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Startling new light on jihadis

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  • Startling new light on jihadis

    The passion with which academia and think-tanks in Western countries in recent years have been labouring to construct the profile of an average jihadi terrorist can only be called phenomenal.

    They have been extremely painstaking in unearthing minute facets of the jihadi’s personal, familial, societal, educational and cultural backgrounds and studying the trends and patterns emerging from the data collected.

    The Department of Sociology of the Oxford University has put on its Website ( Nuffield College, University Of Oxford ) a 90-page-long paper, Engineers of Jihad, by Professors Diego Gambetta of Nuffield College and Steffen Hertog of University of Durham, throwing startling new light on the mindset and motivation of jihadis, establishing a terrorism-engineering link. The duo has assembled exhaustive material to substantiate their findings, the more salient of which are:

    Many Islamic radicals are not economically dispossessed, are often better educated than their peers, and quite a few went to university.
    Many of them are engineers — profession not generally associated with a religiously inspired movement, least of all terrorism.

    Among members of violent Islamist groups, those who studied for ‘elite degrees’ — engineering, medicine, and science — represent 56.7 per cent.
    If economics and business administration are added, the percentage jumps to 63.4 per cent.

    The proportion of engineers in the sample surveyed who declare themselves to be conservative or strongly so is 57.6 per cent, compared to 51.1 of economists, 42.5 of doctors and 33.5 of scientists, 21.4 per cent of those in the humanities, and 18.6 per cent of the social scientists, the least right-wing of all disciplinary groups.
    The four disciplines at the top of the conservatism scale — engineering, economics, medicine, and science — are the same as those at the top of the main jihadist sample.

    Again, nearly half the engineers in the sample are both conservative and religious, followed by economists and, at quite some distance, by doctors and scientists.

    Engineers are four times more religious and conservative than social scientists (11.0 per cent), and three times more so than people in the arts and humanities (14.3 per cent). The subjects at the top of the religious-conservative scale are, once again, exactly the same as in the jihadist sample. Personal dispositions and mode of thinking among engineers possibly differ from those of students in other subjects in ways that could make them more prone to become involved in violent forms of radicalisation, not just as willing recruits but as prime movers.

    They tend to be attracted by the ‘intellectually clean, unambiguous and all-encompassing’ solutions that both the laws of engineering and radical Islam provide.

    Prodigious effort

    The rationale for all the prodigious effort by Western researchers is that terrorism cannot be effectively fought without getting a clue into the antecedents and orientation of the terrorist. Even intelligence agencies of Western countries have cottoned on to the idea.

    The Sunday Times, (July 10, 2005) published news of a British intelligence analysis revealing that extremists predominantly looked for recruits in “schools and colleges where young people may be very inquisitive but less challenging and more susceptible to extremist reasoning/arguments” and that they were most interested in persons with “technical and professional qualifications, particularly engineering and IT degrees.”

    It would seem that the German authorities, after 9/11, actually built up a database pertaining to more than 8 million individuals and carried out a thorough probe with reference to relevant parameters such as place of birth (those originating from any of the 26 Muslim countries underwent the most rigorous scrutiny), gender, age, religion and educational attainments.

    It also included the basis of their entry or residence, taking account of factors such as their skills (holding a pilot license) or knowledge in respect of carrying out a terrorist attack and their familiarity with places that could constitute possible terrorist targets by virtue of having jobs in airports, railways, nuclear power plants, chemical plants, research laboratories and language institutes.

    The German intelligence eventually shortlisted 1,689 suspects whom it methodically investigated to rule out their involvement in any terrorist plot and keep them under surveillance.

    It would be reassuring for the public to know whether there has been any comparable exercise undertaken by Indian academics and intelligence.

    B. S. RAGHAVAN

    The Hindu Business Line : Startling new light on jihadis
    A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

  • #2
    They do all have one thing in common - the koran.


    John

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Jay View Post
      They tend to be attracted by the ‘intellectually clean, unambiguous and all-encompassing’ solutions that both the laws of engineering and radical Islam provide.
      Simple minded then. I could have told them that.
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

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      • #4
        http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sta...ers-jihad.html

        http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sta...e-bombers.html

        http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sta...terrorism.html

        http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/sta...terrorism.html
        "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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        • #5
          Jihadis make a lot more sense when seen as 'revolutionaries'. They actually look quite a lot like the revolutionaries of the C19th & C20th (and probably before).

          The level of education; the dedication to simplistic, deterministic & millenarian views of the world; the sense of being part of some great, world changing movement; the preparedness to cheat, lie, maim & kill ruthlessly.

          It is popular to refer to 'Islamofascists', but I have always held that 'Islamobolsheviks' probably describes them just as well. Not as catchy, though. Despite the Socialist romanticism, revolutions have rarely come about from the working class/peasants. They have almost always been midwived by the middle class.

          On the other hand, few revolutions have ever succeeded without widespread discontent or actual chaos. It may or may not be possible to persuade a revolutionary to give up. It is certainly possible to cut the ground out from under them. This won't stop them from being bad, but it will limit the damage they can do. If the Shah had spent a bit more time & effort on what his people actually wanted (personal freedom was a biggie) and a lot less on the SAVAK, the military & self-aggrandisement then the Middle East would look a LOT different today.
          sigpic

          Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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          • #6
            Thanks Maj. I searched for this earlier, but couldnt find it :)
            A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
              Jihadis make a lot more sense when seen as 'revolutionaries'. They actually look quite a lot like the revolutionaries of the C19th & C20th (and probably before)...
              Great post.
              I enjoy being wrong too much to change my mind.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by ArmchairGeneral View Post
                Great post.
                Thanks AG.

                I started thinking this way as soon as I saw the personality profiles of the 9/11 hijackers. Led to more than a few arguments at the time (still does). One of Petraeus' advisors, David (?) Killcullen (also an Aussie) has written about this far more eloquently than I. Shek has a link to his article somewhere.

                I actually see this as good news. We have a good idea how to deal with revolutionaries, though it isn't easy. Simply looking at this as a clash of religions is a dead end. We aren't going to declare war on Islam, though the jihadis (and a few westerners) wish we would.

                Complex problems like this require a nuanced view & considered action. To do otherwise can be pointless, or at worst counterproductive.
                sigpic

                Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

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