The New Statesman offers a refreshing change from The British media’s infatuation with the “anything but religion” excuse for the horrors committed by Muslim extremists. In their recent piece, “From Portsmouth to Kobane: The British jihadis fighting for ISIS,” they interview a number of UK residents who have made the long trek to Syria and Iraq to fight for the Islamic State.
Lack of time precludes me from any gloss beyond the above, but I’ll add reader Adrian’s take on it:
Interesting article from The New Statesman on the motivations of British born Isis members. Not much mention of western imperialism. Plenty of religion.
Maybe Greenwald et al could just possibly find some underlying enmity for western imperialism that even these poor saps don’t realise they have…..or, they could just listen to what they actually say.
No need for masochistic self flagellation when these guys make things so explicit.
A couple of excerpts from the article:
“I saw the situation in Syria but people said it was Muslim versus Muslim, it’s not jihad, so I backed off,” Jaman said of these events. That was the message coming from large sections of the British Muslim community, although it has failed to dissuade scores of young men from making the journey to Syria. For Jaman and many others, it was exposure to more extreme opinions online that proved more seductive than the message from their local imams. These fatwas Jaman found on the internet preached, for example, that Shias were not “true Muslims” and should therefore be fought. Jaman became convinced that the Syrian war was a battle over the future of Islam.
. . . Rahman was different – he craved martyrdom. “Life is for the hereafter,” he wrote online. “So if god has told me to go out and fight, and has promised us victory or martyrdom, then our life is only a small sacrifice . . . The main reason [to fight] is to please our creator by making his religion the highest.”
Of course there is not only one motivation for everyone, or even for a single person:
There are those who are principally motivated by the region’s human suffering, whom we call missionary jihadis; there are martyrdom seekers, who regard the conflict as a shortcut to paradise; there are those simply seeking adventure, for whom the supposed masculinity of it all has great appeal; and, finally, there are long-standing radicals for whom the conflict represents a chance to have the fight they had been waiting for. These divisions are apparent even within Jaman’s cluster.
What is striking among the panoply of reasons given by the UK residents who go to fight for ISIS is the absence of “Western colonialism” as a motivation. What “colonialism” there is is simply Obama’s decision to bomb ISIS—a far cry from the claims of people like Pape and Greenwald that ISIS is the direct descendant of Western intervention in the Middle East:
Others, however, have adopted a much more aggressive posture. One fighter I speak with regularly – and who I have come to regard as among the more thoughtful – has been radicalised by American intervention (he asked that I withhold his nom de guerre). Much of the old rhetoric that we were used to hearing in the aftermath of the Iraq war has returned: that the US is waging a war on Islam itself, not just on Islamist terrorism. What is most significant about this fighter’s animosity is that he is not a member of Islamic State and is allied with groups that have fought it in the past.
But, as I once told Sam Harris, even if jihadis claim that their motivation is religious, the apologists always deny that, looking for “deeper” explanations (almost invariably putting the responsibility on the West). But if they say their motivation is colonialism, well, we take it at face value. What kind of double standard is that? And what would it take for us to accept the motivations of jihadis at their word?
I bet that if the sky started to thunder and shake and the clouds parted to reveal Allah in all His Glory saying “Well done, My faithful jihadi servants” in a roar of mighty wind that blows revelation to every nation and land — then the “anything but religion” apologists might grudgingly admit that well … okay … maybe it’s religion.
No, they’d probably say it was a mass hallucination! 🙂
Particularly for those of catholic tastes?
Lol!
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Finally! It is true there are multiple reasons for getting involved, and I for one have never denied it. However, all those who join DAESH (ISIL) have one thing in common – they think the imposition of their extreme form of Islam and Sharia are the solution to whatever each individually has identified as the problem.
As long as there are leaders within Islam who continue to teach extreme doctrine, there will be those who follow them. There must be a Muslim equivalent to the Enlightenment within the Christian world.
They’ve been there and done that, and apparently didn’t like it. At one time, Islam was enlightened and Europe was in the dark ages.
I find it interesting that Europeans started into the scientific revolution thinking it would provide evidence for the great designer. Darwin broke that idea, and it doesn’t seem repairable.
When Islam abandoned science, or decided science must be subservient to theology, it doomed itself to centuries of decay. Now it has no power other than what it has derived from western technology.
But western affluence comes with a cultural infection. Pepsi, blue jeans, equality for women, television, internet. these are all cultural poison.
“At one time, Islam was enlightened and Europe was in the dark ages.”
