C L O S E R Religious and Political Radicalization - 19/26

Seven held in anti-terror raids in the Netherlands. The operation was designed to prevent terror attacks. It was ordered by the national detective unit as part of an investigation into a terrorist organisation, a spokesperson for the office of the public prosecutor (OM) said.

The suspects were held in Almere, Amsterdam and The Hague. Six of the suspects are men, aged 18 to 30. The seventh is a 24-year-old woman. One of the men is 19-year-old Samir A., the OM spokesperson said.

Probably his wife Abida is held as well.

A. was cleared by a court earlier this year of charges he was plotting terrorist attacks on a nuclear power station and other key
installations in the Netherlands. He is considered the main suspect in the latest investigation.

Reports received by the Dutch intelligence service AIVD suggested, the OM said, that A. was trying to obtain automatic weapons and explosives.

The national coordinator for countering terrorism has released a press statement as well.

Following the arrest of several individuals suspected of terrorist activities, additional security measures have been put into immediate effect at the recommendation of the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism (NCTb). Information from intelligence services has prompted these measures, which relate to surveillance and protection of specific objects and persons. Some measures will be visible to the public. For instance, the Binnenhof (the parliamentary and governmental complex in The Hague) will be under tighter surveillance. The headquarters of the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) in Leidschendam, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations will also be under tighter surveillance. It is not yet possible to say how long this level of surveillance will be in place. For security reasons, no further information about personal security measures can be provided.

There is no need to raise the general threat level associated with the national terrorist threat assessment. As reported earlier, the current threat level for the Netherlands is substantial, and that level remains unchanged. Nor is there any need to place any of the sectors participating in the Counterterrorism Alert System (Alerteringssysteem Terrorismebestrijding; Atb) on alert, or to raise either of the sectors already at a moderate alert level ï¿½ Dutch Railways (NS) and Amsterdamï¿½s Schiphol Airport ï¿½ to a higher level.

At the press conference Dutch ministers Donner (Justice department) and Remkes (Interior) declared they are related to the so called ‘hofstadgroup’. A group that, according to them, has grown and become more autonomous (not really clear what they mean by that but probably that there are few or none international links) and abuse islam for their terrorist activities (a message clearly directed at Muslims and non-muslims in the Netherlands).

UPDATE:
Samir A. is considered the prime suspect. According to the Dutch intelligence and information service (AIVD) he was looking for explosives and automatic weapons and probably preparing an attack on politicians and a governmentbuilding (perhaps the AIVD office).

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TIME.com: Generation Jihad

Posted on September 27th, 2005 by .
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

In Time: TIME.com: Generation Jihad — Oct. 03, 2005 — Page 1

Well ‘generation jihad’ is a nice soundbite of course, but the article is not bad.

Posted Monday, Sep. 26, 2005
The last time Myriam Cherif saw her son Peter, 23, was in May 2004, when the two of them stood at the elevator on the fifth floor of the gritty public-housing project where they lived, just north of Paris. Myriam, 48, was born in Tunisia, moved to France when she was 8 and became a French citizen. Peter’s father, who died when the boy was 14, was a Catholic from the French Antilles in the Caribbean. But Peter took a different path. In 2003 he converted to Islam and became a devout Muslim. He took to wearing loose trousers and a long tunic instead of blue jeans and repeatedly told Myriam that she should wear the traditional Muslim head scarf. And then one day last spring, Peter told his mother he was heading off to Syria to study Arabic and the Koran.

Today Peter, one of five French citizens captured by U.S. forces in Iraq, is being held at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, family members say. More than a year since she last heard from her son, Myriam Cherif is still trying to understand how, in the streets and cafï¿½s of Paris, Peter and other young Muslims like him were lured into giving up their lives in the West and pursuing jihad. “They saw aggressive, violent images on the Internet and asked questions about why Muslims were suffering abroad while European countries were doing nothing,” she says. “It’s like they set off a bomb in their heads.”

