Rory 7 on how to stop Homegrown Islamic Extremists

rcoobc

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@Rory 7

So you want the muslim community to do more than march, preach or work with the police. What is your idea here?
 
Rory 7 said:
I've already been through this @Rado_N. Do I really have to do this over? One example would be a unified political movement amongst Muslims (locally, regionally or worldwide....whatever way you want to play it) that legally outlaws ISIS and anyone fighting for ISIS. That would mean combatants leaving the West to fight or being shown to support the fight would lose their right to EU or US citizenship. I'm suggesting radical responses here to demonstrate serious commitment to fight extremism. In the absence of this we will have to conclude that the wars in the middle east have resulted in a war in Europe between national citizens. This will lead to an inevitable rise in the far right and all that goes with it. I'm not saying I have the answers, I am merely point out the lack of suggested responses from Muslim leaders and the inadequacy of responses from some Muslim communities. As I say, all this is predicated on the assumption that enough people out there really want to see the end of this mess.
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There are obviously problems with this, but its not the worst suggestion in the world. I dont think there are any tangable benefits over what we have now though, other than it makes us feel like something is happening to help
 
Let's have a serious chat on this but pls all remember to critique the opinion NOT the poster himself! Don't get personal and debate with ettiquete :)
 
Are Western citizens who fought for ISIS allowed back into their country?

Anyways, what does that have to do with Muslim leaders?!
 
Rory 7 said:
I've already been through this @Rado_N. Do I really have to do this over? One example would be a unified political movement amongst Muslims (locally, regionally or worldwide....whatever way you want to play it) that legally outlaws ISIS and anyone fighting for ISIS. That would mean combatants leaving the West to fight or being shown to support the fight would lose their right to EU or US citizenship. I'm suggesting radical responses here to demonstrate serious commitment to fight extremism. In the absence of this we will have to conclude that the wars in the middle east have resulted in a war in Europe between national citizens. This will lead to an inevitable rise in the far right and all that goes with it. I'm not saying I have the answers, I am merely point out the lack of suggested responses from Muslim leaders and the inadequacy of responses from some Muslim communities. As I say, all this is predicated on the assumption that enough people out there really want to see the end of this mess.
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Bringing this in here.

This isn't something that 'Muslim communities' have any control over, that would require fundamental changes to national and international law.
 
sammsky1 said:
Are Western citizens who fought for ISIS allowed back into their country?

Anyways, what does that have to do with Muslim leaders?!
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They are. Next question is should they be allowed back. Next question is do community leaders from Muslim communities have a position on this that is consistent? Probably not.

So that is kind of a lack of leadership isn't it?
 
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sammsky1 said:
Are Western citizens who fought for ISIS allowed back into their country?

Anyways, what does that have to do with Muslim leaders?!
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In some countries they are being stripped of their citizership, others are not.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-11/foreign-fighters-citizenship-around-the-world/6498920
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/norway-make-citizens-fighting-isis-stateless-1462776

But I think most countries would prefer to allow these people back in, to make it easier to track them. Remember, Britain couldnt even stop Bashar al-Assad's wife from entering the country, as a British citizen.
 
Rory 7 said:
Could leaders or communities campaign for a change to the law?
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I'm sure they could in theory, but I'm equally sure that castigating entire communities for not doing is massively unfair.

Didn't you also refuse to accept the fact that intelligence agencies are often provided information from the very same communities at whose door you're laying the blame? Information that directly leads to attacks being stopped.
 
Introduce ID cards. I dont understand why so many kicked up a fuss about them in the first place. It was fueled by a political and media agenda at the time.
 
Smores said:
Introduce ID cards. I dont understand why so many kicked up a fuss about them in the first place. It was fueled by a political and media agenda at the time.
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Most of the EU have ID cards. What are ID cards meant to do? I wish we had them, because they can use them in the EU instead of passports.

I've sent my passport off, which means I cant go to the EU for 6 weeks. :(

Do you mean a shift in culture where ID cards are required to use public services and go about public life?
 
