Encountering extremism

Theoretical issues and local challenges

Alice Martini, Kieran Ford, Richard Jackson

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526136633
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Countering extremism is starting to receive more attention as a subject of research in academia and policy circles alike, demonstrating its rising popularity within the market. Nevertheless, the market currently lacks literature on the topic of extremism (as opposed to terrorism), and critical approaches in particular. The concept of this book thus grows from the need to look at the under-researched approaches to the topic from a critical perspective.This book brings together a set of scholars from a diverse range of countries, experts in many fields of social sciences to present valuable multidisciplinary analysis of both theoretical and practical aspects related to countering extremism. It will thus be of interest for scholars and students of the following disciplines, among others: Anthropology, Comparative Politics, Criminology, Education Studies, Gender Studies, International Relations, Post-colonial Studies, Peace Studies, Sociology, Subaltern Studies, Terrorism Studies.

Part I

What’s in a name? Theoretically deconstructing extremism

1

Interrogating the concept of (violent) extremism: a genealogical study of terrorism and counter-terrorism discourses

Chin-Kuei Tsui

Tracing the discursive origins of ‘(violent) extremism’: terrorism, radicalisation and extremism

Recently, the terms terrorism, radicalisation and extremism have been utilised interchangeably by scholars, decision makers and policy practitioners to interpret the so-called ‘terrorist threat’. The tendency is to increasingly merge these terms into a sole discursive framework that is perceived to affect the modern epistemological understanding of terrorism and the subsequent practices of countering (violent) extremism in many Western countries (Richards, 2015, 2017). However, through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which aims to try and understand the relationship between discursive phenomena and social processes and practices (Jackson, 2018; Jorgensen and Phillip, 2002), this chapter contributes to a genealogical study of terrorism-related discourse and illustrates an intrinsic link among the concepts of terrorism, radicalisation and extremism. The present research suggests that the discursive foundation of violent extremism is actually the more widely accepted US war on terror discourse and the recent radicalisation discourse, particularly constructed by counter-terrorism elites and intellectuals in the UK around the mid-2000s. In addition, as much of the existing literature has demonstrated, besides the US-led war on terror, the discursive construction of radicalisation and extremism can be attributed to the notions about a series of significant incidents in the 2000s plotted by perpetrators with Middle East and North African backgrounds, such as the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 7/7 London bombings.

(Countering) violent extremism in the US’s ‘war on terror’ discourse

Although recent research (Nasser-Eddine et al., 2011) has argued that so-called ‘violent extremism’ is an evolving concept and, thus, there is no real distinction between violent extremism and other forms of political violence, the concept of violent extremism has its specific meaning in counter-terrorism initiatives conducted mainly by Western countries. The construction of ‘(countering) violent extremism’ discourse should be better understood in the wider context of the US-led war on terror.

Subsequent to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001, the Bush administration acted vigorously to instigate the global war on terror. In the name of counter-terrorism, the Bush administration conducted two major military operations in the greater Middle East – namely, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom – overthrowing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, after major military combat in both countries, the US turned to a bloody war of counter-insurgency in Iraq, trying reluctantly to win the war of ‘hearts and minds’; it also fought various campaigns against jihadist groups in Yemen, Libya, Somalia, Mali, the Philippines and elsewhere under the Bush presidency. Accordingly, many (Jackson, 2012; Leffler, 2003; Miller, 2010; Winkler, 2007) have argued that the military-oriented counter-terrorism approach was the focus of the Bush administration’s global war on terror, though other approaches like the anti-terrorism legislation and enforcement marked by the PATRIOT Act of 2001 were simultaneously implemented by the Bush administration.