Generation Jihad suggests there are an awfull lot of them

Call it Generation Jihad–restive, rootless young Muslims who have spent their lives in Europe but now find themselves alienated from their societies and the policies of their governments. While the precise number of European jihadists is impossible to pinpoint, counterterrorism officials believe the pool of radicals is growing. Since 1990, the Muslim population in Europe has expanded from an estimated 10 million to 14 million. (Estimates of the number of Muslims in the U.S. range from 2 million to 7 million.) A 2004 estimate by the intelligence unit of French police found that about 150 of the country’s indexed 1,600 mosques and prayer halls were under the control of extremist elements. A study of 1,160 recent French converts to Islam found that 23% identified themselves as Salafists, members of a sect sometimes associated with violent extremism. In the Netherlands, home to 1 million Muslims, a spokesman for the Dutch intelligence service says it believes as many as 20 different hard-line Islamic groups may be operating in the country–some simply prayer groups adhering to radical interpretations of the Koran, others perhaps organizing and recruiting for violence. In London, authorities say, as many as 3,000 veterans of al-Qaeda training camps over the years were born or based in Britain.

Jihadi’s or non-jihadi’s many of these young muslims have the same frustrations:

Interviews with dozens of Muslims across Western Europe reveal a wide range of explanations for why so many are responding to the call of radical Islam. A common sentiment among members of Generation Jihad is frustration with a perceived scarcity of opportunity and disappointment at public policies that they believe target Muslims unfairly. Some lack a sense of belonging in European societies, which have long struggled to assimilate immigrants from the Islamic world. Many, in particular younger Muslims, suffer disproportionately from Europe’s high-unemployment, slow-growth economies. Some are outraged over the bloodshed in Iraq and the persistent notion–stoked by Osama bin Laden but increasingly accepted among moderates–that the West is waging an assault on Islam.

The rage expressed by members of Generation Jihad has raised concerns among European counterterrorism officials that policies pursued by the U.S. and its allies in response to the Islamic terrorist threat may be further galvanizing radicals. Says a French investigator with a decade of antiterrorism experience: “There’s a spreading atmosphere of indignation among normal Muslims that’s echoing among the younger generation.”

Besides economic deprivation the war in Iraq is also stimulating extremism:

What’s more, TIME’s reporting across Europe shows, the war in Iraq has further radicalized some Muslims, convincing them that the U.S. and Britain are bent on war with Islam and that the only proper response is to fight back. Listen to Uzair, the Savior Sect leader in London: “Muslims are being killed all over the world through the foreign policy of the U.K. and U.S. Many feel they cannot sit around and do nothing about it. What is the difference between a suicide bomber and a B-52? I really feel that war has been declared on Islam.” Iraq, says a senior French security official, “has acted as a formidable booster” for extremist groups

And some quotes of Dutch and Belgian Muslims might be disturbing for some:

In Belgium, a radical Muslim named Karim Hassoun who is head of the Arab-European League, says flatly, “The more body bags of Americans we see coming back from Iraq, the happier we are.” What’s worrisome is how openly such rhetoric is received among ordinary Muslims, many of whom consider themselves moderates. In the Netherlands, where 1 of every 16 Dutch citizens is a Muslim, it’s trendy for kids to hang on their bedroom walls half-burned American flags with Stars of David placed on them, says Mohammed Ridouan Jabri, founder of the eight-month-old Muslim Democratic Party.

Might be true all these frustrations, but as I said, not only the jihadists have these frustrations also the non-jihadists. Radicalization is a (violent) form of activism that requires some form of organization. So the question must also be who is organizing whom and for what cause?

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War comes to the heart of Europe

Posted on September 25th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Public Islam, Religious and Political Radicalization.

An article in Asia Times Online :: Asian News, Business and Economy. by Pepe Escobar that owes much credit to Gilles Kepels book ‘War for Muslim Minds’

The battle over the future of global Islam will be fought and decided in Europe.

Whether or not it is responsible for the attacks on London, the al-Qaeda nebula is now configured as a relentless jihadi recruitment mechanism, profiting from the fact that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been added to its original mix of extreme Wahhabism and Silicon Valley (which al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the early 1990s).

In this article the author discusses the concepts of al-wala wal-bara (“loyalty and separation”) that is crucial for understanding Mohammed B. cs ideology.

Whether or not it is responsible for the attacks on London, the al-Qaeda nebula is now configured as a relentless jihadi recruitment mechanism, profiting from the fact that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has been added to its original mix of extreme Wahhabism and Silicon Valley (which al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited in the early 1990s).

