Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames in 07
Nobody asks, what are the conditions that allow for radicalized kids in the first place.
|
Are you joking? There are orgazinations entirely devoted to understanding the conditions of radicalization. And they've concluded that radical Islam is an essential element. You don't think there are young men of Indian Hindu origin who feel alienated in the UK? Or young men of Caribbean descent who face racism? And yet we don't see them blowing up concerts, restaurants, and subway cars.
The alienated looking for something to give meaning to their lives, and to focus their anger and resentment, find it radical Islam. The credos of radical Islam today transform that alienation, anger, and resentment into acts of mass violence. Those credos, and the sense of purpose they inspire, are deeply religious.
The West can never hope to understand Islamic State
Quote:
How much does Islamic State actually believe this stuff? The assumption that it is a proxy for other concerns – born of US foreign policy, or social deprivation, or Islamophobia – comes naturally to commentators in the West. Partly this is because their instincts are often secular and liberal; partly it reflects a proper concern not to tar mainstream Islam with the brush of terrorism...
These are questions that sociologists, psychologists and security experts have all sought to answer. Wood, by asking Islamic State’s sympathisers to explain their motivation, demonstrates how Western society has become woefully unqualified to recognise the ecstatic highs that can derive from apocalyptic certitude. “The notion that religious belief is a minor factor in the rise of the Islamic State,” he observes, “is belied by a crushing weight of evidence that religion matters deeply to the vast majority of those who have travelled to fight.”
|