Fighting extremism

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Remotely related to the monthly topic, comes this TED Talk lecture by Maajid Nawaz. Here he discusses the question about the root causes for extremism. His point is that, no matter if we are talking about far-right or religious extremist organisations (Islamist, or otherwise), there are some complex reasons why they have so much success in the conditions of a globalised world, compared to the moderate majority who embrace democratic values and who, unfortunately, are falling far behind.

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The four main reasons that he lists are these.

1. Complacency.
2. Political correctness.
3. Political and economic failure.
4. Ideology of resistance.

This guy's insights on the matter are particularly valuable, as he himself is a self-admitted former Islamic extremist. For more than a decade he was part of an extremist organisation, trying to overthrow governments in the Middle East. He ended up with a 5 year sentence which he served in an Egyptian jail.

He is telling the story about how the way people perceive themselves and identify themselves has changed over time. For example in the Middle Ages, people thought of themselves as being "from" some religious group, then in the 19th century with the ascent of the concept of the Nation State, people started talking about themselves as being "from" a nation or an ethnic group. And nowadays they are regarded as citizens "of" a country, despite their specific ethnicity or religious belonging.

Further on, he argues that individual identity is transcending the "citizen" and is entering the so-called "Age of behaviour", where people's ideas and stories that determine their allegiances and behavioural patterns are being re-defined. This is not always a good thing, because those who are benefiting the most from this tendency of social interaction without borders, are at present, the extremists. Meanwhile, the moderate majority has been lagging behind in their inability to formulate coherent ideology of their own, which they could put as a counter-balance to the rising extremism. In this sense he is digging much deeper into the root causes for extremism than most analysts tend to venture, while many are focusing on the symptoms and external manifestations of these extremist tendencies, rather than the very reason they are there.

One thing that far-right extremism and Islamic extremism have in common is the highly effective way they communicate regardless of country borders. They use all the tools of modern communication technology, they organise their actions and spread their narrative through the powerful medium of the Internet. In this sense, the globalisation of communication has benefited them greatly, and now they are not small, isolated groups on the fringe, but are moving more into the mainstream.

One important distinction that should be emphasised is that Islamist extremism and Islam as a religious system are two very different things. And also Islam-the-religion, and Islam as a political doctrine.

The reason why the values of democracy are lagging so badly behind extremism these days, he argues, is that the people who share the democratic values, have not yet come to grips with the conclusion that we live in the "Age of behaviour", and are failing in adapting to the new realities of a world dominated by trans-national social movements, as opposed to the entrenched partisan ideologies of the near past.

And lastly, he dissects these social movements of modern time, and describes four main components that they consist of: Ideas, Narratives, Symbols, and Leaders. If a group, or a society adhering to certain values and ideas, and pursuing a certain agenda, is lacking in any one of those four areas, it is doomed to failure, or at least to a major lag behind its counterparts and rivals. Which has been the case with the proponents for democracy.

Needless to say, I strongly recommend watching this lecture.

Comments

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

But what about the various Islamic schools of thought? And I don't just mean the major branches like Sunni and Shia, but movements like the Salafi, the Modernists, even the Sufi, and many other ways of religious interpretation like Deobandi and Barelvi, etc. The one I am familiar with is Ibadiyya which is unique for Oman. You might argue that those differ mostly on questions of inheritance (who is the true heir to Muhammad), but there are also so many schools of belief that go beyond that, each with their own specific interpretation of the Quran.