Why do European youth join Daesh?  Types of European jihadists (3)

Dr Mahmud Abdullah

There are two types of jihadists in Europe. The first type consists of those with Arab origins, namely the second and third generation of Arab migrants. The second type is made up of the second and third generation of adherents of other religions who converted to Islam.

The second group is the byproduct of the first group. It emerges as a result of efforts made by the first group and relations with it. The offspring of converts are usually brought up on the hands of Arabs who immigrate to Europe and at mosques and Islamic centers in the European continent.

The noticeable thing is that the strength of Islamic centers in a given country has a correlation with the number of jihadists in this country. The stronger the Islamic centers in a specific country, the more jihadists there are in this country.

Because most sermons are delivered at mosques in Arabic, these sermons are capable of influencing only a limited group of people. Nonetheless, terrorist organizations are capable of drawing in a lot of people because they can employ different tools. This, in fact, threatens the social fabric of the European continent.

Citizens with Arab origins

Those with Arab origins make up the majority of migrants in the European continent. In countries like France; the UK; Belgium, and Germany, Arabs far outnumber all other immigrants.

Nonetheless, Arab immigrants suffer an identity crisis. They have to choose between integrating in the host societies or protecting the culture of their parents and grandparents.

Those who decide to integrate into the western culture undergo total change: they change the way they look, forget the Arabic language and make non-Arab friends. The ones who prefer to protect their original Arab culture do the exact contrast: they make friends of Arabs only, speak Arabic only and boycott everything that is non-Arab. In this, these people create their own world, their own society and relive their own special culture (12).

Some European states, such as France, do not recognize those with foreign origins. Nonetheless, there are citizens in these countries who have different cultures, ethnicities and religions (13).

Most of those with foreign origins do not feel any affinity to their foreign identities. According to a recent field study, 90% of those with foreign origins said they feel French and 17% of them said others view them as French citizens. Fourteen percent of respondents in the study said they are maltreated at schools. Around 61% of those interviewed in another study said they are controlled by a feeling of belonging to a migrant minority, whereas 69% described France as a “racist” country and 43% said they had been prone to “racist” behavior at least one time (41).

Most of the members of the second and third generation of migrants refuse to consider themselves as pure migrants. They consequently reject to do the jobs their fathers did.

Because most of them are not well-educated, these descendants of migrants find it difficult to find work, which is why they rarely leave the neighborhoods where they live. Together with others like them, these migrants form an alliance of racist strangers. In France alone, around 800 neighborhoods are full of the likes of those people. In Paris, the Emile Zola neighborhood fits into this description. In Amsterdam, the Slotervaart neighborhood fits into this description too.

In these and in similar neighborhoods across Europe, crime and drug addiction are rife. It is not always easy for policemen to enter these neighborhoods. When there is a clash between policemen and residents in these neighborhoods, these clashes usually spread like wildfire into other areas. This happened in France when policemen killed two teenagers, including one with Algerian origins and another with Malian origins.

Discrimination forces those with Arab origins to search for an alternative identity to this prevalent in the societies where they live. They sometimes find this identity in religion. Religion then turns into a form of piety in which these people tend to highlight their cultural specificity. They do this by growing their beards, wearing Afghan clothes, or wearing the full face veil, known as Niqab in Arabic.

Soon, however, these people take to the jihadist ideology because of the absence of rational religious policies in the European continent and also because of the presence of a large number of mosques. Some of them then travel to Afghanistan; Pakistan; Iraq, or Syria only to swell the ranks of the jihadists day after day (15).

Converts

Conversion to Islam started in Europe at the end of the 18th Century. Most converts came from the upper and middle classes. Conversion to Islam at the time of the British Empire constituted a form of obsession with the other.

The second stage of conversion dawned in the last quarter of the 1960s. This stage was fuelled by the immigration of a large number of Muslims after the war and the emergence of protest movements and counter-cultural protest movements.

The first generation of immigrants abstained from integrating into the societies they immigrated to. They refused to get married to Europeans. However, the second and third generation of immigrants acted differently. Some of the members of this generation even went the extra mile of getting married to non-Muslims. In France, the number of immigrants getting married to French nationals increased dramatically. Almost half of Muslim men got married to non-Muslim women. Almost a fifth of Muslim women got married to non-Muslim men (16).

The final stage of conversion was brought about by the downfall of communism at the end of the 1980s. Islam was viewed after World War II as the religion of rebels. Nonetheless, neo-converts after the 1980s can be subdivided into four groups. The first group included these political Europeans who were impressed by the eloquence of political Islam in the face of imperialism. The second group contained those who converted to Islam after they passed by other religions. The third group included ex-convicts who found in the new religion a final refuge. The fourth group contained the members of minorities who were attracted to the humanity of the Islamic religion. The last group also included former Marxists, like in the case of Roger Garaudy (17).

Iranian researcher Farhad Khosrokhavar divides these converts into two groups in the light of the objectives of conversion. The first group includes those who converted to Islam in protest against their chaotic lifestyle, even as they do not want their conversion to affect their political attitudes or rights. The second group chose to convert to Islam to get rid of their identity and start a new political chapter in their life. Members of the second group are more likely to join extremist movements. Most of the members of this group are former French Catholics and former American and European Protestants (18).

Marginalization and discrimination are basic reasons for extremism. The biographies of most extremists show that they had been subject to tough conditions that made them want to take revenge and search for an alternative that makes them realize themselves. Discrimination and humiliation usually cause anger that morphs into hatred and a desire for retaliation. The case of the members of the Black Widows Organization who staged terrorist attacks in Russia in 2013 in retaliation for the killing of their husbands by Russian police is a clear example in this regard. The case of British national Richard Reid who was radicalized and then travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan is another clear example. David Sinclair, an IT worker who converted to Islam, changed his name and encountered trouble at work in his new Muslim attire and had to quit work and travel to Bosnia, is a third example (19).

Defending persecuted Muslims is one possible motivation behind taking to the jihadist ideology. Jihadist groups always use the images of Muslims persecuted in Palestine, Chechnya and the Balkans to promote jihad (20). Some people travelled to Chechnya to be part of the war against the Russians in reaction to the torture and rape of Chechen women.

There is also what is known as the “Steep Slope”. This describes a situation where Europeans are converted at the hands of jihadists and then enlisted for marginal jihadist work until they occupy leading positions within jihadist organizations.

Love and family relations are also recruitment mechanisms. Jihadist groups sometimes resort to recruiting family members away from the watch of security agencies.