Why do European youth join Daesh?  Striking estimates (4)

Dr Mahmud Abdullah

Muslims do not make up a major percentage of the population in Western countries, in general, and in Europe, in particular. Nonetheless, the propaganda of the far right tries to give a different impression about the numbers of Muslims in Europe. The far Islamic right tries to do the same as well. Both of them claim that Muslims are on the increase in the European continent. But this is something belied by statistics.

Highlighting the crimes committed by some Muslims is part of a political struggle between the right and the left. Leftist parties are becoming increasingly popular. They succeeded in convincing a large number of people of the right of the Palestinians to establishing their own independent state. This can revive fears from Muslims or open the door for the presence of Islamophobia, which has dangerous consequences.

Europe’s Islamic centers played an important role in strengthening extremist elements. This left no room for moderate Islamic discourse. Political Islam succeeded, meanwhile, in occupying growing space, assuming different forms. It is being given different names, such as “European Islam”, “Enlightened Islam”, and “Post-Islamism”.

There are debates in Europe now on the possibility of incorporating political Islam into European politics and societies. Post-Islamism is being highly debated in Europe, in general, and in France, in particular. The talk is now about the rise of a post-Islamic jihad current. Some people even say political Islam is having an unfettered access to power. Turkey is a case in point, some people say. The case of Turkey opened the door for the representatives of political Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, to gain ground in the European continent. The escape of a large number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders from their countries to Europe helped this happen.

When they arrived in Europe, these Muslim Brotherhood leaders depended on huge funds coming from some Gulf states, especially from Saudi Arabia, to found Islamic centers in a number of European capitals. They used the same funds in building a huge network of societies and federations, such as the International Federation of Muslim Scholars.

The Muslim Brotherhood was and continues to be the main mentor of violent movements around the world. Terrorist groups learn lessons from the Brotherhood. In its most recent book, Daesh calls for intervention in distressed regions and offering support to residents in these regions. Known as the “Management of Brutality”, this attitude aims to help such extremist groups win popularity and draw in new members.

This can be described as the “Social Containment Strategy”. The currents of political Islam have a knack for implementing such a strategy to penetrate the different political classes.

The Muslim Brotherhood – as a representative of political Islam – depended on social containment to draw in social classes subject to deprivation because of the capitalist system. It did the same with those subjected to injustice because of widespread misconceptions about Muslims.

Some Muslim Brotherhood leaders also mediated a settlement of disputes between extremist members of the general public and European governments.

This was how such Islamist forces succeeded in gaining ground in Europe over time.

There is a marked absence of credible data about the number of Europeans joining Daesh in Arab Spring states. Nonetheless, some of the estimates put the number of these Europeans between 20,000 and 30,000. However, one of the studies managed to determine the number of Europeans who travelled to Syria. The following table mentions this in detail:

Figures included in the table are cited from a table by British counterterrorism expert Richard Barrett.

The first observation one can make of this table is that Russia has sent the largest number of jihadists to Syria. One reason for this is that the Serbian and Chechen wars had left a large number of jihadists behind. Added to these jihadists are Russian Muslims influenced by the footage and videos they watch of Syrians reeling in their country.

The second note is that France occupies an advanced position among countries sending jihadists to Syria. One reason for this is that most Tunisian jihadists who had gone to Syria – estimated at 3,000 – are related to Moroccan migrants in France.

The other thing is that the conditions of Moroccan migrants in France become more difficult day after day.

The French follow a secular course that leaves no room for religious specificity. This pushes the advocates of cultural diversity to compare France to the US, for example, where everybody is free to speak about his cultural specificity.

The table, on the other hand, reveals the advanced position Germany occupies among other European states as far as the number of Europeans travelling to Syria is concerned.

Germany has its own peculiarity. It is home to the largest Islamic center in Europe. This is the Islamic Center in German capital Berlin. This center was founded by Tariq Ramadan, a grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder, Hassan al-Banna. It played a central role in the evolution of Islamist organizations.

There is not a strong evidence of any links between jihadists, on one hand, and such centers, on the other. Nonetheless, these links were established by some of the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother of political Islam in the Arab world. The Brotherhood’s discourse established the first links between religion and politics. It is also considered the first mother of the jihadist ideology. Some of the roots of this ideology can be traced in the thinking of Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyed Qotb.

Germany, on the other hand, is a fertile soil for racism. The presence of the Neo-Nazis and those who dream of the return of the Führer (a German word meaning “leader”), begets hatred toward Muslims. This opens the door for Muslims to undergo painful experiences, including physical attacks and sometimes death.

Germany was a logistic base and a refuge for the terrorists and jihadists for five years after the 9/11 attacks. It was an ideal refuge for organizations like al-Qaeda to build funding networks.

One of the researchers divided European states into the following three groups:

• States that have the largest number of jihadists, namely the UK, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany and the Balkans.
• States that have a smaller number of jihadists, or those that sent not more than 100 jihadists to war zones, namely Ireland, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Austria.
• States with the lowest number of jihadists, or those that sent around ten jihadists to war zones, namely Bulgaria, Albania, Hungary, Romania, and Switzerland (21).