Despite the material practices mentioned above, during the Bush presidency, the war on terror discourse – the particular way of talking about and understanding terrorism and counter-terrorism – was successfully framed, constructed, circulated and institutionalised in the wider American society (Croft, 2006; Jackson, 2012). Terrorism was consequently comprehended as a severe threat to the US, its citizens and the American way of life. During these years, the political rhetoric of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ mainly referenced Islamic extremism characterised by bin Laden, al Qaida and their affiliates. Despite the notion of Islamic extremism in the mid-2000s, terms such as ‘extremism’, ‘extremists’ and ‘radicalisation’ rarely appeared in America’s public discourse; when these terms were used, they usually referred to the far right and neo-Nazism (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018, pp. 6–7).

Unlike the Bush administration’s global war on terror and its counter-insurgency missions in Iraq, which were the major policy focus of President Bush’s second term, the Obama administration continued the ‘war’ but relocated it to Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the implicit argument that these countries, not Iraq, were the true ‘epicenter of violent extremism practised by Al Qaida’ and that ‘it is from here that new attacks are being plotted’ (Obama, 2009c). Most of the coercive approaches to counter-terrorism – such as the drone-killing programme and the reliance on US special military forces – were adopted and even broadly utilised by the Obama administration; indeed, Obama and his political aides contributed to a discursive shift in US counter-terrorism; that is, the language changed from ‘the war on terror’ to ‘the war against al Qaida and violent extremism’ (Jackson and Tsui, 2016). More specifically, during the Obama presidency, terms such as extremist, extremism and violent extremism were adopted to replace phrases related to the war on terror and were particularly utilised by officials to interpret the threats posed by al Qaida and ISIS because these groups were the focus of President Obama’s counter-extremism initiatives. The discursive shift of US counter-terrorism, in part, illustrates Obama’s determination to change his predecessor’s controversial foreign and security policies, which had been argued against and criticised by many American citizens and US foreign allies. It partially demonstrates the Obama administration’s political goal to ease the tension between the Muslim world and the US that was caused by the tragedy of 9/11 and the so-called global war on terror.

In 2009, in his address to the joint session of Congress, Obama (2009a) said, ‘With our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat Al Qaida and combat extremism’. In the same speech, he emphasised that, ‘To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend, because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America’. On 4 June 2009, when he delivered his remarkable speech at Cairo University and tried to release the tension between the US and the Islamic world, Obama (2009b) stressed that, among many significant issues (such as Palestinian–Israeli relations and the proliferation of nuclear weapons), violent extremism was undoubtedly the top issue that the US had to confront in the Muslim world in the foreseeable future. As he mentioned unequivocally, ‘The US and the Muslim world will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security, because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children’.

In short, in the first term of Obama’s presidency, there was still no firm consensus about the meaning and definition of extremism in the US political arena. In official language, extremism usually referred to a specific form of brutal violence targeting innocent civilians and committed mainly by al Qaida. To deal with the threats posed by extremism, a specific Countering Violent Extremism Working Group was built by the US Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration introduced and published the first preventing violent extremism (PVE) strategy in August 2011 (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018, p. 11). Besides, during Obama’s first term as president, international cooperation on issues related to terrorism and extremism was prompted and supported by US government authorities, such as the US–EU security dialogue on countering violent extremism (CVE) and the establishment of the EU’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), built based on the shared interests of the US and EU in CVE (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018, p. 11, pp. 23–25).

However, the notion of domestic (violent) extremism and relevant policy practices notably can be dated to 2009 and 2010 due to the lessons learnt from several incidents in the US, namely, the Little Rock recruiting office shooting in Arkansas, the Fort Hood shooting in Texas and two attempted bombings in New York plotted by Najibullah Zazi and Faisal Shahzad (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018, p. 11). Prior to these events, officials thought radicalisation and the extremist threat in the US homeland occurred relatively rarely, compared with many European countries; thus, issues related to radicalisation and extremism were initially discussed internally by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and New York Police Department (NYPD) officials, and were not explicitly perceived as policy programmes (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018, pp. 10–11). Yet, after these incidents, European and particularly UK-style CVE programmes, which emphasise the significance of risk analysis and management, were imported and stressed by US policymaking elites and counter-terrorism practitioners (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018).

