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Al Qaeda in the West As a Youth Movement: the Power of a Narrative Olivier Roy

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Al Qaeda in the West As a Youth Movement: the Power of a Narrative Olivier Roy No. 168 y August 2008 Al Qaeda in the West as a Youth Movement: The Power of a Narrative Olivier Roy hy do we bother, in Europe, about ‘Islamic Any counter-terrorist policy has to be based on an radicalisation’? The answer seems obvious. analysis of the roots of terrorism. If not, such a policy WThere are at least two good reasons: one is could not only be ineffective, but also counter- terrorism, with its security implications; the other is the productive, by inducing some of the phenomena it claims issue of integrating second-generation migrants in to combat. Europe, apparently the most fertile ground for recruiting Roughly speaking, there are two approaches: one vertical, terrorists. For most observers, the link between terrorism one horizontal. The vertical approach involves and integration is a given fact. Al Qaeda-type terrorist establishing a genealogy of radicalisation from the Koran activities carried out either in Europe, or by European and the first Islamic community to the present Islamist residents and citizens abroad, are seen as the extreme radicals, going through radical theology (Ibn Taymiyya), form, and hence as a logical consequence, of Islam- ideologisation (Hassan al Banna and the Muslim related radicalisation. There is a teleological approach brothers) and the history of Middle Eastern conflicts, consisting of looking in retrospect at every form of from Bonaparte’s campaign in Egypt to the present radicalisation and violence associated with the Muslim conflicts in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. This population in Europe as a harbinger of terrorism. approach tends to lump together all kind of violence This approach is problematic, not so much because it linked with Muslim populations, for example ethno- casts a shadow of suspicion and opprobrium on Islam as cultural tensions affecting migrants (crimes of honour), a religion and on Muslims in general, but because it fails petty delinquency and terrorism. The horizontal to understand the ‘roots of violence’ and it arbitrarily approach, by contrast, consists of putting the ‘leap into isolates ‘Muslim’ violence from the other levels of terrorism’ into the context of the contemporary violence among European youth. This, in turn, has two phenomena of violence affecting our societies in general, negative consequences: it does not allow us to understand and specifically youth. The two approaches are not the motivations for violence among people joining Al exclusive of course, but I will argue that the link between Qaeda (who are far from being, as we shall see, devoted them is to be understood less in sociological and political Muslims fighting for their Middle Eastern brothers), and terms than in terms of a narrative. The success of Osama it unduly concentrates on “what is the problem with Bin Laden is not to have established a modern and Islam”, precisely playing on Al Qaeda’s own terms, and efficient Islamist political organisation, but to have spawning a debate that will have little or no impact invented a narrative that could allow rebels without a among the segments of the population who are cause to connect with a cause. susceptible to joining Al Qaeda. As we shall see, We examine the two views below. comparing good Islam to bad Islam does not make sense, not because Islam is all bad or all good, but because the process of violent radicalisation has little to do with religious practice, while radical theology, as salafisme, does not necessarily lead to violence. Olivier Roy is a Senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (since 1985) and a Consultant for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (since 1984). He is a Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (since 2003). He is the author of Globalized Islam (Columbia University Press), 2004, and Secularism confronts Islam (Columbia University Press), 2007. CEPS Policy Briefs present concise, policy-oriented analyses of topical issues in European affairs, with the aim of interjecting the views of CEPS researchers and associates into the policy-making process in a timely fashion. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the authors in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which they are associated. Available for free downloading from the CEPS website (http://www.ceps.eu) y © CEPS 2008 1. The debate on the roots of terrorism comparison between the different forms of violence existing among the various milieus that could support The vertical approach terrorists. It tends to downplay the impact of Middle Al Qaeda is a revolutionary organisation in the Eastern conflicts and Islamic religious radicalisation. The continuation of the Middle Eastern Islamist movements arguments run as follows: (Muslim Brothers, Said Qotb, Ayman al Zawahiri). Its • There is a break between Al Qaeda and the strategy is defined by a precise ideology: to topple the traditional Islamists movement: Al Qaeda has no real existing regimes in the Middle East and replace them political programme of establishing a territorial with a Caliphate based on sharia law. Hence the political Islamic state based on sharia. There is a clear gap radicalisation is part of a process of theological between islamo-nationalism (Hamas, Hezbollah, radicalisation, known as salafisme. Islam is at the core of Iran) and the global de-territorialised jihad of Al Al Qaeda legitimacy and thinking. It plays on the Qaeda. AQ’s references to Islam are for the sake of nostalgia of the Muslim community for a Golden Age. creating a narrative, not of establishing a genuine Ideology is the key: people join Al Qaeda because they political agenda. Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s share its ideology and political goals. Indoctrination is the deputy, is an exception (the only AQ member coming basis of recruitment: militants do read books and leaflets, from the elite of the Muslim Brothers) and is unduly even if they use the internet more than the street corner seen as the ideologist of Al Qaeda. bookshop. Conflicts in the Middle East are at the core of • Instead of promoting a territorial Caliphate in the the ‘Muslim wrath’; Muslims living in Europe do identify Middle East, Al Qaeda is committed to a global with their oppressed brothers of the greater Middle East. struggle against the world power (the US) in the To counter Al Qaeda, one should address the political continuation of the radical anti-imperialist struggles grievances of the sympathisers. Whatever different of the 1960s and 1970s (Che Guevara, the Baader- conceptions exist about a settlement of conflicts in the Meinhof gang). It stresses political activism and Middle East, there will be no de-radicalisation without addresses a wider audience than just the Muslim improving the situation in the Middle East. A global war community (hence the converts). on terrorism makes sense because similar trends and ideas are at work among most of the Muslims involved in • Al Qaeda does not play a vanguard or a leading role local as well as global conflicts. in the conflicts of the Middle East, but is trying to impose its own agenda even against the local This vertical approach is at present largely dominant Islamists (Hamas). There are continuous tensions among politicians, journalists and experts of the Middle between internationalist fighters and local insurgents East. It can lead to two different conceptions, both based in Iraq, Afghanistan and even Lebanon. on the premises of the clash of civilisations theory. The first assumes that there is a definitive gap between Islam • The West should address the different Middle and the West, and the only policy is ‘authoritarian Eastern conflicts from a political perspective (a integration’ (banning the burqas and even the veil, struggle for territorial control from different actors) enforcing acculturation, limiting religious freedom). and not by ascribing to them an ideological Personalities as different as Daniel Pipes, Fadela Amara, perspective (Caliphate and sharia). Fritz Bolkenstein and far rightists are on this line. The • Ideology plays little role in the radicalisation of the second approach is to promote ‘good Islam’, through the jihadist internationalist youth: they are attracted by a so-called ‘dialogue of civilisation’, bringing together narrative not an ideology. Western thinkers and Middle East religious authorities, as well as European authorities and Muslim community • The process of radicalisation is to be understood by leaders, and promoting some sort of multi-culturalism or putting it into perspective with the other forms of ‘reasonable accommodation’, in order to try to establish a violence among European youth. common ground between East and West. The ‘Alliance • Any process of de-radicalisation should address of civilisations’ project and the interfaith conferences youth populations, and not an elusive Muslim recently promoted by the Saudi government are along community, which is more constructed (particularly these lines. by government policies and by self-appointed community leaders) than real. The horizontal approach This perspective is undoubtedly a minority view. But it is This approach is based on the analysis of the individual finding more ground among police and intelligence biographies and trajectories of people who have been practitioners, who now have an important database of actually involved in terrorist activities in the West or who radicals coming from or acting in Europe, and see the left the West to perpetrate terrorist activities in the discrepancy between the individual profiles of the Middle East. It concludes that the vertical approach does radicals and the motivations that are attributed to them not help to understand the process of radicalisation, and from outside. considers it more productive to establish a transversal 2 | Olivier Roy If we adopt the first version, the Middle East is at the of origin (with the possible exception of Saudi centre of the process of radicalisation and hence should Arabia), and they have no or little background of be at the centre of the de-radicalisation policy.
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