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Extremism and theology
November 8, 2008 | Posted by Londonstani - 3:56pm | 39 Comments
Londonstani's been taking a peek at the dark side recently. You might wonder what this means. Has he been hanging out with Jihadis, again? Has he decided to call it a day with journalism and take up a government job?
Nope, it's much worse. Londonstani's been reading academic papers... yes, a complete mortal straight-to-hack-hell sin. He's not yet willing to admit (publicly at least) that the white towers of academia have even an iota of knowledge to impart to hard working journalists who spend time actually among the subjects studied from afar in dusty libraries.
However....
After spending quite a bit of time with radicals in London, Londonstani was pondering whether theologically based initiatives to de-radicalise were actually of any use. It was difficult not to get the niggling feeling that while the young men he was talking to justified their ideas Islamically, there were other more mundane issues of belonging, group dynamics, access to social mobility, community dynamics etc coming into play. By the end of the time Londonstani spent with them, he couldn't help wonder whether these guys would have happily made up the ideology they were spouting if it hadn't already existed before.
In his readings, he came across a paper comparing Sayyid Qutb, Marxism and National Socialism.
These lines near the end stood out:
"Since radical Islamism is not simply an aggressive variant of Islamic belief, but an
interpretation of the Qur’an in modern categories, it is an illusion to think that the
people attracted by this ideology can simply be turned around by information
and education. Rather, it is necessary to react to the ideology’s strategy of
unmasking the promises of modernity which have not been kept. To be able to do
this, however, one needs to realise that radical Islamism is part of the inside strug-
gle for the right understanding of modernity, a ‘dark side … of modernity’ as
Eisenstadt calls it. As long as western societies are unwilling to recognise the
modern character of radical Islamism, they will continually underestimate its
power over people and its attractiveness."
Interesting..
Nope, it's much worse. Londonstani's been reading academic papers... yes, a complete mortal straight-to-hack-hell sin. He's not yet willing to admit (publicly at least) that the white towers of academia have even an iota of knowledge to impart to hard working journalists who spend time actually among the subjects studied from afar in dusty libraries.
However....
After spending quite a bit of time with radicals in London, Londonstani was pondering whether theologically based initiatives to de-radicalise were actually of any use. It was difficult not to get the niggling feeling that while the young men he was talking to justified their ideas Islamically, there were other more mundane issues of belonging, group dynamics, access to social mobility, community dynamics etc coming into play. By the end of the time Londonstani spent with them, he couldn't help wonder whether these guys would have happily made up the ideology they were spouting if it hadn't already existed before.
In his readings, he came across a paper comparing Sayyid Qutb, Marxism and National Socialism.
These lines near the end stood out:
"Since radical Islamism is not simply an aggressive variant of Islamic belief, but an
interpretation of the Qur’an in modern categories, it is an illusion to think that the
people attracted by this ideology can simply be turned around by information
and education. Rather, it is necessary to react to the ideology’s strategy of
unmasking the promises of modernity which have not been kept. To be able to do
this, however, one needs to realise that radical Islamism is part of the inside strug-
gle for the right understanding of modernity, a ‘dark side … of modernity’ as
Eisenstadt calls it. As long as western societies are unwilling to recognise the
modern character of radical Islamism, they will continually underestimate its
power over people and its attractiveness."
Interesting..
UPDATE: Just realised the link to the paper itself is missing. You want page 5-10 and then the second half of 17 and the first half of 18.
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