivity, or the break-up of speak Arabic may feel excluded from mosques where colonial holdings; these ‘root causes’ have existed ordinary imams preach in a language they don’t for decades now. understand. The religion can be ‘mis-sold’ more These causes are often cited by al-Qa’eda and easily. Extremist groups are constantly evolving their supporters but they are part of a motivational and, with local converts to the faith increasingly or ‘marketing call’, not the impetus for terrorism being used to actually carry out missions, they will in the West. As Scott Atran points out, the US was remain diffi cult to track. not involved in Iraq or Afghanistan at the time of the September 11 attacks, so that could not have Angry young men been a direct motivation. Spain pulled out of Iraq While the numbers of terrorist converts are in response to the Madrid bombings, but several thankfully few, more numerous are the angry domestic jihadi terrorists attacks have since been young men who wage a ‘religious’ war of crime thwarted. The US has also removed most of its and violence on their fellow citizens. Squadrons presence from Saudi Arabia with no noticeable of homegrown suicide bombers are unlikely to impact on bin Laden’s activities. Roy adds: become an immediate danger; however militant Islam as a serious law and order problem could. Although the Palestinian cause is popular In the crime-besieged city of Malmö in Sweden, among European Muslims, their support has young immigrants have admitted to ‘waging a war’ never gone further than street demonstrations against Swedish citizens. It is virtually unreported, numbering fewer than 5,000 people in Paris, but the almost all of these ethnic groups are from in company with traditional left-wing and countries of Muslim origin. A study by sociologist anti-imperialist non-Muslim European Petra Åkesson found that these groups of young sympathisers. Support for the Palestinian men cite things like ‘a feeling of power’ and the cause is generally not expressed in religious perceived cowardice of the Swedish youth as reasons terms, and neither is opposition to a U.S.-led for their harassment, as well as the perception war against Iraq. that they are despised. Åkesson concludes that it is often the desire to ‘reverse the humiliation felt The extremists sell their hostile ideology on its by these youths’ that leads them to intimidate ‘authenticity’. However the Islamist internationale ‘Swedish kids’—a poignant parallel to Stern’s ideas are a very much a product of modernity, both in about the fundamental motivators of violence. It their philosophy and their methodology. Their is likely a similar dynamic is at work in France. It ideas are heavily infl uenced by the works of Sayyid seems young people could be taking up religion Qutb, an Egyptian writing in the 1950s, who lived as a badge of rebellion. When the fl ames of urban in the US for two years and didn’t like what he saw. frustration are fanned by global militant ideologies The new ideologues are culturally resistant but and technologically-enabled terrorists, the problem technologically enabled, diffusing a particularly is potentially very serious. antagonistic worldview via the web. Suddenly it This use of intimidation tactics—thuggishness, seems that you cannot be a ‘true’ Muslim unless a show of numbers, the language of hate, death you are violently opposed to the West, and if you threats—was seen around Europe and the world act on that ideological violence you are the more after the publication of the cartoons of the Prophet dutiful Muslim. The belief system is even more Mohammed. It was an extreme form of bullying by widespread than the violence. a few corrupt Danish imams and their supporters, Both ‘born-again’ Muslims and Western intended to create fear in the population in order converts to the cause are more zealous, eager to to force it to submit to the will of a few. Television prove their worthiness and dedication to their new- footage, screaming headlines, radical language has found ideological community. It is therefore harder made the hostile Islamic ideologues seem much for these groups, who may have little or no cultural more powerful than they really are. This only helps bearings or grounding in the religion, to resist recruit the disaffected to the cause. radical interpretations of Islam. Muslims who don’t Al-Qa’eda’s global terror strategy needs home-

