islamic fundamentalism and global security

May 3, 2023Andrea Corinaldesi

Islamic Fundamentalism and

Global Security


Outline

• How Islam began;• The Islamic revival;• Parallelisms with non-Islamic style;• The implications of the Third-World predicament; • The fundamentalist trope;• Islam VS Hindu: an example of a different Third-World population;• Muslim terrorism & data;• Challenges for global security;• The importance of media and marketing for the fundamentalist

propaganda;


How Islam began

• Cannot exactly determine the born of Islam in the 7th century -> no evidence of documents from Muhammad, only sparse references of early non-Muslim documents,

• Extensive narration of the events from Arabic and Muslim documents 100 years ca. after,• Historians define the Holy Book of Islam as an early document; moreover is not an historical

text,• Based on these early texts Donner distinguishes from Traditional Origins Narrative, taken as

granted for 150 years by the communities and shaped how it evolved: Muhammad born around 570 and died 632 of the common era, lived in Mecca in Western Arabia and moved to the city of Medina. The population had a polytheistic environment, but around the age of 40 he had revelations that were then transcripted and constituting the Quran.

• ,means basically “God” and it is defined as the same of the Old and New Testament الله• Islam is the submission to the will of the only God,• Message of very strict monotheism, believing in prophecy and the importance of piety, • Notion of the last judgment,• Because of the previous polytheistic nature of his community Muhammad start to made feel

unwelcome and in the year 622 made a “hijra” meaning migration to the city of Medina,


• 622 marks an important moment because the community of Muhammad starts to be autonomous, and the prophet was invited to be an arbiter for the local tribes,

• After he passed away in 632 his followers embarked on a rapid expansion.


• Similarity with Judaism and Christianity: same package of ideas,• What is the big deal about this new faith then?• The Quran is addressed to people that not seems to be Muslims, but to the

believers,• After 30-40 years later the expansion of the community out of Arabia we find actual

documents like coins, papyrus, finding some inscriptions referring to the leader of this community referred as the Commander of the Believers,

• Further documentations give a notion of Believers movement• Definition of Believer in the Quran: some of the people of the Book were considered

among the Believers and that will get salvation at the end of the days. Suggesting • Text found called The Constitution of Medina, a transcription of an actual early

document, speaks about Jewish and Christian communities living in Medina, being part of the umma, becoming also part of the army,

• The original believers movement was not so clearly defined as a separate religion, but more a monotheistic revival,

• There are also some archaeological evidences where possibly a Christian church was used by the Muslim community too for religious purposes,

• No evidence of destruction is showed in the archaeological record once the early community expanded to mark the so called Islamic conquest,

• When can we then really talk about the emergence of Islam as a distinct religion from the matrix of the believers? In the early 700 ca. we start to have an increased emphasis on the prophet and the Quran.

(Source: Donner, 2011)


The Islamic Revival

Components of the Islamic Revival:A. Getting religionB. Religious politics (construing the political values out of

religious background):A. Championing Islamic identity, (does not predispose piety)B. Promoting Islamic values, (does predispose piety)C. Creating an Islamic state,

C. Religious militance

(Source: Cook, 2013)


Is the Islamic revival unique?


• Every component has a non-Muslim parallel,

• Some parallels are harder to find,

• The set of components as a whole is unique, there is not a non-Muslim parallel for it.

Why is Islam so salient in the Muslim world?


The Third-World predicament

“What do Muslim populations have in common other than Islam? […] The overwarming majority of Muslim populations are Third-World populations. In other words they suffer from the Third-World predicament. The Third-World predicament is that wealth, power and prestige are concentrated in the First-World and the Third-Word suffers a relative depravations of the all three”.

“[…] But Third-Word populations need First-World patrons to do them

favours”.

(Cook, 2013)


• The Third-World predicament is a disturbing and confusing situation to be in,

• Important cultural dimension that causes a schizophrenic situation

Assimilate western culture because of

effectiveness or just because of sense of

prestige

On the other hand there is will to stop the western culture

otherwise there will not be space anymore for own culture tradition


• Islam provides a rich array of resource that you can use to think, to feel and talk about the Third-World predicament

Rejectionist values

• Islam is the sole political identity of Muslims.• The Caliphate is the only legitimate Muslim state.• Muslims must use jihad against non-Muslims.

