‘When were they radicalized?’ is not the right question
Middle East
Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler on December 9, 2015
Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook were photographed at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport in 2014.
The big question these days dominating the airwaves is when was Syed Farook and
Tasheen Malik radicalized; or who radicalized them; and how were they
radicalized? This question is a perplexing one because it assumes that without
outside influence everything would be all right and that there are no valid
grievances, or anger, and no desire for revenge or justice no matter how
misguided those desires might be manifested.
This is a strange line of query because it presupposes that without external
forces radicalization would be impossible. This line of questioning
illustrates a blind patriotism of empire proportion that believes that anyone
upset and acting out is either demented or has fallen under the influences of a
political/religious ideology that exploits the weak minded or the mentally
deranged. To even ask the question is to make the assumption that everything is
ok around us and in our world and would be regarded as such if it were not for
outside influences. But this perspective has a tendency to ignore the
realities of what so many people live under and have to endure daily. It is
often from personal experiences, relationships with those impacted by what most
of us don’t see or care about are the radicalizing factors. The present queries
act as if there are no valid grievances, no real anger, and as if there is
innocence on the part of the powerful, the US and others. But this is not the
way that peoples of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia see the US or the
West.
The US and its partners have been at war for more than 14 years in Afghanistan.
The US began an unprovoked war in Iraq in 2003 and virtually destroyed the
country where today ISIL is filling part of the vacuum created by that war, and
the President of Afghanistan literally is presiding over nothing but the
capital city of that country, Kabul. The US under the cry of removing
President Bashar Hafez al-Assad in Syria by helping to orchestrate and sustain
a civil war has created a displacement crisis of epic proportion and caused the
deaths of more than 250,000 people. Conditions in many countries have worsened
under the wars and the remaking of the Middle East and North Africa in the
West’s image. Our continual military support of Israel against Palestinians
challenges the view that everything is ok without the influences of “outside
agitators” radicalizing people and calling them to arms. According to
Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper, in an August 2014 report it states concerning
military aid to Israel,
“Since it began in 1962, American military aid to Israel has amounted to nearly
$100 billion. For the past decades The United States has been regularly
transferring aid of about $3 billion annually. In recent years, the aid has
been solely for defense purposes. Additionally, The US has been giving Israel
generous military aid for projects important both to it and Israel.”
Even in light of Israel’s continued human rights violation Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2015 traveled to Washington, DC to request an
increase to the amount of aid his country receives from the US.
Then there is also the US drone program designed to make killing more
antiseptic and distant. However in a 2013 speech before the National Defense
University President Obama said,
“It is a hard fact that US strikes have resulted in civilian casualties.”
He did not go on to cite numbers or further details, yet Micah Zenko, a scholar
at the Council on Foreign Relations and lead author of a 2013 study of drones,
is quoted in an April 23, 2015 New York Times article on drone strikes, in
reference to the President’s 2013 comments,
“Most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not
know their names.”
The program has not been as clean as government leaders would have liked for us
to think. Or lastly among many examples, a November 2014 article in the
Guardian cites:
“A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes,
conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when
operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack
Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their
targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men
resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people…”
The assumption that “radicalization” is not based in some reality is an empire
or White supremacist notion where everything is ok save for those
rabble-rousers, outside agitators, and purveyors of hatred. Every time I hear
some newsperson or pundit drone on (excuse the pun) about when, how and who did
the radicalization I am reminded of J. Edgar Hoover, former Director of the FBI
during the Civil Rights era and the status-quo politicians of the time looking
under every rock for communist agitators from Moscow who had inflamed and
radicalized the Black folks to march, demonstrate and rebel! It is an empire
and White supremacist notion to believe that all is fine save for outside
influences. The assumption is ‘who would not be happy with our way of life,
our agendas, or ways we see the world.’
Keep in mind that I am not condoning acts of violence by any side or carried
out in any name of God or nationalistic identifications. I am simply pointing
out that it is real conditions and experiences that have given credence to the
so-called “radicalization” process. There are agents recruiting and organizing
people to join their cause, but it is recruitment based on some stark and harsh
realities produced by war, greed, and attempting to fashion entire regions in
the United States’ political image.
Therefore it stands to reason that to combat so-called radicalization the US
and its partners need to ethically evaluate it motives and initiatives and
stand to be judged in a world court where warranted. The US and its allies
need to allow countries and regions to develop without interference,
manipulation or control. The mechanisms of radicalization would be muted and
impotent if the US and its partners addressed human rights violations carried
out around the world by itself, its partners and its allies. There would be no
fertile ground to recruit from if people felt the processes were fair and just
rather than exploited by a few nations and corporations at the expense of
everyone else. This is a part of what needs to happen to thwart radicalization.
