EUROPE AND THE FEAR OF
ISLAMIC RADICALIZATION
Monash European an EU Centre 2013 Summer
School– Dr Natalie Doyle
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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Two fears of Islamic radicalization have been conflated in
Europe over the last 15 years:
 the fear of purely religious radicalization: inspired by the
spread in Europe of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam
pushed by the (originally Egyptian) Salafi movement extremist Sunni Muslims with a strong sense of Islamic
identity: (as a whole it was not associated with violence but
in 1990s some espoused violent rdicalization)
 that of the Islamic anti-western ideology known as Salafist
Jihadism, which inspired the formation of an international
movement leading to the creation of the global Islamist
terrorist organization Al Quaeda
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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In the 1990s and first decade of 21st century, Salafi Jihadism
motivated the formation in Europe of terrorist cells that were
part of the Al Quaeda network or were inspired by its
ideology
In 2005, after London and Madrid bombing, a European
Union counterterrorist strategy was introduced and led by the
European Council (Consilium)
This strategy has been largely successful in stopping attacks
(but as is the case of all western counter-terrorism strategies
may wellhave created other problems)
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/policies/fight-againstterrorism/eu-strategy?lang=en
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The Jihadist ideology is still
active in Europe and is still
generating forms of terrorist
action but large Al Quaeda
networks have been successfully
combatted by European antiterrorist agencies, and terrorism
in Europe has evolved
It is operating on a reduced
scale and is starting to assume
new forms, like the “lone-wolf”
attacks committed by Mohamed
Merah who in March 2012, in
southern France, killed 7 people
and injured five others, four of
them seriously
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
Despite the reduced threat
on European soil, Jihadism
is still perceived as a
serious concern because of
its impact on European
nationals outside Europe,
as demonstrated by
January 11 decision of
French president François
Hollande to intervene in
the North of Mali
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The intervention was launched to support the Malian army in
its struggles against an organization that became affiliated
with Al Quaeda : Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
AQIM developed from an Algerian terrorist organization,
Algerian Salafist Group for Predication and Combat (GSPC)
The GSPC was itself a splinter group of GIA, an organization
which formed in 1992, after the Algerian military government
annulled the electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front, the
largest Islamic opposition
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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It came to the attention of European authorities because of its
involvement in a series of kidnappings of European tourists or
workers (there are currently 9 European hostages held by
AQIM; 6 are French)
In 2011, a splinter group formed in sub-saharian Western
Africa: the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa MOJWA which “declared war on France because it is hostile to
the interests of Islam”
http://www.gcsp.ch/Regional-Capacity-Development/Middle-East-North-Africa/Publications/GCSPPublications/Policy-Papers/The-Many-Faces-of-Al-Qaeda-in-the-Islamic-Maghreb
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/al_qaeda_in_the_islamic_magh
reb/index.html
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=49623
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/mali/9390601/Mali-how-theWest-cleared-the-way-for-al-Qaedas-African-march.html
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The GSPC was itself a splinter group of GIA, an organization
which formed in 1992, after the Algerian military government
annulled the electoral victory of the Islamic Salvation Front, an
Islamist opposition party
The GSPC gained the support of Bin Laden keen to secure a
base from which to mount terrorist attacks against Europe,
France especially and renamed itself AQIM in 2007
It then developed its own modus operandi and became much
more of a criminal organization accumulating great resources
through such activities as drug trafficking and illicit financial
activities, justified ideologically by them being at the service
of the creation of an Islamic state
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
With the fall of the Lybian
military regime, the
movement has acquired
even more sophisticated
weapons and extended the
territory it controls
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The day after Hollande’s
declaration, European
Commission President José
Manuel Barroso immediately
expressed support for the
French intervention
The EU’s foreign policy chief,
Catherine Ashton announced
accelerated preparations for
the deployment of the EU
military mission to Mali
approved by the European
Council in Dec 2012
http://www.europolitics.info/europolitics/eusupports-french-military-intervention-in-maliart347015-46.html
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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At the level of EU member states, support was moderate
Reflecting what has become known as the new Merkel security
doctrine (weapons, not soldiers), Germany responded quickly but
offered only limited technical support (transport, medical
assistance)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-weapons-exports-on-the-rise-as-merkeldoctrine-takes-hold-a-870596.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-offers-support-to-france-in-mali-ascommentators-warn-of-risk-a-877401.html
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The British also offered only logistical support whilst the
support of other countries like Italy, Spain (who are directly
affected by events in North Africa) and Poland remained
simply verbal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/france-lonely-intervention-mali
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Through NATO, France has also secured American and Danish
support
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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French Intervention, regardless of its wisdom or likely
success, illustrates the way European security has
become intermeshed with political developments in
North Africa (de-stabilization of the region following
Arab revolutions)
But at a deeper level, also, how these developments
interact with inner political concerns to do with the
fears prevalent in public opinion (of refugees, of
terrorist attacks) to which politicians have become
increasingly attentive, in the context of the financial
crisis
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The limited support at the level of other European
countries can be explained by the need to avoid
costs: financial crisis has seen government cut
military expenditure
It illustrates also the concern in a number of
countries not to alienate public opinion through the
risk of a loss of lives – concern associated with
fragility of governments as a result of the financial
crisis and the imposition of austerity measures
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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Paradoxically, the need to secure the support of public
opinion is seen by many as explaining in part the decision
made by François Hollande, which reverses his earlier
positions on African policy seeking to demarcate themselves
from Sarkozy’s
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/13/mali-high-stakesfrancois-hollande
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From August 2012 his popularity steadily deteriorated to
catastrophic level (down to 36% in December)