Rado_N said:
I'm sure they could in theory, but I'm equally sure that castigating entire communities for not doing is massively unfair.

Didn't you also refuse to accept the fact that intelligence agencies are often provided information from the very same communities at whose door you're laying the blame? Information that directly leads to attacks being stopped.
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:confused: I don't think so, did I? This morning I certainly was very annoyed at what happened in Nice but I don't think I said anything of the sort. I did open my initial rant by saying not enough is being doing by communities. This seemed to get some people's goat up. Which is fair enough. But look at what I am saying 'not enough' is being done. My position really is quite simple; more needs to be done to stop radicalisation and extremism. Not sure why that is such a 'mad' position to take....
 
rcoobc said:
Most of the EU have ID cards. What are ID cards meant to do? I wish we had them, because they can use them in the EU instead of passports.

I've sent my passport off, which means I cant go to the EU for 6 weeks. :(

Do you mean a shift in culture where ID cards are required to use public services and go about public life?
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Theyre not a great solution to anything but they assist the authorites on both terrorism and crime. Its a small step.

I would say id make them mandatory for internet cafes though. I had to do that in China and i generally thought it was a wise idea. Id rather that than the PMs snooper charter.
 
Let me just put this in here from the other thread if this is where its being discussed.

Adebesi said:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born atheist I mentioned earlier in this thread, has a few suggestions, which basically amount to a reformation of Islam, much like the one Christianity went through when Martin Luther first started asking questions about whether God really condoned the selling of forgiveness over the counter. She identifies 5 basic principles that are commonly accepted by Muslims that create the environment within which fundamentalism and terrorism can thrive. They are: the infallibility of muhammad's words and the literal interpretation of the quran; the supremacy of life after death; the elevation of Shariah law above human laws; the duty of Muslims to enforce Islamic law on others; and the imperative to wage jihad. These are things, she says, that are taught to Muslim children, in the mainstream, as matters of fact that cannot be questioned.

She says imams need to be brave enough to challenge these concepts openly, triggering a debate across the world. It would be a slow process, it wouldnt happen over night, but at the end of it the religion would have less power to indoctrinate people, because they would not have been brought up to believe that everything the quran says is correct, and therefore it would not be possible for radical preachers to point to passages in the quran that call for violence against non believers or believers that have been corrupted by heathen ways, as evidence that killing is OK.

Again, this isnt going to change things overnight. But if children were not brought up to accept these five things as indisputable and fundamental truths, it would be much harder to sell the idea of jihad to disaffected Muslim youth. It would have no cloak of respectability, provided by mainstream teaching. Just as, if Christian children were brought up to believe that every word of the bible was literally true, and there was a huge taboo about even asking questions about the possibility of any of it not being true, it would be possible for people to extract verses from the bible and use them to get people to do twisted things in the name of Christianity, pointing out that it DOES say it in the bible, and your parents and teachers and priests HAD said that everything in the bible is true.

And also to reiterate, I dont think this is the entire answer. I do think the West has to take a lot of responsibility as well. But it might be part of the answer. And it is certainly something the Muslim world can do itself to at least start making things better.
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Adebesi said:
Let me just put this in here from the other thread if this is where its being discussed.
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I think this is very interesting @Adebesi, there is no doubt that reform in moques has a role to play. But my original thought was we need political leadership from Muslim communities too. If ISIS can galvanise itself to recruit supporters to what is essentially a 'political' campaign to create its own state, is it not possible to create a counter political campaign that Western Muslims get behind that is pro-integration/Western? I might be oversimplifying things but is that not possible without reform of the Islamic faith? Would that not be an example of more being done? This is not a criticism of Muslim communities on my part, its only a desire on my part to see as much being done as is possible to counteract this radicalisation.
 
