The Classical Chicken-or-Egg Conundrum : Does 'Islamophobia' Drive Muslims to Jihad? Or Does Violent Jihad Cause 'Islamophobia'?

"We have to disengage them [radicalized youth] from notions of violence first. Trying to talk them out of this. I think it can never be one person. It has to be a social network that deals with these young people. It has to be more powerful than the baqiyah [ISIL cohorts] family. That becomes everything to them. We have to offer them something back, an alternative."
"They treated me like they treated their elderly auntie, or their mums. Some laughed [during interviews] and said, ' know you're a coconut, but at least you're willing to listen'." ['Coconut' describes someone not a genuine Muslim; brown outside, white within for Daesh recruits].
"At this point, we know who many of these young [radicalized Muslim jihadis] are, we know about their childhood or teenage pain, their struggles and concerns. We know the importance and process of social bonding they go through, the power of feeling part of something meaningful. It is a new religious movement; they used to call them cults."
"We need to stop asking 'Why?' and start asking 'What can we do about the next Aaron Driver? [self-radicalized Muslim convert, lone wolf, jihadist attacker]."
Professor Alexandra Bain, Fredericton researcher, convert to Islam

"I think of all the models that I've seen around the world, Aarhus is the one we're most representative of. [It] was nice to see what they were doing because we're following the same philosophy [Countering Violent Extremism, Aarhus, Denmark]."
"Mentorship is one [idea] we have on the radar. We have already had some conversations with some groups that are trying to get off the ground here in Calgary."
Sgt. Paul Dunn, Calgary Police Service, co-ordinator, "ReDirect" program

"People can call here and we have a confidential and anonymous phone line, which is answered by psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and they offer help to the families. This is what is important."
"Our objective here is not to judge, but to help."
"The role of the federal government should only be to facilitate and coordinate these centres. The real work happens at the local level. We have to find a way to work together and share expertise."
Herman Okomba-Deparice, Montreal CVE initiative 

Police raid a home after they received “credible information of a potential terrorist threat” at a small community 225 kilometres southwest of Toronto in Strathroy, Ont., on Aug. 10, 2016.   (STRINGER/REUTERS)

 

Regional and local CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) community groups are dedicated to identifying and contacting what they feel are 'youth at risk' of self-recruitment into violent jihad, responding to the invitation extended by Islamic State to young Muslims, mostly men, who find the ISIL message resonating with their idea of how Muslim youth should be reacting to what those who empathize with what they appear to identify as 'growing pains' of young men struggling into adulthood finding community with jihadists.

What motivates them, according to this understanding is 'Islamophobia' and the resentment it incurs from young Muslims who feel ill done by through the non-Muslim community directing suspicion toward them and in the process insulting their religion and their personal identification as Muslims. So does that suspicion erupt from nowhere? Or has the world been witness over the past several decades to violent fanatics launching attacks against Western symbols, infrastructure, nations and people in vengeance attacks against those who 'mock' the Prophet Mohammad.

The Prophet, after all, speaking in the name of god, gave promise that it is god's intention that his final religion manifesting in Islam must one day rule the world in one vast caliphate when all must surrender to Allah, venerate his prophet Mohammad, and obey Islamic Sharia law. Any who deny this, who object to this aspiration, who cast aspersions upon the theistic ambition and reject it for any reason, automatically become enemies of Islam and thus are marked for destruction.

Those faithful who contradict this reading of Islamist doctrine have not read their Koran, nor have they listened to the imam who delivers Friday night services, since both are rife with incontrovertible instructions to the faithful not open to an interpretation other than what is plainly written and decanted by mullahs, ayatollahs and imams directly from the Koran and the instructions that Mohammad left for the posterity of Islam.

An image of Aaron Driver is projected on a screen during a news conference. He stated his plan to carry out a rush-[hour attack in a major Canadian city. Chris Wattie/Reuters

If someone enters my home and behaves in an insulting, destructive and arrogant manner I have every right as the homeowner to request that he/she leave, absent civility. When Muslims migrate to lands where Islam has not yet become a heritage, cultural, social, political heavyweight as it has over the years in the Middle East, parts of southeast Asia, North Africa and elsewhere, another kind of jihad has insinuated itself through cultural alteration of the prevailing social system, religious devotion and cultural heritage.

Those hoping to persuade young men who have accepted the responsibility imposed upon them by Islam instructing its believers to honour the most basic of obligations to Islam, which is jihad, are arguing against the religion's fundamental values, even though they don't think of it in this way. In an extremely sensitive area; focusing on the effect that the call to jihad has on 'vulnerable' Muslims living in the West, these community organizers are bringing a public focus to Muslim communities; that they breed violence.

The germ of radical Islam when introduced to a non-Muslim environment is a reflection of Islam's clear and basic tenets, which in time become a threatening plague against the receiving society which has welcomed Muslim immigration with the best of intentions. Islam, by its very uncompromising, totalitarian nature as a political, religious, ideological, social and cultural force is non-assimilationist. Muslims are constrained by their religion, encompassing their total life, from integrating fully into other societies.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Muslims who emigrate to the West do not necessarily, in the aggregate, do so to consciously effect a change to impact a non-Muslim community with Islam, though, loving Islam, they would be pleased if that were to happen. Gradually, over time, with an ongoing influx of Muslims entering society a demand surfaces that the emerging community be recognized as exceptional, and that it be granted special 'equalization' empowerment, such as recognition of Sharia.

It is a type of social capillary action; a minority religion becomes far less of a minority as its numbers increase and it attains social heft from which it begins to demand recognition and 'equality'. Islam, despite its violence, its dysfunction, its effect in tribal and sectarian hatreds resulting in one sect attacking and slaughtering another, is recognized as the fastest-growing religion in the world today.