How To Counter Jihadist Appeal Among Western European Muslims

Wilson Briefs l December 2015
Frederic Legrand - COMEO / Shutterstock.com
How to Counter
Jihadist Appeal among
Western European Muslims
By Fernando Reinares
SUMMARY
Worldwide terrorism connected with the jihadist insurgencies in Syria and
Iraq emerges disproportionately among second- and third-generation Muslim
youth from Western Europe. Many of them identify neither with European
society nor with their countries of origin, but find in jihadist propaganda an
identity in a transcendent nation of Islam. Governments should prepare
community leaders to identify and intervene with at-risk youth and should
enhance and coordinate efforts to counter jihadist propaganda both online
and in local communities.
The origin of the worldwide terrorist mobilization related to the jihadist insurgencies in
Syria and Iraq lies not only in the Middle East but also in Western Europe. Poignantly, all
those suspected of involvement in the November 13, 2015, attacks in Paris, which killed
130 people, were French or Belgian, though most assailants had spent time in Syria.
Muslims from Western Europe are overrepresented among the foreign terrorist fighters
actually present in Syria and Iraqexactly 16 times overrepresented. In 2010, the year
before civil war erupted in Syria, there were an estimated 1.6billion Muslims in the
world. Only about 20million of themslightly more than 1percentwere living in
Western Europe. Yet Muslims from Western Europe have accounted for no less than
one-fifth of the 25,000 to 30,000 individuals who have traveled to join the Islamic State
(also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant [ISIL]), al-Qaedas Nusrah Front, and
other jihadist organizations in Syria and Iraq over the past four years. This unprecedented
expression of jihadist radicalization and recruitment, mostly of young men, presents a
crisis to Western Europe.
A second-generation phenomenon
The crisis is not plaguing all Western European countries uniformly. The countries
most affected by youth jihadist radicalization have Muslim populations composed
predominantly of second- or even third-generation descendants of migrants who left
their Islamic homelands in northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South
Asia several decades ago. The affected countries include both larger nations such as
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom and smaller ones like Belgium, Denmark, the
Netherlands, and Sweden.
Spain and Italy, in contrast, which have important Muslim populations largely
composed of first-generation immigrants, are experiencing much lower levels of jihadist
mobilization. The proportion of youth leaving Spain and Italy to become terrorist fighters
in Syria and Iraq resembles that of the United States (where most Muslims are also firstgeneration immigrants).
WILSON BRIEFS
But even in Spain, the nexus of second-generation status and jihadist mobilization shows
up. Some 75percent of Spanish nationals arrested since 2013 for terrorist offenses
related to Syria-based jihadist entities were born in the autonomous cities of Ceuta
and Melilla, which are actually Maghreb enclaves surrounded by Morocco on the north
coast of Africa. These are the only cities in Spain where second-generation populations
predominate in large Muslim collectivities.
Western European governments have a serious problem in accommodating secondand third-generation Muslims in their heterogeneous and pluralistic societies. Neither a
multiculturalist approach, such as the one long pursued in the United Kingdom, nor the
pervasive assimilationist policies adopted in France, has succeeded.
And socioeconomic and educational background is no key to predicting the appeal of

jihadist ideas. Radicalized second-generation Muslims of Pakistani ancestry in the United
Kingdom may come from middle-class families and have a university education, while
those in France of Algerian or Moroccan ethnic origin are usually from the economically
deprived banlieus and have poor schooling.
An identity crisis
A generalized identity crisis among young, second-generation immigrant Muslims in
Western Europes wealthiest countries appears to lie behind high levels of jihadist
mobilization. Migrant descendants born or socialized in the host country are often
caught in an odd balance between cultures and are especially prone to identity tensions
connected with a diaspora situation. Among young second-generation Muslims living in
Western Europe, too many have developed little affection for the nation in which they
were born or raised, even though they show scant attachment to the nation from which
their parents or grandparents came.
These descendants of migrants face easy and recurrent exposure to todays jihadist
propaganda, not only through the Internet and social media but also in face-to-face
interactions with local radicalizing agents. Jihadist propaganda offers a violent solution
certainly not the only possible one, just the most extreme oneto these individuals
identity conflicts. Al-Qaeda offers underground, combatant-style militancy to those who
identify themselves as part of the nation of Islam, and the Islamic State additionally
provides a sense of empowerment inherent in the exaltation of savagery and integration
into the caliphate as a territorialized, sharia-based new society.
WILSON BRIEFS
Western European countries have failed to persuade thousands of young secondgeneration Muslims that their religious identity is compatible with their identityor
multiple identitiesas citizens who belong to open societies. In response, governments
must strengthen efforts in two complementary policy areas while recognizing that
success is likely to take a long time.
Western European governments must equip authority figuresheads of families

and households, managers, and leaders of schools, places of worship, and other
public places where second-generation adolescents or young adults of Muslim
ancestry congregateto spot drifting individuals who are likely candidates for
psychoeducational or counseling intervention. These authorities must also be
given reliable ways to communicate with designated officials, primarily at the local
level, about individuals at risk of radicalization.
At national and intergovernmental levels, efforts to counter both online and local
radicalizing agents and agencies should be enhanced. Resistance should be
directed not only against those espousing an openly jihadist worldview, but also
against others of Salafist and similar orientations who share core beliefs with the
jihadists and, even if they do not explicitly condone violence, promote attitudes
opposing the principles and values of liberal democracies.
Fernando Reinares is director of the Program on Global

Terrorism at Elcano Royal Institute and professor of political science
at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid. He is a Wilson Center
Global Fellow and adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown
University, currently teaching on terrorism and homeland security policy
at American University in Washington, D.C.
The Wilson Center

@TheWilsonCenter
facebook.com/WoodrowWilsonCenter
www.wilsoncenter.org
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004-3027

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Wilson Briefs l December 2015

Frederic Legrand - COMEO / Shutterstock.com

And socioeconomic and educational background is no key to predicting the appeal of

Western European governments must equip authority figuresheads of families

Fernando Reinares is director of the Program on Global

The Wilson Center

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

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