Rory 7 said:
I think this is very interesting @Adebesi, there is no doubt that reform in moques has a role to play. But my original thought was we need political leadership from Muslim communities too. If ISIS can galvanise itself to recruit supporters to what is essentially a 'political' campaign to create its own state, is it not possible to create a counter political campaign that Western Muslims get behind that is pro-integration/Western? I might be oversimplifying things but is that not possible without reform of the Islamic faith? Would that not be an example of more being done? This is not a criticism of Muslim communities on my part, its only a desire on my part to see as much being done as is possible to counteract this radicalisation.
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I'm sorry but I don't understand that part, what do you have in mind, explicitly?
 
Rory 7 said:
I think this is very interesting @Adebesi, there is no doubt that reform in moques has a role to play. But my original thought was we need political leadership from Muslim communities too. If ISIS can galvanise itself to recruit supporters to what is essentially a 'political' campaign to create its own state, is it not possible to create a counter political campaign that Western Muslims get behind that is pro-integration/Western? I might be oversimplifying things but is that not possible without reform of the Islamic faith? Would that not be an example of more being done? This is not a criticism of Muslim communities on my part, its only a desire on my part to see as much being done as is possible to counteract this radicalisation.
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The problem with that is a "political" struggle will always run up against the fact that the word of the quran is infallible and if taken literally there are passages in the quran that justify what the terrorists do. I mean, in a sense what you are proposing is where we already are. Most Muslims accept what terrorists do is wrong. Imams say what they do is wrong. The Muslim mainstream condemns it. And yes, Muslims have suffered from it worse than non-Muslims. But until the underlying faith is discredited, or at least reinterpreted in the same way Christianity has (so people still believe in it, there are still Christians, but they do not read the bible literally), it will still be possible to use religion as a tool for recruitment for terrorism, and nothing will change.

You have to tackle it at source basically.
 
Adebesi said:
The problem with that is a "political" struggle will always run up against the fact that the word of the quran is infallible and if taken literally there are passages in the quran that justify what the terrorists do. I mean, in a sense what you are proposing is where we already are. Most Muslims accept what terrorists do is wrong. Imams say what they do is wrong. The Muslim mainstream condemns it. And yes, Muslims have suffered from it worse than non-Muslims. But until the underlying faith is discredited, or at least reinterpreted in the same way Christianity has (so people still believe in it, there are still Christians, but they do not read the bible literally), it will still be possible to use religion as a tool for recruitment for terrorism, and nothing will change.

You have to tackle it at source basically.
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That makes sense.
 
Smores said:
Introduce ID cards. I dont understand why so many kicked up a fuss about them in the first place. It was fueled by a political and media agenda at the time.
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'Civil liberties' aside, one of the big objections was the £1.5bn cost of introducing them iirc.
 
Jippy said:
'Civil liberties' aside, one of the big objections was the £1.5bn cost of introducing them iirc.
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Sounds a big number to the public i suppose, just give Google permission im sure theyd do it for free!

I also remember a lot of stupid arguments about centralised databases and other technophobe rubbish.

To be fair i recognise im in the minority who wanted them so i am more than likely in the wrong
 
JPRouve said:
I'm sorry but I don't understand that part, what do you have in mind, explicitly?
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Again I'm not entirely sure. @Adebesi's reply to my question on it makes a very good point, without religious reform its very difficult to see what a political movement might look like. I suppose what I am getting at is clearly ISIS taps into a sense of identity that some folks are lacking and need to tap into. My thought is, is it not possible to create a movement within Islam that galavanises young people against extremism in a very profound way? And again this goes back to my point about 'more being done'.

We read every day about the media savvy nature of ISIS online and how they are 'brainwashing' recruits. I guess I am asking the question, is it not possible to change culture amongst the marginalised potential recruits to extremism to the point where they believe in the quality of their lives? I've read a lot of people saying the marginalised are a recruiting ground for extremists and that would make sense particularly in France where cities have ghettos of marginalised Muslim youth. But one could argue that these young people live much freer lives with much greater opportunities than in other countries around the world. Could there be an equivalent political movement within Islam that champions and glorifies these freedoms over and above the oppressive nature of life under ISIS's vision of the world?