In Obama’s second term, the term (violent) extremism was particularly utilised by US political elites to interpret the threats posed by ISIS and so-called ‘foreign fighters’ residing in many European countries. In 2014, when he gave his UN General Assembly speech on the so-called ‘violent extremism’ that the world faced, Obama quoted President Kennedy’s words:

‘Terror is not a new weapon’, he said. ‘Throughout history, it has been used by those who could not prevail, either by persuasion or example’. In the 20^th century, terror was used by all manner of groups who failed to come to power through public support. But, in this century, we have faced a more lethal and ideological brand of terrorist who have perverted one of the world’s great religions. . . . They have embraced a nightmarish vision that would divide the world into adherents and infidels – killing as many innocent civilians as possible, and employing the most brutal methods to intimidate people within their communities. (Obama, 2014)

Additionally, although the post-war situation in Afghanistan was controlled by the US in 2014, Obama (2014) continued to urge the international community to beware of the danger posed by some ‘religiously motivated fanatics’ (i.e., members of ISIS) who were thought to be the cause of violent extremism. As he pointed out, ‘Extremist ideology has shifted to other places – particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, where a quarter of young people have no job; food and water could grow scarce; corruption is rampant; and sectarian conflicts have become increasingly hard to contain’ (Obama, 2014). Clearly, for the Obama administration, the roots of violent extremism are associated with twisted religious ideologies, economic and political grievances and sectarian conflicts. Obama’s political discourse argues and illustrates that, besides al Qaida and the Taliban, the threat of (violent) extremism originated from the greater Middle East and was noted and discussed by US officials in Obama’s second term.

In 2015, the Obama administration further explained the concept of violent extremism and introduced the outlines for the US-led counter-extremism coalition. As Obama indicated at the summit on CVE hosted by the US in Washington, DC:

By violent extremism, we don’t just mean the terrorists who are killing innocent people. We also mean the ideologies, the infrastructure of extremists – the propagandists, the recruiters, the funders who radicalise and recruit or incite people to violence. (Obama, 2015a)

Regarding the feasible counter-extremism policies targeting al Qaida and ISIS, Obama (2015a) emphasised the necessity of a prevention policy – that is, preventing these groups from radicalising, recruiting or inspiring individuals to violence in the first place. Based on the idea of prevention, relevant policies were argued to be indispensable at discrediting extremist ideologies, addressing issues related to political and economic grievances, and enlarging the counter-extremism community composed of both Muslim and non-Muslim members (Obama, 2015b). Moreover, a pilot programme on CVE prompted by the US Justice Department was beginning to be implemented in Los Angeles, Greater Boston and Minneapolis (Kundnani and Hayes, 2018; Smith et al., 2018).

Additionally, Obama claimed that leaders of al Qaida and ISIS were, in fact, terrorists who portrayed themselves as religious leaders and therefore justified violence in the name of Islam. To discredit extremist thought and improve the relationship between the US and the Islamic world, Obama (2015a) emphasised that the US was not at war with Islam, as extremist groups like al Qaida and ISIS constantly claimed; instead, the US was at war with those who perverted Islam.

In summary, an analysis of US terrorism-related discourse illustrates that the prevalence of the words extremism or violent extremism in the US political arena can largely be traced to the Obama presidency, although, in the mid-2000s, officials from the Bush administration had debated the utilisation of the war on terror and suggested a new phrase – struggle against violent extremism (SAVE) – to rebrand the US-led counter-terrorism efforts after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in 2001 (Burkeman, 2009; Nasser-Eddine et al., 2011). The internal debate among US officials illu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Encountering extremism: a critical examination of theoretical issues and local challenges
• Part I What’s in a name? Theoretically deconstructing extremism
• Part II Extremism, countering extremism and preventing extremism: from theory to international and local challenges
• Index