“Al-Qaeda” is a mutating virus, proliferating secretly in unexpected places. It used to thrive on subterfuge, evasion and deception. Now, the virus is attacking on three fronts. The Internet spreads the lethal, remixed Koran of jihad’s aims and ideology; Iraq has become the university for a new, deadly generation of internationalist jihadis; and Europe is the latest battleground where the new generation is bound to strike. The Euro-jihadi is here to stay.

“Al-Qaeda” is now a metaphor for global, deterritorialized jihad – indeed a “database” (as its original name implies) that strives to represent the microcosm of the whole Islamic umma (community). This is a political war conducted by a revolutionary vanguard. It is also a social war. It is definitely not a religious war. Whether religious war may succeed it depends to a large extent on the Muslim population of Europe, and whether it can isolate the Euro-jihadis.

No one is innocent
The killing of innocents, or massacre of infidels – as in London’s attacks – is not considered terrorism by either Osama bin Laden or Zawahiri: as bin Laden himself has made clear, it is seriously regarded as only a minor reparation for all the crimes committed against Islam since the end of the 600-year-long Ottoman Empire in 1923.

Al-Qaeda may be a revolutionary vanguard, but it is always careful to cloak its war as a war against unbelievers. In December 2002, Zawahiri published a crucial pamphlet in the London daily, al-Quds al-Arabi, widely reproduced on the jihadi Internet. He quoted a Koranic verse to justify the accidental killing of Muslims in attacks against unbelievers: the Muslims should not be there in the first place. Because it is ostensibly a war against unbelievers, al-Qaeda cannot but stress that if Muslims are associated with unbelievers, Islam itself is in danger.

Many clerics used this scholarly doctrine – al-wala wal-bara (“loyalty and separation”, in Arabic) to explain why Baghdad fell to the Mongols in the 13th century, as well as the Spanish Reconquista of Andalusia. Zawahiri used it to legitimize any “collateral damage” by jihad. The measure of Zawahiri’s influence is offered by the new, lethal and even more nihilistic generation of jihadis operating in Iraq: they have no problems justifying the killing of fellow Muslims and innocent Iraqi civilians, because for them these people are “associating with unbelievers”. Zawahiri made it clear in 2002 that any Muslim ally of America was by definition an apostate: “Jihad against Americans, Jews and their allies among the hypocrites and apostates is mandatory on all Muslims.”

The Euro-jihadis
The London investigation followed three leads: the attackers might have come from the Middle East, from Northern Africa, or they could have been British. Now Scotland Yard has established they were four men aged 18 to 30, “cleanskins” – with no criminal record – and British-born, of Pakistani origin. In short: the new, lethal, generation of suicide-bombing Euro-jihadis.

Most EU counter-terrorism analysts in Brussels – indeed, all over Western Europe – are stunned. This is what many had feared for a long time. As for rumors that London was part of a plan hatched by former Iraqi Mukhabarat agents to use British jihadis and thus retaliate inside British territory, EU analysts say they have no evidence – at least not yet – that Ba’athists were involved. But the jihadi component of the Iraqi resistance may well be. EU analysts tell Asia Times Online, “At the moment we have no evidence that former Iraq intelligence was involved, but we are studying the possibility of Zarqawi agents being infiltrated in Britain, or having come to Britain to conduct an operation.”

If “al-Qaeda”, the virus, really did perpetrate the London bombings, it won’t be confronted with the huge public relations problem posed by the Casablanca attack in Morocco. Then, al-Qaeda’s ideology – disseminated by Salafist sheikhs – had contaminated a group of lumpen proletariat Moroccans, who decided to turn their impotence into terrorism. The problem is that only fellow Moroccan Muslims were killed. The attacks on Madrid in March last year – perpetrated by Casablanca-linked Moroccans – was a different story: the victims were scores of “infidel” Europeans. These jihadis were trained by al-Qaeda. The same pattern, according to EU counter-terrorism analysts, may have played itself out in London.

Just as in Madrid, the attack was claimed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (which honor the Egyptian Abu Hafs, a former security chief for bin Laden and trainer of Arab Afghans, killed by American bombs in Kandahar in November 2001). Then a communique was sent to the London daily al-Quds al-Arabi. Now a communique has appeared on an Islamist website from Dubai.