As mad as this might sound to some, given the breakdown in political systems around the western world, I don't think we should be far off having a National Muslim Party of France for example. I know that sounds mad but would it not provide a counterpoint to the extremist views extolled by the likes of ISIS? This is what I mean by better leadership. This would be an example of doing more, it would be about unifying and galvanising Muslim populations in Western countries for the greater good. As I say, it seems to me part of the appeal of ISIS seems to be about being part of something; in the absence of anything else really.
 
Adebesi said:
Let me just put this in here from the other thread if this is where its being discussed.
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My thoughts on a so-called Islamic 'reformation' are here - https://www.redcafe.net/threads/religion-whats-the-point.215250/page-211#post-18386008

Or see here for a much lengthier explanation - https://www.redcafe.net/threads/how-peaceful-is-islam.411611/page-19#post-18430980

On Hirsi Ali, I admit I'm not a fan, though I haven't read this new book. The 'reforms' she's suggesting in your post would fundamentally alter the very basis of Islamic law, such that it would no longer be 'Islamic' anymore. There is no need for this to happen IMO, it is a conclusion based on the idea that the shari'ah = Islam. But that is a notion only relatively recently introduced among Muslims, in the last 200 or so years, under the impact of the spread of Western modernity into Muslim lands, and especially the prestige associated with print and literacy which elevated the written word to something more than it was and at the same time enabled every Muslim to interpret the sources of the shari'ah as s/he saw fit.

Holding the shari'ah-minded to be somehow more 'orthodox' than others is objectively an arbitrary classification - it builds a kind of scale of 'Muslimness', with the shari'ah-minded being the most authentically Muslim, which never actually existed in Islamic history. I would say for most Muslims in most of Islamic history, the shari'ah has constituted only one, often vague, aspect of what being Muslim meant to them. More important was the influence of the various sufi orders, some of which admittedly were shariah-conscious, but most of which emphasized a higher level of understanding of God and his plan than the literal word of the Qur'an. Very few pre-modern Muslims' lives were untouched by the sufi orders, while many would have lived a full life with hardly any interaction with the 'ulama.

So what would be great would be if present-day Muslims could rediscover a really important aspect of their own heritage, one that doesn't run counter to the shari'ah but complements it or even subordinates it. It is after all the aspect of pre-modern Islam that was most appealing to the millions of non-Muslims who converted to Islam over the centuries. I admit this is unlikely to happen in the current climate.

I highly recommend this book - What is Islam? by Shahab Ahmed - for a fuller expression of these ideas. Read a review here - https://www.thenation.com/article/contradiction-and-diversity/
 
2cents said:
My thoughts on a so-called Islamic 'reformation' are here - https://www.redcafe.net/threads/religion-whats-the-point.215250/page-211#post-18386008

Or see here for a much lengthier explanation - https://www.redcafe.net/threads/how-peaceful-is-islam.411611/page-19#post-18430980

On Hirsi Ali, I admit I'm not a fan, though I haven't read this new book. The 'reforms' she's suggesting in your post would fundamentally alter the very basis of Islamic law, such that it would no longer be 'Islamic' anymore. There is no need for this to happen IMO, it is a conclusion based on the idea that the shari'ah = Islam. But that is a notion only relatively recently introduced among Muslims, in the last 200 or so years, under the impact of the spread of Western modernity into Muslim lands, and especially the prestige associated with print and literacy which elevated the written word to something more than it was and at the same time enabled every Muslim to interpret the sources of the shari'ah as s/he saw fit.

Holding the shari'ah-minded to be somehow more 'orthodox' than others is objectively an arbitrary classification - it builds a kind of scale of 'Muslimness', with the shari'ah-minded being the most authentically Muslim, which never actually existed in Islamic history. I would say for most Muslims in most of Islamic history, the shari'ah has constituted only one, often vague, aspect of what being Muslim meant to them. More important was the influence of the various sufi orders, some of which admittedly were shariah-conscious, but most of which emphasized a higher level of understanding of God and his plan than the literal word of the Qur'an. Very few pre-modern Muslims' lives were untouched by the sufi orders, while many would have lived a full life with hardly any interaction with the 'ulama.