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grown recruits. They are less noticeable to local law views of these men, the higher and wider destructive enforcement and are familiar with the territory. potential of the technologically-enabled individual Local militants have been used in most of al- operator, and the global ideological community Qa’eda’s attacks, from the embassy bombings in of support make this sub-group of radicals worth East Africa in 1998, to the Khobar towers, to the noting. Could the trend spread? Militant Islamist attempted hit on the World Trade Center in 1993, ideology has tapped into a deep pool of frustration to the bombings in Casablanca and Istanbul in and anti-Americanism the world over and is 2003. Western converts to militant Islam are tactical skillfully exploiting it. Could this extreme theology gold for al-Qa’eda, being almost invisible to law become the ultimate act of youth rebellion: turn enforcement surveillance. Jean-Louis Bruguière, into a radical Islamist and wage a war of fear on the leading French anti-terrorist investigating judge, the society you resent? declared in 2003 that al-Qa’eda had apparently The Western converts to Islam convicted of, or stepped up its European recruiting efforts, in awaiting trial for, terrorism offences (listed below) all particular looking for women and light-skinned have varying degrees of substance abuse, petty crime, converts. The usefulness of westernised Muslims, and/or some form of social and family dysfunction and Anglo-Celtic converts in particular, to global in their backgrounds. A sense of alienation rather terror networks makes them worthy of notice. than commitment to a religio-political cause seems Indeed, the deputy director of Direction de la to be the driver. Most were brought up in secular Surveillance du Territoire, the French intelligence households in relative material comfort, received a agency, has stated that ‘converts are our most critical proper education and have no connection to the work now.’ Middle East. While there is no psychological profi le for a terrorist—suicide or otherwise—common The Westerners social dynamics could be playing a key role in their Small numbers of young Westerners (mostly male) radicalisation. These converts to the cause may well in Europe, America and Australia are heeding the believe—and it is irrelevant whether there is truth call. They are choosing to reject their society by in the perception or not—that their society has let converting to a form of Islam that is violently them down, humiliated them, or in some way left hostile to it, and by embracing violence in its name. them behind. Andrew Rowe, Jason Walters, Richard Reid, Jack Roche, David Hicks, John Walker Lindh, Jose Andrew Rowe: convicted in London after being Padilla, Don Stewart-Whyte, Muriel Degauque: caught with materials to facilitate terrorist attacks; their names are known but their motivations remain also suspected of trafficking arms to Chechen perplexing. Tracing the lives of this particular militants. Rowe was born in west London to sub-group of radicals could reveal lesser-known Jamaican parents. He dealt and used drugs in his dynamics that may be driving the broader energies teens and dabbled in petty crime. He converted of global militant Islam. Ultimately, understanding to Islam in the 1990s at the Central Mosque in the motivations of radical Islamists, confounding Regent’s Park. The Guardian reported that Rowe the dynamics of their terrorist cells, and diverting converted after a ‘drug-fuelled conversation’ at a the energies of the communities that support rave party. He apparently described the experience them, is the surest and most sustainable way to to the jury as ‘intense’ and an event that ‘put prevent homegrown terrorist incidents. Perhaps meaning into [his] life’. demystifying the dynamics of radicalisation might also help reduce the fear of Islam—and even increase Jason Walters: planned to assassinate Dutch tolerance for it—in the ‘besieged’ populations. politicians. Walters was described in the Washington Young men rebelling against the society they Post as ‘the consummate outsider’ with few friends, were brought up in is nothing new, and the number often the target of bullies. His parents—Dutch of Western converts currently on trial for, or mother and black American father—were divorced convicted of, terrorist offences is admittedly small. and he converted to Islam when he was 16. The However, the extreme and violent nature of the local mosque apparently banned him because of

