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What Motivates a Canadian Jihadist?

(Macleans-Canada) John Geddes - A new study by three university researchers who interviewed foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria raises doubts about the notion that the young men who are drawn to violent Islamic extremism must be marginalized loners. Rather than being isolated individuals who self-radicalized in front of their computer screens, the report says they usually found mentors and joined the fighting in "clusters." The researchers say "more attention and significance should be given to the repeated affirmations of the positive benefits of being jihadists." They say not one of their subjects suggested that being marginalized socially or economically pushed them onto their extreme path. "It is the positive investment in an alternate world-saving role that matters most, no matter how strange it may appear to outsiders," they say. The report repeatedly stresses that the fighters are "pulled" to Iraq and Syria by religious ideas, rather than being "pushed" by the realities of their lives.
2016-08-19 00:00:00
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