You mean that the arabic “culture” had a multi faceted culture before the priest led politics and law took over.
I don’t know what “causes” cultures to become open or to become rigid. I believe there are many possible kinds of rigid ideologies. Fundamentalism is one. Communism and Nazism have take turns as brutal and rigid ideologies.
Ideological rigidity seems to be one way for despots to acquire and maintain power. I think the content of the mythology is irrelevant.
“The Enlightenment” means something rather more than a nostalgic “enlightened” past of Islam. “Enlightened Islam” was “enlightened” only by comparison to more barbaric societies of the time. It doesn’t correspond to The Enlightenment which entailed the establishment of secular government, recognition of importance of science instead of religion as a way to understand the universe, and so forth.
Yes, but secularism kind of snuck in through a back door. The original object of science was to validate Deism. Finding evolution and geological uniformatirianism was an unintended consequence.
I suspect secularism became acceptable because the wealth created by the industrial revolution coincided with the discovery of evolution. By some of the same people, no less.
Someone has called science a universal acid that dissolves ideologies and theologies. Wealth is also a universal acid.
Well, if those things are universal acids, then for some reason the acids didn’t work during the period of “Islamic enlightenment” you assert. Maybe they were too dilute?
I’d maintain it is because the “Islamic enlightenment” is mostly fictive.
I’m not disagreeing with you on any important point.
If wealth is a universal acid, why is most of the funding for and teaching of extreme Islam like Wahhabism coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
I think you misapprehend my intended meaning.
I am trying to say that European wealth arose out of science and the enlightenment. The wealth created by industrialization required enlightened and free thinking.
Therefore, despite the discomfort aroused by Darwin and Hutton and Lyell, secular science was allowed to grow, because it made a lot of people rich.
The Arab world has not experienced the need for free thinking. The wealthy elite of the Arab world got that way because they happened to sit on a valuable mineral deposit. They didn’t even have to develop drilling or refining technology.
Their wealth is empty calories. Sugar. It rots the mind the way sugar rots teeth.
I completely agree with your penultimate paragraph in particular.
Also, sorry if I’ve come across as a bit rude – it’s not personal, it’s the result of another conversation on a similar subject in the real world.
Ditto, here. I like that sugar analogy.
And my earlier comments, too, were more in reaction to an oft-heard apology for Islam that references the golden age of enlightenment a thousand years ago.
I probably come across as arrogant, but I intend to have a give and take discussion.
It takes time and effort to develop a balanced post, and it’s much easier jut to toss out ideas and deal with the response.
I think that’s okay as long as people understand that posts are mostly top of the head.
One glaring omission in your analysis. The effect of welfare and care for people. Religion declines fastest in countries with good welfare systems and things like the NHS. The US is the most technologically advanced nation on Earth, and the wealthiest, yet Europe is way ahead in terms of secularism. That may in part explain the British press ignoring Islam, we really don’t get the concept of faith any more.
The only universal acid I can see is caring for society. Remove the desperation and helplessness of some people and you remove the need for a Gods. We had it in the UK and religion declined. We hit recession and cuts and we have Radical Islam. The US has never had health and welfare for the poor and you have creationism!
Good point.The highest charity givers in the US are high Mormon states (where it’s compulsory) and the Bible Belt states, which is also Tornado Alley.
The issue I have with relying on religion for social welfare is their concept of “deserving poor”. Having to live, worship etc in a way they approve of to get help.
That’s why those of us in countries with strong government social policies are more atheist, secularist and humanist imo.
“The issue I have with relying on religion for social welfare is their concept of “deserving poor”.”
Yes. Gets me to thinking that there should be equivalent if not more scrutiny of “the deserving rich.”
One of the problems with Arab culture is that it is living on refined sugar.
The western industrial revolution tapped cheap energy. First coal, then oil. This was like a species finding a new and limitless food supply. But industrialization required intellectual effort. It required science, and science is enlightening.
The Arabs have tapped all the empty calories provided by exploiting oil, but they have not had to do any intellectual work. They are living on mental sugar. they haven’t had to transform their thinking or develop intellectual diversity.
I don’t play the blame game. In retrospect, oil has been a disaster. But hindsight is always clearer than foresight.
A few years ago I read a NY Times article about young, privileged Saudi men, their lack of a work ethic, disdain for manual labor, being accustomed to the hired help doing most everything for them.
I’m getting lost in all the indents, so I’ll start over.
I don’t think religion is the cause of anything. I think people gravitate to theologies and ideologies that support and encourage their tendencies. Even in the most rigid and authoritarian cultures, there are gradations of fervor and behavior.