Zawahiri’s jihad masterplan, elaborated in 2001, was to conduct selected, spectacular strikes whose powerful reverberation on global TV and the Internet would mobilize the Muslim masses. But Gilles Kepel, professor of Middle East Studies at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, warns that “apart from some narrow and unlikely alliances with intellectuals or black sheep, a few random Islamic bankers, and young, dispossessed bombers, bin Laden has been unable to unify poor urban youth, the Muslim middle classes, and the Islamist intelligentsia into a coalition capable of repeating the only triumphant Islamic revolution the world has ever seen: the one that took place in Iran in 1979”.

After London, this situation may be about to change. Kepel already talks of “the fight for Europe”.

Over 10 million immigrants from Muslim countries now live in Western Europe. Their children were born in Europe, speak one or more European languages, carry EU passports, are well educated and technology-savvy, and are familiar with the maze of European institutions. Internationalist jihadis are fighting to capture the hearts and minds of these 10 million.

EU analysts, among the doom and gloom, agree that tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims are bound to peak, especially in Britain and France. Some parts of Brussels, the capital of Europe, feel like Morocco. Belgium, as well as Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Scandinavia have all tried very hard to carefully calibrate their policies in terms of keeping potential jihadis under a close watch while at the same time integrating their Muslim populations. France has been too harsh; Britain had thought it kept everything under control by monitoring “Londonistan”. Now the battle for Europe has come – a matter of fitna – sedition, disagreement, war in the heart of Islam. Fitna is Islam’s enemy within – and it’s the jihadis new thrust that is provoking the turmoil.

The question facing the jihadis is whether to force the destabilization of national governments – like those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan – or to go deeper into internationalist jihad. In these terms, “al-Qaeda”, the virus, is not different from any revolutionary vanguard: one is reminded that Stalinists wanted to consolidate the revolution in the USSR, while Trotskyites wanted a permanent, world revolution. Until now, London was a Salafi, and Salafi-jihadi, sanctuary. Now there’s bound to be major repression – and dispersal. “Invisible” Euro-jihadis may be holed up anywhere. The point is not that “al-Qaeda” wants to impose Islam in Europe: what it wants is to impose Wahhabi values in the Arab-Muslim world, and extirpate the West from Muslim lands.

Retaliation
Salafis – closely linked to House of Saud-approved sheikhs – will keep discouraging jihad with a vengeance. They prefer discreet integration. As an example: in France, they did not even protest the law that forbids veiled girls in schools. Sheikh Yousef al-Qardawi – immensely popular because of his al-Jazeera talk show – is against suicide bombing as in September 11 or London, but he approves of jihad in Palestine.

The reverberations of London’s attacks, on the other hand, may embolden more Salafi jihadis in west Yorkshire, Hamburg, Paris or Madrid. Some of these jihadis have been to Bosnia, Pakistan, Chechnya or Iraq and are more than ready to strike in western Europe. Not to mention the new jihadis born in Europe, with clean records, apparently well-socialized, and aged between 18 and 30.

When Zawahiri launched his jihad, one of his basic aims was to punish the West, specifically the Anglo-American sphere. He didn’t foresee that the massive response would include death and destruction in the Middle East, as in Iraq. According to some Middle Eastern media reports, more than 128,000 Iraqis have been killed by the invasion and occupation since March 2003; 55% are believed to be women and children under the age 12. This figure is said to be based on information gathered in Iraqi hospitals and from the families of victims. This is how the Middle East evaluates the occupation. And this is one of the major factors giving jihadis what they see as justification for no-holds-barred retaliation against the West.

This new generation of Euro-jihadis is now turning it all upside down, profiting from widespread revulsion against the Anglo-Americans takeover of Iraq to retaliate as well as advance a Salafi worldview. This could all have been prevented by a very simple move: a real democratic project for the Middle East – before indiscriminate support for every one of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s excesses; before Guantanamo; before Abu Ghraib; before the leveling of Fallujah.

Instead, thanks to Pentagon propaganda regurgitated by corporate media, we now have a cipher, a man nobody is sure even exists – Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – elevated to supernatural status. EU analysts despair: we may be entering the age of one thousand Zarqawis coming from the shadows to haunt not the US, but western Europe. It’s as much a war at the heart of Europe as a war at the heart of Islam.

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Protected: de Volkskrant – Omhelzingen en kussen voor B.

