25/08/2014
Mona Siddiqui is a British Muslim academic and professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at the University of Edinburgh. For the
Observer yesterday, she writes about the motivation of middle-class, educated young men who are volunteering to join the jihad in Syria and Iraq.
After exploring the nature of ISIS, Siddiqui questions whether they are drawn purely by religious fervour, or something more fundamental. This is particularly relevant as she believes the "Islam" that ISIS embraces is not a religion at all but "a contrived ideology justifying barbarism and sexual control".
As to motivation, many young men, she writes, "see war as a drug, all powerful and mind blowing, with the thrill of donning a uniform and carrying guns". But, she adds, "we are no nearer to understanding the appeal of a nihilistic rhetoric", other than suggesting that "it may be a way of unleashing all kinds of psychological frustrations".
"There is not a failure of integration", Siddiqui asserts: "there is a deeper malaise than that tapping into a sense of emotional unfulfilment when you have everything", all of which means that the appeal of the Middle East wars to some young British Muslim men can't be reduced to an "Islam and the west"' debate.
Personally, I think Siddiqui has a point. Despite the insistence that certain of the less savoury characteristics are associated exclusively with Islam, we see that suicide bombing was exploited widely by the Viet Minh in Indo-China in the 1950s, while
beheading was widely practiced by the Japanese in World War II, by the North Koreans in the 1950s, and by the Viet Cong in the 1960s â without any religious connotations.
As to the way foreign recruits are attracted to the war, it might be useful to look at the
Spanish Civil War which started in 1936, between opposing Communist and Fascist forces. Many non-Spaniards, often affiliated with radical communist or socialist entities, joined International Brigades, believing that the Spanish Republic was a front line in the war against fascism.
The units represented the largest foreign contingent of those fighting for the Republicans, amounting to roughly 40,000 foreign nationals. Significant numbers of volunteers originated in France (10,000), Germany and Austria (5,000), and Italy (3,350). More than 1,000 each came from the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Canada.
There are obvious differences between the European volunteers of 1936 and those of now, but there is one very obvious similarity â both cohorts were drawn to foreign wars for reasons of ideology. There is maybe something to learn from that.
But as well as learning, there is an amount of teaching we could do â conveying a lesson to foreign volunteers that engagement in other people's wars leads to a short, miserable life with a painful ending. There should be less concern about what these people might do when they return, as to a concern to make sure they never return â except in body bags.
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