It has now recovered a lot of ground as suggested by January
11 and 12 poll
http://www.france24.com/fr/20130114-popularite-redressementhollande-ayrault-stable
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The action has attracted quasi unanimous support within public
opinion (75%) and across the French political spectrum
All political parties expressed support with the exception of
the radical left which has condemned it a an extension of neocolonial interference in the politics of West Africa known as
Françafrique and on right, of the maverick ex leader of the
neo-nationalist extreme right party the National Front
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
It has most notably been
criticized by the lonely voice
of Dominique de Villepin the
former foreign minister
remembered for the 2003
speech he made at the
United Nations, outlining
France’s opposition to the
American declaration of war
in Iraq (opposition endorsed
by Germany)
http://www.ambafranceuk.org/Speech-by-MDominique-deVillepin,4917.html
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The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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Villepin made a declaration in which he deplored the way French
policy had become contaminated by what he called “the neoconservative virus” http://www.france24.com/en/20130114former-pm-villepin-warns-against-blind-mali-intervention
Similarly, anti-terrorism specialists of Jihadism have warned of the
danger that the French military intervention would over the long
term breed more terrorists in France
The danger is that it will encourage young, disgruntled French (and
European) Muslims to see in the North Mali a holy Muslim land
attacked by an infidel European alliance, allowing Mali to replace
the role played by Afghanistan in their imaginary representation of
the world
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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French intervention has the potential of giving AQIM additional
legitimacy
Military intervention feeds the Jihadist ideology of legitimate
“holy” war and for many, this was the major mistake of the
American neo-conservative response to terrorism, ensuring the
survival of the Jihadist ideology over future decades
This mistake impacted mostly on Europe, which became an
area in which Al Quaeda operatives were successful in
recruited young terrorists to support their attacks
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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The success of the ideology in Europe raises questions which
do not only concern terrorism specialists but social scientists
more widely
These questions are not only important for European
specialists but for Australians as well as some of these
questions involve phenomena apparent in other Western
countreis, including Australia
At the same time, the particular influence of Jihadism in
Europe is linked to an incredibly complex interaction of
different factors specific to Europe: phenomena emanating
from Europe itself and from outside it, some social, some
socio-economic, some political , some geo-political, some
ideological….
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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To single out one major factor that is not so well understood,
Al Quaeda agents from outside Europe were able to
capitalize on a specifically European problem: the feelings
of socio-cultural alienation of a fair proportion of Muslims
living in Europe
These feelings are first of all linked to the totally different
profile of the majority of Muslims living in Europe
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as opposed to US, immigrants were working class and with some
exceptions, have by and large not succeeded in joining the middle class
in sufficient numbers
because of their working class profile, they had little formal religious
education making them vulnerable to the teachings of fundamentalists
claiming to be representing the real Islam
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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Muslims, in other words, are a sub-section of the most
vulnerable part of the population most affected by the
economic changes associated globalization and European
integration
Their socio-economic marginalization has encouraged their
cultural marginalization: this, to a large extent explains the
return of Muslim piety as defensive strategy (especially in its
Salafist puritanical intepretation), phenomenon that runs
counter to the strong secularization of European societies
The strong European secular mindset encourages a
fundamental misunderstanding of Muslim religious piety and its
confusion with Jihadism
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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Paradoxically, the American
neo-conservative discourse of
civilizational conflict ( shaped
by different attitudes to
religion, and Christianity
specifically) grafted itself on
the European fears associated
with immigration
In particular, it encouraged
the myth of the “Islamization”
of Europe, first peddled by
extreme-right neo-nationalist
parties like the French
National Front
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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Revolution in Europe: Can Europe Be the
Same With Different People in It? (2009) ,
by Christopher Caldwell - an American
journalist with strong neo-conservative
affiliations - thus became a best seller in
Europe
Its assumptions of both the nature of
demographic change and of its cultural
impact have been criticized as fuelling antiIslamic activism or Islamophobia, whose
own destructive potential was
demonstrated by Norwegian terrorist
Anders Breivik
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/books/review/Ajamit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/15/eurabiaislamophobia-europe-colonised-muslims
- Cover of book by Chris Allen published by 2011 accompanying
formation of British parliamentary group on Islamophobia/
Anders Brevik / Picture by American photographer Ridwan
Adhami
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
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“Islamophobia” has become very active in continental Europe,
especially in Western Europe as part of “politics of fear”
These politics of fear have been evident for quite some time
throughout the West but in Europe seem to have assumed an
exacerbated form in recent years
Politics of fear have been analysed by American and
European academics as a strategy of responsibility-avoidance
by political elites (using notion of neo-liberal governmentality)
These politics makes those affected by problems which
government can’t or won’t address responsible for their own
plight ( e.g. the unemployed)
The Fear of Islamic Radicalization
It presents those problems as personal and individual, on the
one hand, or as natural, religious, cultural on the other
 It can be argued that this is how Islamophobia is now being
used by main stream European political figures to divert
attention from the failures of government
http://muep.mah.se/handle/2043/12704
 These failures have been exposed by financial crisis
 European Muslims have become caught up in a problem that
affects European societies as a whole: a crisis of democratic
legitimacy, playing out at both the national and European
levels
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General References
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Coolsaet R., Jihadi terrorism and the radicalisation challenge in Europe,
Aldershot, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, 2008.
Euro-Islam Info data base www.euro-islam.info
Juergensmeyer, M. Terror in the Mind of Allah: The Global Rise of Religious
Violence, Berkeley, London, University Of California Press, 2003
Kaya, A., Islam, Migration and Integration. The Age of securitization .
London: Palgrave, 2009.
Yazbeck Haddad Y., Muslims in the West: From Sojourners to Citizens. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002.