Posted on September 22nd, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

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Protected: Laveren tussen de wet en Allah

Posted on September 21st, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Islam in the Netherlands, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Taking Back Islam

Posted on September 19th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

In the Washington Post an interesting article: Taking Back Islam

Rarely has a big idea gotten more lip service and less real substance than the argument that there is a war of ideas underway for the soul of the Muslim world. Do a Google search on war of ideas and Muslim, and you get more than 11 million hits. Yet, four years after Sept. 11, 2001, the real battle is only now beginning.

In this article David Ignatius tries to understand several developments among Muslims in relation to this ‘epic’ battle.

Traditional Islam is under assault from a puritanical fringe group known as the Salafists. The name is drawn from an Arabic word that refers to the seventh-century ancestors who walked with the Prophet Muhammad. For a Christian analogy to the Salafist extremists, think of the fanatical monk Savonarola, who in the 15th century burned the books of Florence in his rage at the corruption of the Medicis. The difference is that the Salafists have access to the Internet and car bombs — and perhaps far more dangerous weapons.

He refers to Quintan Wiktorowicz, who has done research among the Al-Muhajiroun in England and is the author of Radical Islam Rising

the Salafists operate like a cult. They draw in vulnerable young people, fill them with ideas that give their lives a fiery new meaning, and send them into battle against the unbelievers. Combating this seductive Salafist preaching requires the same kind of intense “deprogramming” used to wean away converts from other modern cults.

I have some problems with the notion of ‘deprogramming’ but nevertheless many of his insights are usefull (although not new) to get a better grasp of what is going on:

He found that the group preyed on disoriented young Muslims — not poor or oppressed themselves but confused and looking for meaning. Recruitment often involved a personal crisis that provided the Muslim cultists with a “cognitive opening.”

“To many young Muslims, their parents’ version of Islam seems archaic, backward and ill-informed,” Wiktorowicz explains. Into this spiritual void march the Salafists. They provide a structured life, through a mandatory study session every week in the halaqah , or prayer circle, and a new set of life rules. Among the prohibited activities Wiktorowicz discovered in his research were “playing games,” “watching TV,” “sleeping a lot and chilling out,” and “hanging out with friends.”

Despite the salafist dominance (or thanks to?) there is something of a counter attack emerging.

Traditional Islam is finally starting to fight back against the Salafists and their self-taught, literalist interpretations of the Koran. One of the leaders in this effort is Jordan’s King Abdullah, heir to a Hashemite throne that traces its lineage back to Muhammad. He convened an Islamic conference in Amman in July that concluded with a communique on “True Islam and Its Role in Modern Society.” It reemphasized the traditional faith — the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, the orthodox school of Shiite jurisprudence, the canon set forth over centuries of fatwas and other orthodox interpretations of what Islam means.

Rather than running scared, as mainstream clerics sometimes do when facing the Salafist onslaught, the Amman declaration was proud and emphatic. It drew together fatwas from the leading clerics in Islam, including the sheik of Al-Azhar in Cairo and Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf. Another backer was Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, who has a weekly show on al-Jazeera and is probably the best-known television preacher in the Arab world.

The declaration forbids the practice of takfir and calls for unity among Muslims and also limits the issueing of fatwas to qualified Muslim clerics.

According to Ignatius:

These Islamic leaders sense that their religion is being kidnapped by Salafist radicals with a grab-bag theology, and they are finally beginning to push back. It’s a war of ideas they should win, if they can make traditional Islam a vibrant, living faith. Young Muslims don’t want to go back to the seventh century; they want to live with dignity in the 21st.

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Protected: Lokman

Posted on September 16th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization.

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nu.nl/algemeen | Getuige Hofstadgroep werd voorbereid op martelaarsdood

Posted on September 16th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

nu.nl/algemeen | Getuige Hofstadgroep werd voorbereid op martelaarsdood

De getuige is korte tijd getrouwd geweest met verdachte Nouridinne el F. . De politie hield El F. op 22 juni aan, samen met twee andere vrouwen dan de getuige. De ex-vrouw van El F. geeft met haar getuigenis aan dat leden van de groep daadwerkelijk bezig waren met het voorbereiden van aanslagen.

