Category: Religious and Political Radicalization
Last week it was Everybody Draw Muhammad Day meant as a protest against attempts to limit freedom. At the same time the burqa ban is on its way Europe. As is the case in many of the cartoon-like controversies of recent, the complexity of political and religious issues pertaining to depictions of the sacred key symbols and freedom of speech, was reduced to a polarization of two antagonistic and mutually intolerant activisms: islamist groups vs. free freedom. Althought both the ban and the cartoon day may be aimed at radical it in fact targets Muslim as a whole. Both the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day and the burqa bans have in common that they are attempts to express and affirm a moral superiority over Muslims that need to be freed from their patriarchic religion that limits people’s freedom.
Vorige week wisten diverse kranten en blogs te melden dat Sharia4Belgium in de persoon van Abu Imraan steun en advies heeft gekregen van Abu Muhammad al Maqdisi: Al Qaeda topman, Al Qaeda terrorist, en raadgever Al Qaeda. De link met Al Qaeda past aardig in de toch al overdreven hype rondom deze club.
Belgian newspaper HLN reports that an ‘Arab group threatens with attacks in Belgium’ for approving a ban of burqas. The video can be seen as part of a, rather isolated, form of online engagement with jihad, the cause of Muslims and the struggle for justice. Such youtube channels are frequently attacked by the so-called Operation Smackdown but continue to surface anyway. In order to understand their potential we should not only look at the content but also at the user-generated connections.
Roger Hardy is one of the best journalists when it comes to religion and how religion affects people’s daily lives. Right after the murder of Theo van Gogh he made a program about Dutch Muslims. A few weeks ago he returned to the Netherlands and his report will be aired on BBC’s Heart and Soul on Wednesday 28 March. UPDATE: 28-04-2010 (podcast available)
Commotie over de komst van een FIOE congres in mei vanwege vermeende banden met de moslimbroederschap en islamgeleerde Yusuf Qaradawi. Die laatste wordt voortdurend in verband gebracht met zijn goedkeuring van zelfmoordaanslagen. Waar komt die commotie over zelfmoordaanslagen eigenlijk vandaan en wat is precies het standpunt van Qaradawi en hoe valt dat te plaatsen in discussies over zelfmoordaanslagen en jihad?
Mohammed Chentouf is nadat hij zijn straf wegen terrorisme gerelateerde activiteiten heeft uitgezeten, uitgezet naar Marokko alwaar hij spoorloos is verdwenen. En hij is niet de enige De zaak van Mohammed Chentouf e.a. doet vrezen dat de steun voor de rechtsstaat helemaal niet zo principieel is. De rechtsstaat is dan niet bedoeld om de vrijheid van de individuele burger ten opzichte van de staat te waarborgen, maar om de burger onder controle te houden. Een omkering van de situatie waar niemand erg blij mee zou moeten zijn.
Er zijn recent diverse rapporten gepubliceerd over radicalisering, salafisme en jihadisme. Een kort overzicht.
Wilders is showing his movie Fitna (chaos, strive) today in the House of Lords in the UK (see HERE for a critique) signalling his belief that Islam is a danger to a stable tolerant country. The real fitna however is already apparent in the Netherlands. The local elections to do not present the breakthrough of an intolerant ideology; that already happened. It is not a breakthrough for xenophobia and islamophobia, but xenophobia and islamophobia that has become acceptable and moreover a reason to vote. Not a breakthrough washing away political opposition but a deadlock situation making the country difficult to rule for left and right. Not a breakthrough but a result that puts the myth of tolerance into perspective.
In this third part of the radicalization series, I will take up an issue raised in part II; the need for critically analyzing the role of the state in counter-radicalization. One of the issues here is the distinction being made between secular society and a religious Muslim community, and between radical and liberal Islam. The secular is left unquestioned but in order to understand the particularities of counter-radicalization one must look into the secular-normative underpinnings of state policies and their political aims as well.
You don’t have to be a Muslim radical, or a radical or a Muslim to criticize the state of affairs in the past. But that almost 7 years after still no introspection takes place shows most of all that the tunnelvision still exists: the whole Iraq war is reduced to a matter of international laws and agreements.