• Muslims must not imitate non-Muslims (He who imitates the people is one of them).

(Cook, 2013)

Hypothesis: YOU want to be a rejectionist


“You want to take on board certain features of the world today, that are not going to change in any faceable future and you want to work with them. (…)

The Islamic tradition is efficiently ramified and sophisticated that it will provide you with clever ways around those rejectionist values (…) Example: The Battle of the

Trench (627).”

(Cook, 2013)

Hypothesis: YOU want to be an accomodationist


The fundamentalist trope

It is already there in our heritage and that means

we do not have the necessity to borrow it from the West, we just

Political values associated with the

early polity:

• Against absolutism• Against

patrimonialism• For egalitarianism

These values overlaps efficiently with modern western political values


Islam VS Hindu

An Islamic template

• Islam as a sole political identity• One state ruling all Muslims• Jihad against non-Muslims

• Anti-absolutism• Anti-patrimonialism• Egalitarianism

(Source: Cook, 2013)

Resources in the Hindu heritage for the nationalists

• Hinduism as the sole political identity of Hindus• No interest in establishing an Hindu state ruling over

Hinduist, but a sense of Indian territoriality is found in the heritage

• The law of war concerned with fighting Hindus between other Hindus

• Hindu tradition is uniformly monarchist• The Laws of Manu, text representative of the entire

tradition (if you are not twice born, then you are a servile)


Islamic Fundamentalist groups using terrorism to disrupt and defeat


• “In 2015 four groups were responsible for 74 per cent of all deaths from terrorism: ISIL, Boko Haram, the Taliban and al-Qa’ida.”

• “ISIL surpassed Boko Haram as the deadliest terrorist group in 2015. ISIL undertook attacks in 252 different cities in 2015 and was responsible for 6,141 deaths in the year.”

• “Boko Haram had an 18 per cent reduction in the number of people it killed in 2015, responsible for 5,478 deaths during the year.”

• “Al-Qa’ida had a 17 per cent reduction in the number of people it killed in 2015, responsible for 1,620 deaths in the year.”

• “The Taliban in Afghanistan had a 29 per cent increase in the number of people it killed in 2015, responsible for 4,502 deaths from terrorism during the year.”

Source: Institute for economics and peace, Global Terrorism Index 2016, (p. 49)


Terrorism incidents by Muslim groupsand other data


ISISA look with the magnifying glass

(Yourish, Watkins, and Giratikanon, 2016)


(Yourish, Watkins, and Giratikanon, 2016)


Challenges for global security

TERRORISM


Terrorism and media

Professor Bruno Ballardini argues on how some terrorist groups, in particular ISIS, have assimilated the principles of American marketing, and now are using this principles for their purposes, from the very first steps of branding to the creation of stakeholder.One of the most salient points in his book, is the analysis of the way ISIS uses several media channels to communicate to the Western world, and the impact of the fruition of this visual, and not only, material online.


SYMBIOTICrelationship

MEDIA & TERRORISM

MEDIA are used as a platform for securing a broad dissemination of the terrorists’ ideology. The media benefit from terrorism, as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and thenumberoftelevisionviewers.Thereisacommon-interest-game,wherebyboththemedia and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents and where both parties adjust their actions according to the actions of the other player. This does not, of course, mean that the mass media are controlled by the terrorists.

TERRORISTM is continually attempting to manipulate and exploit the free media for its own ends. It also means that responsible media professionals and the public need to be constantly on their guard against terrorist attempts to manipulate them. Terrorists view the mass media in a free society in entirely cynical and opportunistic terms. They have nothing but contempt for the values and attitudes of the democratic mass media.

TECNIQUE: for influencing the mass media and reaching a wider public is the creation of terrorist events and armed propaganda with the object of seducing or trapping the mass media into giving the terrorists huge publicity and portraying them as such a powerful force that it would be folly to resist them.

