The narrative of victimization and Islamist extremism
I know I might get in trouble for this post, but I think it needs to be said. After every major terror attack against a Western target, my social media feeds fill up with the usual mix of responses. The overwhelming majority are fairly apolitical expressions of shock and mourning. Then there’s the ‘viral’ responses – altered profile images, trendy links to send around (look at the other attacks we should also care about!), etc. Generally from the largely uninformed. Finally, there are the political responses – either those pushing their particular agenda (Hate immigrants! Love immigrants! Hate Muslims! Love Muslims! Hate Zionists! Love Zionists! Hate guns! Love guns!) or the (few) who are well informed, politically inclined, but not demagogues.
In the wake of particularly heinous attacks carried out by Islamists, there’s a unique variant of the above dynamic that I’ve noticed. In addition to the normal Islamophobia, there are those who demand – demand! – that Muslims condemn the attacks as heinous and beyond the pale. And plenty of Muslims do. But then other (Muslim and otherwise) say, “hey, why do Muslims need to specifically condemn this? You’re assuming that Muslims somehow ‘own’ the actions of a misguided few.” And indeed it is a fairly well-worn trope that Muslims are (as a group) somehow expected to have a special responsibility for these attacks while others vehemently argue that the perpetrators are entirely divorced from the ‘religion of peace’ and it’s racist to even argue that Muslims need to apologize for the actions of nutjobs. A response I frequently see is something along the lines of this: “The cause of extremism is not Islam, but rather poverty, hopelessness, dysfunctional governments, etc. Don’t blame Islam for it.” A somewhat more pernicious version is to blame external factors as having actually caused the violence (e.g. Israeli occupation, American intervention, etc.) and completely absolve the perpetrators and their community from responsibility.
I don’t really want to debate this issue directly – I agree with many commentators that the automatic requirement for Muslims everywhere to loudly and unequivocally condemn every act of Islamist terror has tinges of racism. And I also think that given the realities of the situation, it probably behooves the large proportion of Muslims who reject political and religious violence – especially those living in the West – to affirm their views and solidarity with victims of terror in order to help combat said racism.
What bothers me every time I see this debate, however, is a question of responsibility. Were I a Muslim, I think I would be deeply troubled about my religious community. Ignore the question of interacting with the rest of the world – if a large proportion of international terrorism is being perpetrated by people professing to share my faith, there is clearly something wrong. It’s not just a few isolated nutjobs – it’s a supporting cast of radical (and popular) interpretations of Islam – e.g. Salafism, or Iranian-driven hardline Shia ideologies, and others. It’s opinion polling showing that in parts of the Muslim world silent majorities favor political violence of some sorts, and substantial minorities favor even pretty heinous extensions of this violence. It’s the widespread intolerance to heterodox religious views that permeates the Muslim world. Were I a Muslim, I would be deeply concerned about these issues, and I’d have to look at myself in the mirror and ask, “Am I and my faith community somehow responsible for this violence? Even if I’m personally blameless, does my quiet acceptance of the deep problems in the Muslim world – and distressingly violent rhetoric – enable these Islamists to thrive?” Like it or not, I think it’s a question that would come up time and time again. I would be uncomfortable that much of the world views Muslims with suspicion – not just because of the implied racism, but also because maybe they should be suspicious.
I’m sure that this response happens, but the responses I see are rather different. I tend to see responses that place Islamist political violence in the context of victimization. Yes, the actions of these terrorists are wrong, of course, but they have nothing to do with the religion of peace. You see, these terrorists are the inevitable byproduct of a century of colonialism and its aftereffects. Muslims are victims here – victims of Western imperialism, and capitalism, and corruption, and (Western supported) dictatorships, and more. When a small proportion of these victims turn violent, it is not an indictment of Islam, but rather of the circumstances that led them to extremism. Let’s fix those problems, and Islamist terrorism will disappear.
I am deeply troubled with this line of thinking. It’s not that this is necessarily incorrect – indeed, a long term solution for extremism is often to make it such that recruiting extremists is increasingly more challenging, and part of that involves looking at the political and economic climate in which extremists live. And it would be dishonest of any Westerners to argue that we had no hand in making the Middle East the mess that it is today. Yet this narrative of victimization precludes alternative explanations – notably, it precludes a sense of personal or community responsibility for preventing Islamic extremism from flourishing. If the causes of terrorism are entirely divorced from Islam – and the result of far-off factors we have no control over – then we have no responsibility for self-doubt or introspection. In fact, the inevitable political and rhetorical backlash against Islam and Islamists after an attack further reinforces the worldview of victimization. Why should we confront the vicious incitement inside our faith when we could just blame others? Why should we take responsibility for decades of political dysfunction in most of the Muslim world when we can just blame it on a legacy of colonialism?
When left wing (non-Muslim) thinkers use this kind of thinking, I have always found that it smacked of a certain ‘bigotry of low expectations’. Those savages in the Muslim world can’t be expected to think for themselves, it’s obvious that Western imperialism and a long legacy of clumsy interventions is to blame. I’ve thought this infantilizes the Muslim world in a most distressing way, and is counterproductive to boot. Yet when Muslims do it to themselves I am truly flabbergasted. Muslims are not powerless pawns. They have agency and responsibility, and should act accordingly.
I don’t mean to say that the Western world should wash its hands of the problem and blame it on problems inside Islam. That’s obviously untrue. But after religiously motivated violence perpetrated by other communities, I often see a great deal of hand-wringing and deep introspection. Just look at the Israeli debate that ensued after the fatal firebombing of a Palestinian home by (probably) a right wing Jewish extremist – or the murder of Abu Khdeir. The Israeli (and Jewish) public was shocked and wasted no time asking themselves hard questions – how could one of our own have done something like this? Do we need to confront incitement in our own ranks more assiduously? How can we prevent something like this happening again? Etc. It’s not uniquely a Jewish phenomenon, either – Christian motivated political violence in many parts of the world elicits a similar responses. I don’t know enough about other religious-inspired political violence to know if the pattern holds (for example, I don’t know enough about the communal response to e.g. Hindu political violence in India or Buddhist political violence in Myanmar), but at least what I’ve seen in the Muslim response is troubling.
This doctrine of victimization is not about placing Islamist political violence in ‘context’ or about coming up with policy to prevent such violence in the future. It’s about passing the buck, and eliminating the need for thinking hard about our own responsibility for a problem. And, at the end of the day, it makes problems worse. Most people will stop at rhetoric, but a small minority will go much further – this narrative allows them to blame others for their lot in life, and paints a big fat target on the architects of this victimization. Islamist terrorism is fed by the Muslim world being unable to confront itself directly for its failings.