There are times and places that present opportunities for violence. People who like that kind of thing find their opportunities.
Every religion and every ideology has had moments and niches that support hurting other people.
Sometimes the evil is hidden or disguised. In orphanages, in schools, in police work, even in social work.
What you see in militant Islam is a transient bloom of violent opportunism. I can’t say it will be short lived. Europe had its hundred years war; Ireland has its troubles. We could have centuries of Islamic violence.
I’m sure the people who participate in ISIS are sincere in their religion, but there are people in enlightened democracies who have dropped bombs on civilians, and who have spent decades trying to win hearts and minds at the point of a gun.
The content of religion is irrelevant.
Even if all your other claims and premises are accurate, the claim that “the content of religion is irrelevant,” makes no sense and can not be necessarily arrived at or supported.
No. Religion is as much a part of motivation as anything else, and the stronger the belief, the stronger the motivation.
People always have reasons for their actions, however hard to understand those reasons might be to others.
If a child is contemplating suicide, and he is under the influence of a religion who teaches him his death can be for the glory of their god, and do that god’s work by also killing other children that the religion condemns he might dress in a school uniform and go to a school assembly with a rucksack of explosives the group had stolen from a factory a few days earlier, and blow himself up in assembly, killing 48 and injuring at least 79. As happened. Two days ago. In northeast Nigeria. Boko Haram’s seventh school attack this year.
Don’t tell me religion had nothing to do with it.
Because, and only because, of my religion’s insistence that I’d go to Hell if I didn’t, I abstained from sex from puberty until I got married later in my 20’s. There is literally no other motivation for my actions. If that’s not proof of the motivating power of the specific content of a religion, I simply can not fathom the universe you’re trying to describe.
Yep, per The Good Book, “Fornicators shall not enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
Instead of fornicators, why not instead murderers, child rapists, holders and abusers of slaves, abusers of women, industrial polluters facilitating birth defects, adulterators of food and medicine, and a host of other such examples?
I’m not sure islam itself was ever particularly enlightened. The fertile crescent had been the most advanced and civilised place on earth for several thousand years at the time that the arabs invaded, so the fact that it continued to be so for another few hundred years afterwards doesn’t really say that much about the invaders or their religion, except to say that they didn’t trash the place straight away.
(Insert “except china” in the above according to taste).
If any period could be called an Islamic Enlightenment it would surly be the Islamic Golden Age, of the 9th thru 12th centuries. Your comment seriously mischaracterizes that period. It really was a special time in history, similar to Alexandria in its high time, and it really did happen in the Islamic world. No need to rewrite history in order to criticize current day Islam. Best to leave that to the religious and the Republican Party.
Except that the term “Islamic Golden Age” is highly misleading. Islam was the religion of the ruling elite but not the cause of the Golden Age. Alexandria, Cairo, Baghdad, Cordoba. All of the great center of learning had advanced civilizations pre-dating Islam. No such center of learning ever popped up in the Islamic heartland (the Arabian Peninsula) and there is a reason for that.
Exactly my point.
I should add that the arab invasions did unite the fertile crescent in the same political unit for the first time in 1000 years, which almost certainly helped create the later “golden age”, so the new ruling class get credit for that.
Well, I suppose if one doesn’t know anything about what is generally referred to in the academic field of history (no, I am not referring to you or anyone specifically, but speaking generally) as “The Islamic Golden Age” and you are left with just going by the name, perhaps in those circumstances it could be misleading. Otherwise, no, not misleading at all.
I don’t see your last two sentences as relevant at all. That is life. Knowledge is a cummulative endeavor. It isn’t like nothing was added during this period. It was. Much was also gathered from many different cultures, recorded and shared.
If you think I’m trying to defend Islam in some way, forget it.
I am a bit puzzled why you and TJR are so against the idea that at some point in history a society under Islamic rule was the most prominent center of culture and learning in its part of the world.
To suggest that nothing much was done by the Islamic rulers that contributed to this “Golden Age,” except that they neglected to trash the place right away is, to put it lightly, complete bullshit. Why even go there? This isn’t a difference of subjective opinion, that characterization is factually wrong. The evidence is clear.
Penultimate para: we’re not saying that, I’m not sure why you think we are.
Last para: again, that’s not what I said, although in this case I can see where you got that interpretation as I didn’t phrase it very well. Obviously I agree that the descendents of the invaders made a decent fist of being the ruling class for a while.
