Politic?

"Extremist Groups" aka Islamist Terrorists : From the Academic Perspective

"I believe, personally, that alternative discourses or counter-discourses on the Internet should be a government responsibility."
"There should be a concerted action from the ground level to the government level. Just individuals will no longer be able to handle the massive use of social media by extremist groups."
"Extremist movements are becoming very good in using that discourse [of extreme messaging] as a feminist gesture, as a power gesture."
"Let's get out of the victimization paradigm of women. They are not just victims of extremist movements, they are major actors in extremist movements, only they are hidden actors, and what is hidden is usually more effective."
Ghayda Hassan, professor of clinical psychology, University of Quebec, Montreal

"There are mountains that we don't understand about how people get radicalized."
"If we don't know how they get in, how can we design programs to get them out?"
Lorne Dawson, professor, departments of sociology, legal studies, religious studies, University of Waterloo

Tossing the bodies of their victims off cliffs, instead of giving them any kind of burial.

At a conference held at Queen's University in Kingston last week through the auspices of Queen's Centre for International and Defence Policy, about fifty academics, government, security and law-enforcement officials attended from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The issue was to examine extreme messaging aimed at a younger global audience, and the dilemma that poses for government agencies who are under pressure to find methods in response to the violent messages extremist groups send out, proliferating on social media.

Judging from some of the expression and opinions made public through reportage on the event, these academics, like the politicians who tread lightly and most newspapers who wince at the very idea that clear language be used identifying the causes and the actors be avoided at all costs, no mention is made in connection with the extremist messages that they all emanate from 'radicalized' as polite society puts it, Islamists dedicated to Koranic-invested jihad. Cavils aside, one can only hope that some facts and perceptions circulated that will be useful to the attendees.

Research in Australia, it seems, has demonstrated that the average age of youth charged with crimes related to terrorism has reached a younger age demographic and the ages of those involved are decreasing as younger targets become involved to dedicate themselves to the brave new world of Islamist violent terrorism. More compellingly exciting than the most adventurous of dreams for the bored, the restless and the young prepared to travel and invest themselves in bracing adventure.

The fertile audience that young Australians represent was brought to the attention of the gathering by Shandon Harris-Hogan of the Australian National University. But though the situation is being recognized, it is doubtful that useful insights accompanied the statement, other than the obvious, that managing this dilemma in dealing with younger extremists in their teens simply makes for a more complex situation for agencies involved in rehabilitation programs.

This is a reflection of Western nations, in their delirium of solving such intractable problems imagining that re-education will aid to turn restless youth inspired by repeated messages of a brave new dawning achieved through the glories of promoting the ideology of a religion whose sacred texts celebrate committing non-believers to death everlasting is a wonderful solution of all that ails the world.

Image Credit: Getty - Ahmad Al-Rubaye Forcing thousands of Yazidi refugees to flee their homes to Mount Sinjar or face a massacre.

So that ongoing efforts in countering radical extremism is achieved through programs addressing target communities, along with programs to enlighten those identified as vulnerable to those extremist messages, and finally the rehabilitation programs themselves, for the finishing touch. And Canada, said Professor Dawson, stands on the cusp of its own solution, whereby the current Liberal government is establishing a new strategy of containment, whereas the previous Conservative government was committed to a law enforcement response.

The obvious criminality of violent jihad hides behind the conventions of political correctness where no segment of society, however implicated, must be held to public account, or suffer any manner of embarrassment by being linked or having their religion linked to dreadful crimes against humanity, for isn't it obvious, that although terrorism inextricably linked to Islam is a polarizing issue indeed, Islam itself, according to its faithful is a peerless religion of peace?