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nu.nl/algemeen | Getuige Hofstadgroep werd voorbereid op martelaarsdood

Posted on September 16th, 2005 by .
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

nu.nl/algemeen | Getuige Hofstadgroep werd voorbereid op martelaarsdood

De getuige is korte tijd getrouwd geweest met verdachte Nouridinne el F. . De politie hield El F. op 22 juni aan, samen met twee andere vrouwen dan de getuige. De ex-vrouw van El F. geeft met haar getuigenis aan dat leden van de groep daadwerkelijk bezig waren met het voorbereiden van aanslagen.

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Protected: Rare jongens die Ossenaren?

Posted on September 15th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

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TCS: Tech Central Station – Four Years After September 11th: The Media Failure

Posted on September 12th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization.

An article by Stephen Schwartz on ‘takfir’: Four Years After September 11th: The Media Failure

We have reached the fourth anniversary of the terrible attacks of September 11, 2001. I am sorry to say that, in my view, the U.S. and Western media have completely failed to meet the challenge of reporting on Islam, in the four succeeding years since then, or in reaction to the atrocities that followed, including the extremist violence in Iraq, which I would not dignify with the titles “insurgency” or “resistance,” the Madrid metro and London underground bombings, and the terror assaults in Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, and elsewhere.

Islamic shari’a is quite clear on what constitutes a state policy that contradicts Islam: it is one that silences the call to prayer (adhan), and prevents the teaching and preaching of the religion. Serbia, Croatia (in Bosnia-Hercegovina), Macedonia, and Russia may be said to have done so in recent times, although indigenous and legitimate clerics did not judge it to be so. Thus, regardless of conflicts over land, Israel does not interfere with the peaceful activity of Muslim teachers and faithful. Nor, most certainly, does the United States. So one could just as quickly describe the U.S. constitution as a document that does not conflict with Islam, as to so label the Iraqi constitution. Is there reason to be concerned about the U.S. constitution as an Islamic theocratic document? I think not.

The failure to grasp the nature of the new Iraqi constitution extends to the document itself. Much noise has been made about Article Two, in which it is stated that “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation,” and some praise has been issued for Article 14, which proclaims equality of gender, ethnic groups, religion, opinion, social and economic status, etc. But little has been said about one of the most remarkable and significant elements of the new Iraqi charter: The ban in Article Seven on “Entities or trends that justify or propagate racism, terrorism, ‘takfir,’ sectarian expulsions,” as well as the Saddamist Ba’ath party.

The ban on takfir, which means excommunication or expulsion of one’s opponents from Islam, is exceptionally important, but I can say with considerable certainty that most Western journalists do not have the slightest idea about it. I have found no Western media commentaries on the issue of takfir as treated in the Iraqi constitution, but many that seek to associate tribal customs in the treatment of women, which have no basis whatever in Islamic tradition or law, with the future Iraqi legal system.

(more…)

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Protected: de Volkskrant – Vrouwen rond Hofstadgroep worstelen met verhoor

Posted on September 5th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Imams en het Hofstadnetwerk

Posted on September 5th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Moskee en radicalisering

Posted on September 5th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Elsevier: Het recht van de grootste bek

Posted on August 22nd, 2005 by .
Categories: Multiculti Issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Dagelijks hebben conducteurs, agenten, leraren, wethouders, winkeliers en loketmedewerkers te maken met scheldende en meppende burgers. Zorgelijk. Straks wil niemand dat werk nog doen.

Door Frank van Hoorn

Verschenen in Elsevier op 21 mei 2005

Misschien is het een verhoogde prikkelbaarheid door de verstoring van het menselijke dag- en nachtritme, zoals de sociologen L. Layendecker en P. Veerman in hun boek In de houdgreep van de tijd (2003) schrijven. Maar kijk naar bijgaande lijst ‘Vier maanden schelden en slaan’ (zie pagina 28 en verder): zulke verklaringen schieten te kort om die orgie van intimiderend gedrag, tegen welke vorm van gezag dan ook, te verklaren.Nederlanders – zo lijkt het – zijn buitengewoon verwende, egocentrische wezens geworden die als ze door een ander tot de orde worden geroepen, meteen beginnen te steigeren en die ander lik-op-stuk geven. Iedere burger zijn eigen rechter.