My point is just that the phrase “islamic golden age” is misleading in the same way that “christian enlightenment” would be misleading. In both cases that was the religion of the ruling class, but its far from clear how much credit the religions themselves should get.
Ahh. My apologies, I understand now. Your last paragraph brought enlightenment. I agree.
There is an argument that it was the Mongol’s invading Iraq and utterly destroying Baghdad that set back Islam and its potential higher learnings. Apparently Iraq had fabulous canal systems to enable there agriculture and the Mongol’s filled them in.
They killed and destroyed almost everything and everyone.
The west at the time was spared the the Mongol hoard due to the death of the Great Khan and then family politics.
For an amazing engaging podcast on this see Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. Recommended by Sam Harris. It is amazing the way this guy tells the story. The Wrath of the Khan’s.
Islam never recovered and the West at that time behind the East, China and Islamic culture, gained ascendancy by default.
One thing seems certain, you did not want to be on the wrong side of the Mongol Hoard.
Indeed, and the various Turkish invasions both before and after that.
IMHO the first rule of history is “Don’t get conquered by steppe nomads”. One of the reasons why western Europe took such a lead over the rest of Eurasia is simply because it was further away from the steppes.
Islam was never enlightened, Arabic culture was enlightened in comparison with Western culture. The idea that the religion dominated from its inception is a myth. There is absolutely no evidence, for example, that Mecca even existed at the time Muhammad was supposed to have lived. Proof of his existence is as rare as the proof of Jesus’ existence, but not talked about because Islam has shut down debate. There is archaeological evidence of strong ties between Christianity and Islam in its early days, which no one ever hears about.
Another way to put this is that if one takes a book of Arab philosophy from the “golden age” period mentioned above, all the authors have in common is a willingness to *write* in Arabic. They are not all Muslims: there are Christians, Jews and Nones, and they are not all Arabs either – there are Uzbeks and Persians and Azeris and … (etc.) as well.
Yes indeed, a veritable melting pot of cultures and philosophical traditions. Similar to Alexandria and others. For a brief moment Islamic culture, the ruling class at that time in that place, allowed and even encouraged curiosity and investigation. Then things changed for the worse and have never gotten better. For nearly a thousand years.
I am not sure why we, including myself of course keep putting “Golden Age” in scare quotes. Is it to indicate disagreement that this specific golden age designation is unjustified, or that the concept in general is invalid? If there is any validity to the concept at all it does seem to be applicable to this period of Islamic history. In any case, it is a term that has been commonly used as a label for this period by historians.
Mostly it all seems to boil down to the idea that jihadis are a cool gang to join.
There are a lot of reports coming out from former ISIS fighters (from defectors, and from those captured by the coalition fighting them) that they were a) very disturbed by the brutalities they saw and were forced to participate in; and b) were basically being used as cannon fodder in the front lines. Some were even being drugged to get them to fight.
I think this sort of thing needs to be broadcast far and wide to the many idealistic young men hoping to join the ’cause’ in ISIS.
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Do I see a cross Ant? I’m sure if I squint the right way that’s what it is, like on the Monster drink. Now, if we turn our screens upside-down it will be proof atheists are servants of the anti-christ!
Perhaps we’re golden rationalists…
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PS. Isn’t it already upside-down for you?
What I find interesting is the role of women in this phenomenon or lack of a role, We know with some precision as to their status in Islam and where female infidels are placed.. somewhere near the bottom of the ladder if reports of Isis are true as an indication.
In S. Pinker’s ‘The better Angels of our Nature’ it was shown that the ‘wild west’ was in part tamed by the introduction of women, pacifying the males into family life or just by being in the mix with their influence. It is worth reading that part alone.
This does not appear to stand in Islam because of the repressive nature of the doctrine in regards to females.
Their influence on their young male children is what? zero? they simply don’t care about their loving investment? it was all duty to propagate, after that your just another cog in the female repressive regime that is Islam? What is going on with the women of Islam when they could provide the balance that seems to be sorely missed.
Is it that they just don’t get it, held in ignorance by force if necessary because sure as the sun rises they are a force, only a silent one mores the pity.
I think this is part of the reason they don’t want women educated – they prefer them ignorant and thinking there is no other life available to them. I came across some shocking statistics on the UN website related to this. In certain countries most women had been physically abused by their husbands, and over 90% thought their husband had that right for things like answering him back, burning a meal and similar.
“What is going on with the women of Islam when they could provide the balance that seems to be sorely missed.”
You mean, leaving aside the abuse, threats, enforced dependence, etc? Indeed, what is going on with them?