So what would be great would be if present-day Muslims could rediscover a really important aspect of their own heritage, one that doesn't run counter to the shari'ah but complements it or even subordinates it. It is after all the aspect of pre-modern Islam that was most appealing to the millions of non-Muslims who converted to Islam over the centuries.

I highly recommend this book - What is Islam? by Shahab Ahmed - for a fuller expression of these ideas. Read a review here - https://www.thenation.com/article/contradiction-and-diversity/
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Cheers, Ill take a look.
 
Rory 7 said:
Again I'm not entirely sure. @Adebesi's reply to my question on it makes a very good point, without religious reform its very difficult to see what a political movement might look like. I suppose what I am getting at is clearly ISIS taps into a sense of identity that some folks are lacking and need to tap into. My thought is, is it not possible to create a movement within Islam that galavanises young people against extremism in a very profound way? And again this goes back to my point about 'more being done'.

We read every day about the media savvy nature of ISIS online and how they are 'brainwashing' recruits. I guess I am asking the question, is it not possible to change culture amongst the marginalised potential recruits to extremism to the point where they believe in the quality of their lives? I've read a lot of people saying the marginalised are a recruiting ground for extremists and that would make sense particularly in France where cities have ghettos of marginalised Muslim youth. But one could argue that these young people live much freer lives with much greater opportunities than in other countries around the world. Could there be an equivalent political movement within Islam that champions and glorifies these freedoms over and above the oppressive nature of life under ISIS's vision of the world?

As mad as this might sound to some, given the breakdown in political systems around the western world, I don't think we should be far off having a National Muslim Party of France for example. I know that sounds mad but would it not provide a counterpoint to the extremist views extolled by the likes of ISIS? This is what I mean by better leadership. This would be an example of doing more, it would be about unifying and galvanising Muslim populations in Western countries for the greater good. As I say, it seems to me part of the appeal of ISIS seems to be about being part of something; in the absence of anything else really.
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France don't have "ghettos of marginalised Muslim youth", there are people from all culture in the suburbs, but that's not really important.

Also I don't understand what a religious party in a secular country is supposed to achieve and there is already a French council of the Muslim faith who have been targeted by ISIS.
 
Smores said:
Sounds a big number to the public i suppose, just give Google permission im sure theyd do it for free!

I also remember a lot of stupid arguments about centralised databases and other technophobe rubbish.

To be fair i recognise im in the minority who wanted them so i am more than likely in the wrong
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I bet they would. My main objection was the prospect of a fine if I'm not carrying at some point and get stopped.
 
Jippy said:
I bet they would. My main objection was the prospect of a fine if I'm not carrying at some point and get stopped.
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By experience, you won't be fined if you are not carrying it.
 
Throwing suggestions around that Islam needs to reform is off for me. It points to a large part of the blame being on muslim communities and teachings.

Most of these people are being radicalised online, the crazy land of chemtrails. Are you saying if theyd have been taught tolerance then they wouldnt have succumb to the ISIS propaganda so easily?

If there was an opportunity for some of the crazy British white supremacists to go somewhere on a holy crusade to fight for their cause they would. They'd claim to be killing under the name of christianity too.
 
JPRouve said:
France don't have "ghettos of marginalised Muslim youth", there are people from all culture in the suburbs, but that's not really important.

Also I don't understand what a religious party in a secular country is supposed to achieve and there is already a French council of the Muslim faith who have been targeted by ISIS.
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The banlieues are pretty diverse in terms of ethnic background but there are large populations of Muslim and primarily North African Muslims to be found there; marginalisation has been well documented as have tensions between communities particularly in Marseille.

There is a French council yes but it has no political power per-se. My suggestion re: a political movement is to give these marginalised people something to identify with that reflects their values and opposes ISIS. I doubt any mainstream French political parties are doing that very well. Again, I'm not saying its the answer, but a lack of a unified political response to what is ultimately a political movement (ISIS) is badly needed. Albeit with the caveat already raised, it probably also needs reform of Islamic teaching.
 
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