Mentaliteit
Deze mentaliteit wordt al jong aangeleerd. Een mooie illustratie daarvan zijn de voorrondes van talentenjacht Idols op televisie: veel moderne ouders geven hun spruit het idee dat alles wat hij doet buitengewoon is. Zingt dochterlief vals als een kraai en wijst de vakjury haar proestend van de lach de deur? Vader en moeder blijven met de aspirant-zangeres hardnekkig en vol overgave geloven in een zegetocht langs de internationale poppodia. Helemaal verkeerd. ‘Kinderen moeten op hun beperkingen worden gewezen,’ zegt cultuurfilosoof Ad Verbrugge (1967). ‘Het is goed te weten dat niet alles om jou draait, dat je afhankelijk bent.’

In zijn boek Tijd van onbehagen legt Verbrugge een rechtstreeks verband tussen de verheerlijking van het onschuldige kind en agressie van jongeren, de volwassenen van later. Verbrugge: ‘Geweld tegen de ambtenaar van de sociale dienst is: ik krijg mijn zin niet, maar ik wil mijn zin. Dat is het gevaar als op scholen en in het gezin het gezag steeds verder ondermijnd raakt en men is ingesteld op de beleving van het individu.’

En orde en gezag, dat zijn in Nederland al heel lang vieze woorden, blijkt ook het boek Publiek geweld (2003). Daarin schrijft socioloog Gabriel van den Brink dat moderne burgers onder alle omstandigheden ‘respect’ eisen, wat onherroepelijk tot problemen leidt in de (semi-)openbare ruimte ‘waar het gedrag, de blik of alleen de aanwezigheid van anderen als hinderlijk ervaren wordt’. Wee de beambte die in die sfeer de orde moet handhaven. ‘Je bent in feite niets meer, je bent een voetveeg,’ zegt een politieagent berustend in de studie Beledigd in Amsterdam (2005), een onderzoek naar verbaal geweld tussen publiek en politie in de hoofdstad.

Bovendien: Nederland is een nogal kleinzerige natie geworden.

‘De situatie die zich die ochtend afspeelde staat nog steeds als een bepaalde traumatische ervaring bij mij op het netvlies gegrift,’ schrijft een jonge vrouw, bekeurd omdat zij – let wel! – met haar voeten op een metrobank zat, in een officiele klacht over het optreden van de Amsterdamse politie. Iedereen een trauma, dat is het sfeertje. De bijna religieuze aanbidding van het slachtoffer – stille tochten, condoleanceregisters, traumateams – zorgt ervoor dat de gevoeligheid voor geweld, en daarmee het idee in een extreem gewelddadige tijd te leven, alleen maar toeneemt.

En dan zijn er de media, die, meer dan vroeger, foto’s en zeer persoonlijke details van slachtoffers laten zien. Hoe makkelijker identificatie met de slachtoffers van geweld wordt, des te dieper wordt de angst. ‘Ik leef in een duistere wereld en op elke straathoek loert acuut gevaar’ – dat gevoel bekruipt de burger achter zijn flakkerende beeldschermen van televisie en computer. Wie het gordijn opzijschuift en naar buiten kijkt, ziet vaak een heel andere wereld. Maar vaak ook niet: de cijfers en de angst zijn verontrustend genoeg.

(more…)

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Protected: Haagsche Courant – Verbazing over Martine van den O.

Posted on August 22nd, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

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Protected: Trouw: ‘Allah beledigen, dat moet je niet doen’ en ‘leven in de sjaria-staat’

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Protected: Trouw: 'Allah beledigen, dat moet je niet doen' en 'leven in de sjaria-staat'

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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Asharq Alawsat – Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi “Spiritual Godfather”

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by .
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Asharq Alawsat Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi “Spiritual Godfather”

Al Maqdisi is not only Al-Zarqawi’s “spiritual godfather”. The same can be said for Mohammed B. who frequently uses texts from Sayyd Qutb’s Milestones and from Al Maqdisi. The concepts of al-Walaa’ wal Baraa’ (to be loyal and to disavow for the sake of Allah) were central. Mohammed B. translated al-Maqdisi’s ‘Millat Ibrahim’ into Dutch. In this text Maqdisi elaborates on loyalty and disavowal. It is also very informative about Al Maqdisi, his thoughts, his connection with international terrorism and especially with his student al-Zarqawi.

