Karl Marx. Flickr\/Montecruz Foto. Some rights reserved<\/i><\/p>\n
The government is, apparently, concerned about
\nradicalisation. David Cameron told the Globsec
\nconference in Slovakia that the Islamist narrative about the evils
\nof the west is given too much credence. \u201c[It] paves the way\u201d he said, \u201cfor
\nyoung people to turn simmering prejudice into murderous intent. To go from
\nlistening to firebrand preachers online to boarding a plane to Istanbul and
\ntravelling onward to join the jihadis.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
George Packer, writing in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo
\nmassacre last January, put forth a similar argument. He was adamant
\nthat the murder of twelve people in the heart of France was not the result of
\nFrance\u2019s foreign policy, it had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq, and it
\ncertainly was not connected to Islamophobia. It was, he wrote, \u201conly the latest
\nblows delivered by an ideology that has sought to achieve power through terror
\nfor decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ideology alone, according to this line of
\nthinking, creates murderers. Western actions play no part in the process. Jihadists
\nare created, not by war abroad or discrimination at home, but solely by hate
\npreachers and the YouTube videos they use to indoctrinate impressionable young
\nminds.<\/p>\n
This is not, of course, an entirely false
\npicture. Islamism is a noxious ideology (yes, even in its most peaceful forms)
\nand people are manipulated by hate preachers on the Internet. But there is more
\nto it than this and Karl Marx can, perhaps, provide some guidance.<\/p>\n
In an article for the Rheinische Zeitung<\/em> This is most certainly the case with Islamist Radicalisation is<\/em> about the \u201cwar on There is another important, and related, aspect A frequent response to any analysis of Islamism David Cameron is unlikely to read any Marx in \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Karl Marx. Flickr\/Montecruz Foto. Some rights reserved The government is, apparently, concerned about radicalisation. David Cameron told the Globsec conference in Slovakia that the Islamist narrative about the evils of the west is given too much credence. \u201c[It] paves the way\u201d he said, \u201cfor young people to turn simmering prejudice into murderous intent. To go…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin 1842, Marx discussed the relationship between religion and political actors.
\n\u201cIn their hands\u201d he wrote referring to politicians, \u201creligion acquires a
\npolemical bitterness impregnated with political tendencies\u201d. This is not merely
\nthe truism that religion is exploited for political ends. Marx was also saying
\nthat religion–and by extension all ideologies–is always infused with and
\nanimated by objective, historical factors or, as he put it, \u201cpolitical
\ntendencies\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nideology. It is steeped in the politics of the present and to deny this obvious
\nfact is dishonest. To explain radicalisation simply in terms of an ideology
\nspreading, like a disease, through Muslim communities and infecting the naive
\nwithout reference to foreign policy in the Middle East or Islamophobia is to
\nopt for a willful blindness to reality.<\/p>\n
\nterror\u201d. It is<\/em> about the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and the
\ncatastrophic results of this that we are seeing today. And it is<\/em> about
\nIslamophobia. There are other factors involved, to be sure. But to ignore these
\nvery real, concrete issues – the \u201cpolitical tendencies\u201d – is to fall dramatically
\nshort of understanding why Islamism is able to find itself an audience and why
\nit is that a minority of Muslims are attracted to its \u201cpolemical bitterness\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nto this issue. Who exactly is Cameron talking to? He is happy to upbraid the
\nMuslim community in Britain but he is more reticent when it comes to our allies
\nabroad. The government was less concerned about Islamist ideology when it flew the flag
\nhalf-mast over Whitehall out of respect for the late King Abdullah
\nof Saudi Arabia or when it sent Prince Charles to develop our \u201cspecial
\nrelationship\u201d with the Wahhabist kingdom. It is easier to preach to
\nBradford than it is to stand up to Riyadh, and, it seems, \u201cBritish interests\u201d
\ntrump the interests of British people.<\/p>\n
\nand the attractions of jihadist violence that seeks to view them in their
\ncorrect historical and political context is one of anger. Explanation, it is
\nargued, is equal to justification. This is nonsense and to avoid approaching
\nthe former in a realistic fashion out of fear of drifting towards the latter is
\nsimply to opt for a willful blindness.<\/p>\n
\nthe near future. Perhaps, though, if he is so concerned about the spread of
\nIslamist ideology and the threat of jihadist terrorism, he should read, and
\nlearn from, the recent history of the catastrophic failure of the \u201cwar on
\nterror\u201d. War abroad, discrimination at home and the propping up of dictatorial
\nregimes have proven to be ineffective and immoral ways to fight
\nterrorism.<\/p>\n