I recommend reading Hirsi Ali’s Infidel for one witness’s vivid description of growing up as a woman in Islam.
Sorry Diane I thought I covered the oppression of women in Islam with:
“We know with some precision as to their status in Islam and where female infidels are placed…”
A bit presumptuous but I didn’t feel the need to spell it out.
but can I say this, it could well be (along with reason) a correlation between moderate Muslims and the influence of women by way of their input to family life and daily conversations. I don’t know and there lies my interest.
Surely the adult Muslim women in the west are covered by the laws of that country and Muslim men would be well aware of this.
Forgetting about the extremist for the moment, in some ways the moderates would not have to contend with violence associated with alcohol and drugs as it is strictly forbidden.
There will be exceptions though but on the whole without those influences domestic violence would be lower.. once again I don’t know.
I can extend my thinking to the external exposure and pressures of living in the west on Muslin women, is this having an effect on them? and it could go either way, such as disillusionment with the west.
Hypothetically speaking these women in the west could help those in the more extreme countries by giving them a voice.
I have read interviews with Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Sam Harris’ blog site he is a big fan of hers.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/lifting-the-veil-of-islamophobia
I think I see what you mean now, Keith. I’d hazard a guess that moderate Muslims of either sex have little sway over the extremists. There are certainly very brave women in the middle east who are risking their lives to educate girls and fight crime against women. We hear about them occasionally, and we should probably seek to find out more about them and what they need, how we can help, etc. Our MSM doesn’t pay them much attention.
Once again I encourage you to read Infidel–it’s not just an eye-opening account of one woman’s experience with several Muslim nations, it’s engrossing as all get out! 🙂
And speaking of Hirsi Ali, she now runs the AHA Foundation, dedicated to saving girls and women from FGM, forced marriage, and honor killings:
http://theahafoundation.org/
The conundrum you talk about is that the parts of Islam that need the most “consciousness raising” are those parts in which women who speak out are literally risking their lives. That’s hard for anyone to address, even for moderate Muslim women.
Perhaps the internet culture will do it’s magic in bringing esp. younger generations into the modern world; one can hope…
(BTW, Infidel also paints a picture of the relationship of repressed women with their sons; essentially they’re raising little lords who will soon have power over their mothers, just like all the rest of the men.)
(Please mentally remove that egregious apostrophe in there…)
I read the original article and was horrified by the implication that these few were not unique – that there are a significant [and I mean that in the real-world sense] number of radical Muslims in Britain, and perhaps a few elsewhere in Europe, who would be willing to go to war against the rest of the world to establish a Caliphate.
But this is perhaps old news – I understand that the cynical (and spy novel authors) have for several years referred to London as Londonistan, though perhaps not to Portsmouth as Pompeystan (Pompey being the Royal Navy slang for Portsmouth). England has a huge number of immigrants from the former British Empire, and now their children and grandchildren. Perhaps this is peculiarly English, given the class system that tends to keep the poor immigrants in their place, i.e. second-class.
But perhaps it is not – are the social policies of the countries into which these people immigrate giving them reason to radicalize, because immigrants and their children are (for societal reasons and not for the reasons of their parents) second-class citizens? Or is it something in them (the immigrants, their children, or both) that leads to this easy radicalization? *** Please note, I am not in any way condemning the social policies of England or any other country – our example in the US is that immigrants from poor countries (Central America and the Vietnam War refugees) suggests to my eyes that many immigrants do their very best to escape a grim past and become productive members of their new society. I’m not aware of a permanent underclass of immigrants and their children here.
But what for the US? We have far fewer immigrants from Islamic countries, but we do have them. And we do have the occasional radical (the shoe bomber, the Fort Hood shooter, etc.) Should we expect more? (short answer, yes, why not) – but what do we do to convince the youth of the world (and I think it is the youth) that rather than joining jihad in Syria they would be better off doing something else? We (our various governments) can dissuade them by preventing travel/imprisonment/whatever, but that is not a long-term solution.
Sorry for the long post, but I’m feeling discouraged.
I think at one point in time it was almost a worthy thing to do, to go and fight against Assad and his atrocities. That was of course before it became evident how insane and evil ISIS is.
And I do blame the whole thing, not on some vague bogey of Western Imperialism, but on that batshit insane religious nutter Dubya and his little poodle Bliar. The whole bloody world told him what would happen if he invaded Iraq and the cretin did it anyway. Without that, and the massive destabilising effect on the whole area, I doubt Islamic State would have got a foothold. I feel so sorry for the people of Iraq and Iran who almost had a halfway decent civilisation once.