The concept of loyalty and disavowal is one of the pillars of al Maqdisi’s thought and his favorite argument. He used it in conjunction with extracts from the Quran, the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet), Salafi teachings and the fatwas (religious edicts) of Wahabi clerics ( strict orthodox Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia who strive to purify Islamic beliefs and reject any innovation occurring after the 3rd century of Islam). Al Maqdisi’s use of the concept was best displayed in his famous book, “The Faith of Ibrahim”ï¿½, his most significant representation of Salafi ideology. The book is similar to Sayyid Qutb’s “Milestones”ï¿½ in terms of its impact on Salafi ideology. Based on a simple idea, the book advocates following the path set by the Prophet Ibrahim, because God ordered his followers to take Ibrahim as a model in the Koranic verse: “You have a good example in Ibrahim and those who were with him. They said to their people, we disavow you because what you idolize is different than Allah.”

As such, following the way of Ibrahim requires disbelieving the devil and disavowing him. The devil’s infidelity can be seen in several ways, mainly in the fact that he does not rule according to God’s ordinance. A verse in the Quran says, “Those who do not follow Allah’s revelation in their rule are infidels.”ï¿½ According to al Maqdisi, since all Arab governments do not rule by God’s edict, they are all infidels and need to be disavowed, as the Prophet Ibrahim did before.

The book had a powerful impact in a generation of jihadist men. Al Maqdisi, using seemingly obvious religious language and texts, motivated a number of young Muslim men and incite them to commit violence. This was best illustrated by the al Ulya explosions in Riyadh , in November 1995, when a group blew up a training center for the Saudi National Guard. Abd al Aziz al Muthim who masterminded the attack had been traveling frequently to Jordan and bringing back with him al Maqdisi’s books, listening to his teachings, and promoting his ideas. The Palestinian cleric himself paid a few visits to the Kingdom, even after he wrote “Conspicuous Manifestations of the Saudi State’s Infidelity”ï¿½ where he unequivocally denounced the Kingdom’s government.

(more…)

2 comments.

Asharq Alawsat – Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi "Spiritual Godfather"

Posted on July 29th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Internal Debates, International Terrorism, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Asharq Alawsat Abu Mohammed al Maqdisi: al-Zarqawi “Spiritual Godfather”

The concept of loyalty and disavowal is one of the pillars of al Maqdisi’s thought and his favorite argument. He used it in conjunction with extracts from the Quran, the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet), Salafi teachings and the fatwas (religious edicts) of Wahabi clerics ( strict orthodox Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia who strive to purify Islamic beliefs and reject any innovation occurring after the 3rd century of Islam). Al Maqdisi’s use of the concept was best displayed in his famous book, “The Faith of Ibrahim”ï¿½, his most significant representation of Salafi ideology. The book is similar to Sayyid Qutb’s “Milestones”ï¿½ in terms of its impact on Salafi ideology. Based on a simple idea, the book advocates following the path set by the Prophet Ibrahim, because God ordered his followers to take Ibrahim as a model in the Koranic verse: “You have a good example in Ibrahim and those who were with him. They said to their people, we disavow you because what you idolize is different than Allah.”

As such, following the way of Ibrahim requires disbelieving the devil and disavowing him. The devil’s infidelity can be seen in several ways, mainly in the fact that he does not rule according to God’s ordinance. A verse in the Quran says, “Those who do not follow Allah’s revelation in their rule are infidels.”ï¿½ According to al Maqdisi, since all Arab governments do not rule by God’s edict, they are all infidels and need to be disavowed, as the Prophet Ibrahim did before.

The book had a powerful impact in a generation of jihadist men. Al Maqdisi, using seemingly obvious religious language and texts, motivated a number of young Muslim men and incite them to commit violence. This was best illustrated by the al Ulya explosions in Riyadh , in November 1995, when a group blew up a training center for the Saudi National Guard. Abd al Aziz al Muthim who masterminded the attack had been traveling frequently to Jordan and bringing back with him al Maqdisi’s books, listening to his teachings, and promoting his ideas. The Palestinian cleric himself paid a few visits to the Kingdom, even after he wrote “Conspicuous Manifestations of the Saudi State’s Infidelity”ï¿½ where he unequivocally denounced the Kingdom’s government.

(more…)

2 comments.

Protected: de Volkskrant – Deurwaarders van Allah, dat klinkt leuker

Posted on July 28th, 2005 by martijn.
Categories: Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

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