WHAT DOES IT DEMOSTRATE? It does demonstrate, that the free media in an open society are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation by ruthless terrorist organisations.


The different channels

Internet Vid.me, Vimeo.com, JustPaste.it, Quitter, DiasporaTV and Radio al-Bayan, Tawid, Khilafa LiveFormat basically a show schedule, most famous production is al-HayatMujatweets Short propaganda videos, especially created for twitterBanner Use of graphic banners, most active is the English agency Rayat Al-TawheedPolitical Statements The videos which ISIS occupied several Tvnews have the same purposeNews Sawt al-Khilafah, news bulletin of 15 minutes with the aim to inform about the successes of mujaheddinMusical productions Ajnad Media Foundation, famous for the production of nasheedISIS' magazines Inspire, Azan, DabiqCyber jihad Started with al-Qaeda, one of the most important group is Jabhat al-Nusra


The market of War

WAR alias BUSINESSThe danger of private military

organisations

“The liberalisation of the market of war, it was although inaugurated by Bush, giving a big push to the creation of private military organisation, and during the decade following 9/11, this sector increased in a tremendous way: in December 2013, the contractors represented the 62% of the forces involved in Afghanistan. During this

period of time, the US government spent over 3.3 trillions of dollars in form of contracts with private military companies. With the enormous amount of cuts to the army still expected from the US government, for the private military enterprises will

be good times. In the next years the US army will cut 50.000 soldiers and the Marines will at the same time eliminate 20.000 units circa. In this way, if business was full sail ahead for the private sector, now it will be even better. These are the

beneficial aspects of marketing applied to war (…)” (Ballardini, 2015, p. 48)


EPE,5 Leaders (excellent attack simulator

IED),A-T Solutions (specialised in the

survey and management of weapons of mass destruction),

SRC,ATT-Tactical,

Counter Improvised Explosive Devices Centre,

G4S (security colossus),Unity Resources,

DynaComp,Asia Security Group,

Triple Canopy,Defion International,

Academi

“No one until here realised that technically the private military organisations are equivalent in every aspect to terroristic

organisations available for the best tenderer. Their existence makes even more dynamic the market of war. This is the

marketing of the Apocalypse, and ISIS is just one of the last products.” (Ballardini, 2015, p. 51)


Conclusions

POLICY RACCOMANDATION: Avoiding if possible to attribute terrorist attacks to particular groups and subsidise (indirectly); high quality journalism (the importance of true information) since to increase the outcome of lower terrorism. Further policy options, such as increased educational spending, more decentralisation and better perspectives for living a satisfying, law-abiding life could also decrease the risk of terrorism.

More control and traceability on money flows and verification of origin when comes to the trade of oil.

Reassessment of private military organisations.


Thank you!


BibliographyBallardini, B. (2015) ISIS Il Marketing dell’Apocalisse. Milan: Baldini&Castoldi s.r.l.Institute for economics and peace (2011) Available at: http://economicsandpeace.org/reports/

(Accessed: 2 February 2017).Rohner, D. and Frey, B.S. (2007) ‘Blood and ink! The common-interest-game between terrorists and the media’, Public Choice, 133(1-2), pp. 129–145. doi: 10.1007/s11127- 007-9182-9.Weimann, G. (2005) ‘The theater of terror’, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma,

9(3-4), pp. 379–390. doi: 10.1300/j146v09n03_08.Wilkinson, P. (1997) ‘The media and terrorism: A reassessment’, Terrorism and Political

Violence, 9(2), pp. 51–64. doi: 10.1080/09546559708427402.The British Academy (2013) The appeal of Islamic fundamentalism by prof Michael Cook FBA at the British academy. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6dN6RC2J1Q (Accessed: 5 January 2017).The University of Chicago (2011) UnCommon core | how Islam began. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RFK5u5lkhA (Accessed: 5 January 2017).Yourish, K., Watkins, D. and Giratikanon, T. (2016) Where ISIS has directed and inspired attacks around the world. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/17/world/middleeast/map-isis- attacks-around-the-world.html?_r=0 (Accessed: 2 February 2017).

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/17/world/middleeast/map-isis-



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