The UK Guardian has reported on the conclusions of a report on terrorism in the UK by MI-5, the country's intelligence service. Much has been made in the last five years of the premise that the UK is a hotbed of Islamist radicalization, with fiery tongued imams heading the drive to incapacitate the West.
The report, issued by the Behavioural Science Unit,"Understanding Radicalisation and Violent Extremism in the UK," apparently blows these and other assumptions to bits, after doing case studies of "several hundred individuals known to be involved in or closely associated with, violent extremist activity."
The report itself has not been made public (nor is it supposed to be), so what is available is actually the Guardian's interpretation of the report. The Guardian headline is, "MI-5 Report Challenges Views on Terrorism." Its author, Alan Travis, emphasizes the motif that British preconceptions have been upended by evidence.
The preconceived vision of a typical jihadist-in-Europe is of young, alienated, deeply religious or religiously schooled, foreign men who have few ties to a community who choose violence under the combined influence of radical Muslim community leaders, sexual frustration and religious zealotry.
Not so, according to the evidence:
Among the conclusions cited by the newspaper:
- Most are British nationals
- Most are not religious zealots. "Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices."
- They are ethnically diverse
- Those over 30 tend to have steady relationships and children. They are not frustrated young men.
Instead, according to the report, the UK's violent extremists are "a diverse collection of individuals, fitting no single demographic profile, nor do they all follow a typical pathway to violent extremism."
These conclusions should provoke serious rethinking by the counterterrorism community of how its own assumptions developed, and how these accord with what we know to be true of human behavior. And what we know, above all, is that human motivations are complex, irrational, and at the same time, for all that, similar in some basic ways.
Findings Overturn Accepted Narrative
The new information that those who lean toward violent extremism are embedded in communities dramatically overturns the accepted wisdom in counterterrorism on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the United States, with which I can speak with more confidence, the concept communities of extremists as social networks is prevalent. Coupled with a much older sociological view of violent criminals, gang members and others are alientated or marginalized, whether economically or socially, the new view suggests that those on the outside perimeters of social networks are more likely to be radicalized. The reasoning is that someone with few connections is much easier to reach, and to manipulate, because they have few resources, and --because we also assume they are recent immigrants--they may also be gullible.
The fact that men (they are primarily men) over 30 have steady relationships and families, and are not gullible, and are not recently arrived, should give a serious pause to this thinking. Only more research, conducted in a thoughtful vein, will provide more answers, but were I conducting the research I would begin from a place of deep respect for the power of imagination to create alienation, marginalization, victimization, as well as other narratives, where sociology may see none.
Remember that the 9/11 attackers, each of whom came from a different background and had different grievances, were not in concretely dire circumstances. Nevertheless, the sense of historical grievance and lost glory runs through jihadist imaginings.
Narratives about Violent Extremists May Be Cultural Archetypes, not Scientific Profiles
Consider some strikingly similar findings about a different violent population, serial killers. Earlier this summer, the FBI released a study overturning a number of myths held in the United States about serial killers. The narrative that law enforcement works is strikingly similar to the one held about "Islamist terrorists." Serial killers are believed to be dysfunctional loners motivated by sex who tend to be white males (the point of similarity is that we believe they are an ethnically homogeneous group).
Nope.
According to the FBI:
- "The majority of serial killers are not reclusive, social misfits who live alone. They are not monsters and may not appear strange ....Serial murderers often have families and homes, are gainfully employed, and appear to be normal members of the community.
- "Contrary to popular belief, serial killers span all racial groups. There are white, African-American, Hispanic, and Asian serial killers. The racial diversification of serial killers generally mirrors that of the overall U.S. population."
- Serial killers are not motivated by sex, necessarily: "All serial murders are not sexually-based. There are many other motivations for serial murders including anger, thrill, financial gain, and attention seeking."
Now, despite meaningful differences between British and American cultures, there is a good question that we can both ask. There would appear to be a general template, a kind of story we want to tell, that helps us name our collectively scariest monsters. This story is of a particular demographic of men who are alienated or marginalized and who are motivated to kill or commit violent acts out of sexual desire or frustration.
This turns out to be not true for either violent extremists in Great Britain nor serial killers in the United States. The narrative says nothing meaningful about violent actors. What then, does it say about us, its authors?