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his extreme ideas. When the Dutch police raided divorced. When she married her second husband, a his house he lobbed a grenade at them, injuring Moroccan Belgian, her religious beliefs apparently three men. became extreme. She traveled to Iraq with her husband who may also have been shot while trying Richard Reid: convicted of trying to blow up a to launch a suicide attack. plane. Reid was born to a Jamaican father and an English mother in a middle-class suburb of London. Don Stewart-Whyte: suspected of trying to blow According to the BBC, his father was in prison for up passenger aircraft leaving Heathrow. Arrested in most of Reid’s childhood. Reid went to jail for a August 2006, Stewart-Whyte changed his name series of muggings in the 1990s before joining the in early 2006 to Abdul Waheed. His father was Brixton Mosque. BBC News quoted the chairman a Conservative Party member who died when of the mosque saying that radicals targeted ‘weak Stewart-Whyte/Waheed was 14. He dropped out characters’ and that he believed Reid was ‘very, very of school and, went ‘off the rails’ abusing alcohol impressionable’. and drugs. He overcame his addictions when he converted to Islam. He married a Muslim girl and Jack Roche: nine years jail for trying to blow was working at an electrical store as a salesman. up the Israeli embassy in Canberra. Roche was working in Sydney at a factory and as a taxi driver. The background of these radical western converts He apparently converted to Islam to try and beat above seems to show that personal circumstances his alcoholism. He had traveled to Afghanistan, were pivotal to their radicalisation. The conversion met Osama bin Laden and received training in to radical Islam focused a pre-existing disaffection in explosives. a clear direction, away from personal responsibility, and outwards to society. It made them vulnerable David Hicks: captured in Afghanistan while to the pull of violent Islamist ideology. Those fi ghting for the Taliban. Born in Australia, Hicks who convert are welcomed as ‘brothers’, offered was expelled from school at fourteen and dabbled in support and explanations of how western society drink and drugs. He joined the Kosovo Liberation is to blame for their ills. The explanatory narrative Army, leaving behind two children and a failed can also absolve converts of blame for past crimes. relationship. The BBC reported Hicks told his Help is offered to new radicals in practical ways, parents he had discovered how to join up on the like kicking drug and alcohol dependencies. This internet. might be why the conversion rate is so high in the prison population: vulnerable people coupled with Jose Padilla: known as ‘the Dirty Bomber’ dedicated, fully-networked teams, offering a clear, because of his desire to detonate a ‘dirty’ bomb empowering path. in the US. Padilla was born in the US and got involved with gangs in Chicago. He converted to The power of the gang Islam in Florida, possibly while serving jail time. Most of the captured converts were unsuccessful, Details are unclear but TIME believed he traveled bumbling even, in their attempts but their stories to Afghanistan or Pakistan to make contact with reveal the network of support behind the scenes. al-Qa’eda. He received bomb-making instructions The group dynamic is key in the formation of active and money. He was captured by the FBI on his terrorist cells. Terrorist psychologist John Horgan return. emphasises the power of the gang—brothers or friends operating in tight-knit circles—in his work, Muriel Degauque: blew herself up in a suicide citing it as central to recruitment, and to reinforcing mission in Iraq. Degaque was the daughter of commitment to the cause. The London bombers a factory worker in Belgium and had a job at a are an example of this force at work: four Muslim local bakery. BBC reports say apparently she was friends who ‘rediscovered’ their religion and set a runaway and used drugs when she was younger. off together to bomb the London Underground She converted to marry her fi rst husband, but they in a suicide mission. The driving force behind

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fundamentalist religious groups is the belief in asserts Muslim ‘difference’ based on gender inequality. It provides a clear sense of who is ‘us’ and segregation, romantic recreations of the past who is ‘them’. ‘The culturelesness of militant Islam’, and apologetic articulations of Islam. writes Tanveer Ahmed, ‘is attractive—especially to those who feel alientated from their own culture.’ Divided Islam Jessica Stern focuses on the sense of identity that Disaffected fi gures are vulnerable to extreme and comes with belonging to a group: intractable belief systems that tell them they are important, powerful and morally superior—the One of the primary tasks of a religious Islamists have the added advantage of knowing terrorist leader is to capitalize on some that their embrace of violence strikes fear into feeling of humiliation, often related to the cultures they demonise. In Europe, too many identity, that they fi nd in potential members. infl uential voices refuse to speak plainly against It could be a personal feeling of humiliation, the rhetoric of hostile intolerance that radicals or it could be civilisational, national. They and their apologists claim is just an expression of make their followers feel that the way to ‘diversity’, or some kind of cultural difference that forge a new identity is by getting involved ought to be in some way protected. Surely it must with this violent group. frustrate ordinary Muslims who are also targeted by the extremists, many of whom migrated to escape Is this new militant and religious ideology countries where such views are in the majority. As mopping up the pools alienated young men who one young Australian Muslim recently posted on want to fi ght the system, the men who might have an Islamic website: been anarchists, or radical leftists in the 1970s and 1980s? The recent violence in France and other It’s just rather frustrating, which is why I European countries certainly seems to point to that also don’t like the whole ‘moderate’ label possibility. But today the rebellion is taking place thing. It implies that in order to be modern, in religion, not in politics. Perhaps this is because we somehow have to deny our religious religion goes straight to the heart of identity. The heritage, which is left to the ‘puritans’ and more fundamental a belief system, the stronger and the ‘fundamentalists’ … nothing more than more fi xed the identity that the convert or the ‘born- a crock of sh-t (sic). The problem is that again’ takes on. The extreme religious ideology hardliners are seen as authentic. condenses frustration into an active hostility, and the newly-formed sense of identity that comes with The confusion felt by many Muslims over the that focus can be comforting to those who might issue is refl ected in the results of a Pew Global feel they have lost their way. Religion can provide Attitudes survey on the views of Muslims and a sense of brotherhood, the discipline of rituals and Westerners. The survey found that, although the attraction of empowerment. Religious language Muslims living in Europe are more moderate in too seems to have become an idiom of protest their views than their Middle Eastern counterparts, against a largely secular society. As Roy points out, about one-in-seven in France, Spain, and Great the only two Western radical protest movements are Britain feel that suicide bombings against civilian the anti-globalisation movement, and the radical targets could be justifi ed to defend Islam against its Islamists. What makes the radical Islamists so much enemies. At the same time, Pew found that Western more attractive? According to Ahmed: and Muslim publics alike generally shared concerns over Islamic extremism. Part of fi ghting homegrown Identity Islam is sustained by a sense of moral Islamic extremism means eroding sympathy for superiority and Muslim cheerleading. It is suicide terrorists and their doctrine: both active not an intellectual critique of alternatives sympathy, meaning direct assistance and support, but rather a rejection of the ‘Other’, and passive sympathy, meaning ordinary people namely the West. Instead it creates a turning away from the problem, or even excusing de-cultured, rule-based space where one certain attacks or behaviour.

