Bypassing The Thrills

"Hayat helps the family to become a living positive counter-narrative to the radicalizing environment."
"We provide positive alternatives through the family and strengthen emotional bonds to create a counterforce to pull into the radical milieu. We do not train the families in theological arguments."
"[Discussions with Canadian officials is] still very delicate and it is not clear which agency may take over responsibility and how."
"Canadian officials know that they need to come up with something as they are massively lagging behind European countries in terms of dealing with homegrown radicalization."
Daniel Koelher, counsellor, Hayat group

"Why would the Italian community have to react to Cosa Nostra? Why would it be expected of the German community as a whole to react to a couple people who decide to shave their heads and wear swastikas?"
"The impact is societal. We have to deal with it together. This is not a Muslim community problem in and of itself. Radicalization is a criminal dynamic and it has to be dealt with."
Abdul Souraya, immigration lawyer, co-chair, Calgary Police Services Middle East advisory committee

Well, there's some food for thoughtful argument. There's no argument that Canada needs to address the issue of radically belligerent young Canadians obsessed with jihad and the exciting prospect of travelling abroad to enlist with groups they have come to regard as righteously protective of Islam which just incidentally offers them the opportunity to engage in real-live conflict, not just video games and paint-ball excursions.

Why? asks Mr. Souraya. Well, for starters one is religious-based and extremely sensitive. The other examples given are purely ideological and criminal; there are no population-sensitive toes to step on. One is based on interpretations of sacred writings inherent within a religion and its devotion, the other is indeed societal and criminal. So comparisons are fairly useless and cross the line into the absurd.

Although the problem is obvious and has become more obvious as time goes by in tandem with the deteriorating situations in Muslim countries like Libya, Somalia, Syria and Iraq, there is also the issue of oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar and the Emirates funding and founding the activities of Al-Qaeda and ISIS (for the Sunni side) and Hezbollah and Hamas (by Iran and Qatar, reflecting Shiite terror-power). Much of this, in fact, is related to Islamist sectarian adversities.

Saudi Arabia got the ball rolling when it established madrassas world-wide to teach impressionable young Muslims of their duties to Islam, with the emphasis on sacrifice and prosetylization, and jihad. But it was the Islamic Republic of Iran with its fiery revolutionary zeal that set the Muslim world on fire with the theological thrust of its hatred of all that existed outside the world of Islam; its contempt for Western decadence and lack of spirituality, Muslim-style.

Mr. Souraya's contention that a world afire with Islamist jihad threatening order and stability in the Middle East, an area that has never fully come to terms with order and stability, to tip it completely over into full-blown dysfunction, as not a Muslim concern only, more or less ignores what has happened whenever a Western power becomes involved in Islamic affairs. The West was forgiven for saving Muslims in Bosnia, but its forays into Afghanistan and Iraq to save Muslims from their own dark dictators was damned as modern-day Crusades.

The spectre of police and security agents in close communion with Muslim leaders in Canada, urging them to be aware, to detect and to pass on to them information relating to the identification of those within their faith who appear to have 'gone over to the dark side', raises the likely enough prospect of Muslims accusing government agencies of spying on them, of oppressing them, of accusing them of dastardly plans to cause havoc within Canada.

The radicalization of Muslims is indeed a Muslim affair; it is from within Islam and among other Muslims who seek to influence ever greater numbers of recruits to violent jihad where the problem lies. Just as physicians are often bidden to heal themselves, calls to the Muslim community to rid themselves of these sinister recruiters from among their midst, and to explain as only they can, to the impressionable that to engage in slaughter and rampages of atrocities runs counter to Islamic values.

Unless it doesn't.

Either way, Canadian authorities have little option but to become involved. To become engaged in an effort to attempt to stem the tide of Islamist recruits into violent Islam. That up to an estimated 300 to 500 Canadian Muslims have left the country for more violent pastures in places of conflict, has its counterpart in their return, some 80 of whom are assumed to have come back to Canada post-conflict, with newfound skills.

In the effort to restrain, detain and defang these converts to Islamist jihad and martyrdom, will the Muslim community rise up in defence of its own, and accuse those involved agencies of abusing their authority and hounding the Islamic community?