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The great diffi culty for law enforcement and brotherhood and purpose—more effective as a policy makers is that these radicalised groups are catalyst that pushes unremarkable people to do often self-selecting and operating under their own remarkable things they would not usually entertain auspices. Al-Qa’eda has become a banner, offering as individuals. strength and a sense of unity to a movement that Intelligence efforts at home have to focus most experts now agree is not run in a bin Laden- on confounding the dynamics of terror cell down structure, but rather like a global franchise. recruitment and operation on all levels of the Al-Qa’eda literally translates as ‘the base’. It sits at pyramid. This includes identifying vulnerable the bottom of a pyramid, the founding ideology groups (not always predominantly Muslim, or on which it hopes to build up terrorist attacks in particularly religious) who sit at the bottom of the the name of its particular understanding of Islam. pyramid, confounding the spread of hostile ideas, Above this base sits a mass of people who feel and trying to de-link jihadi networks within their partially sympathetic to these Islamist ideals, above own countries. Disrupting the individuals, groups them a smaller group who openly express support and governments who fund terror projects, host for bin Laden’s views, above them an even smaller their authors, or otherwise facilitate the efforts group who may offer concrete support or succour of the global terror network is also vital. Trying to terrorists and at the top of the pyramid is the to understand who is susceptible to the ideas at tiny violent tip, those who will actively become the base of the pyramid, and why, is an important terrorists. part of preventing a terror attack from within. The While the road from humiliation and anger to danger lies in open societies refusing to face the religious terror is certainly not direct and inevitable, admittedly diffi cult problem head on. In the long the role disaffection plays in tripping the violent zeal term, winning will mean excising militant Islamist of converts to militant Islam ought to be recognised. ideology from any legitimate position within Islam. A sense of cultural confusion or personal failure This should be a goal shared by both Muslims and can only make the group dynamic—the sense of non-Muslims.

All the Water in the World

by Roger Bate (Non-Resident Fellow of CIS and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute)

Water shortages are primarily due to mismanagement of water resources. And mismanagement, especially in agriculture, is largely the fault of centralised control by government officials. In this book, Roger Bate argues that water markets, in which individuals (or corporations and municipalities) trade their entitlements to water, introduce flexibility, reduce waste, allow fairer distribution, more rational development of new resources, and therefore smaller environmental impacts. It focuses on countries like Australia that have allowed and encouraged water trading markets to develop and the benefits they have produced. By looking at semi-arid countries (those with the least available supply) Bate shows how we can better manage this precious resource.

To order please contact the CIS on (02) 9438 4377 or visit www.cis.org.au

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