The US and its allies must right the wrongs they have done and attempt to
restore regions and people to govern their own selves no matter how those
structures might look in the end.
As far as who, when and how Syed Farook and Tasheen Malik and the countless
others were radicalized? The answer to this question is found in a world that
has been ravished by war and greed; in the conditions of despair that has been
created; in the powerless feeling pushed around by the powerful; and it is
there in refugee camps and at funerals from drone strikes that we will find the
agents of anger that breeds radicalization that we claim we do not understand.
‘When were they radicalized?’ is not the right question
Middle East
Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler on December 9, 2015 28 Comments
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Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook were photographed at Chicago's O'Hare
International Airport in 2014.
The big question these days dominating the airwaves is when was Syed Farook and
Tasheen Malik radicalized; or who radicalized them; and how were they
radicalized? This question is a perplexing one because it assumes that without
outside influence everything would be all right and that there are no valid
grievances, or anger, and no desire for revenge or justice no matter how
misguided those desires might be manifested.
This is a strange line of query because it presupposes that without external
forces radicalization would be impossible. This line of questioning illustrates
a blind patriotism of empire proportion that believes that anyone upset and
acting out is either demented or has fallen under the influences of a
political/religious ideology that exploits the weak minded or the mentally
deranged. To even ask the question is to make the assumption that everything is
ok around us and in our world and would be regarded as such if it were not for
outside influences. But this perspective has a tendency to ignore the realities
of what so many people live under and have to endure daily. It is often from
personal experiences, relationships with those impacted by what most of us
don’t see or care about are the radicalizing factors. The present queries act
as if there are no valid grievances, no real anger, and as if there is
innocence on the part of the powerful, the US and others. But this is not the
way that peoples of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia see the US or the
West.
The US and its partners have been at war for more than 14 years in Afghanistan.
The US began an unprovoked war in Iraq in 2003 and virtually destroyed the
country where today ISIL is filling part of the vacuum created by that war, and
the President of Afghanistan literally is presiding over nothing but the
capital city of that country, Kabul. The US under the cry of removing President
Bashar Hafez al-Assad in Syria by helping to orchestrate and sustain a civil
war has created a displacement crisis of epic proportion and caused the deaths
of more than 250,000 people. Conditions in many countries have worsened under
the wars and the remaking of the Middle East and North Africa in the West’s
image. Our continual military support of Israel against Palestinians challenges
the view that everything is ok without the influences of “outside agitators”
radicalizing people and calling them to arms. According to Ha’aretz, an Israeli
newspaper, in an August 2014 report it states concerning military aid to Israel,
“Since it began in 1962, American military aid to Israel has amounted to nearly
$100 billion. For the past decades The United States has been regularly
transferring aid of about $3 billion annually. In recent years, the aid has
been solely for defense purposes. Additionally, The US has been giving Israel
generous military aid for projects important both to it and Israel.”
Even in light of Israel’s continued human rights violation Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2015 traveled to Washington, DC to request an
increase to the amount of aid his country receives from the US.
Then there is also the US drone program designed to make killing more
antiseptic and distant. However in a 2013 speech before the National Defense
University President Obama said,
“It is a hard fact that US strikes have resulted in civilian casualties.”
He did not go on to cite numbers or further details, yet Micah Zenko, a scholar
at the Council on Foreign Relations and lead author of a 2013 study of drones,
is quoted in an April 23, 2015 New York Times article on drone strikes, in
reference to the President’s 2013 comments,
“Most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not
know their names.”
The program has not been as clean as government leaders would have liked for us
to think. Or lastly among many examples, a November 2014 article in the
Guardian cites:
“A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes,
conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when
operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack
Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their
targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men
resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people…”
The assumption that “radicalization” is not based in some reality is an empire
or White supremacist notion where everything is ok save for those
rabble-rousers, outside agitators, and purveyors of hatred. Every time I hear
some newsperson or pundit drone on (excuse the pun) about when, how and who did
the radicalization I am reminded of J. Edgar Hoover, former Director of the FBI
during the Civil Rights era and the status-quo politicians of the time looking
under every rock for communist agitators from Moscow who had inflamed and
radicalized the Black folks to march, demonstrate and rebel! It is an empire
and White supremacist notion to believe that all is fine save for outside
influences. The assumption is ‘who would not be happy with our way of life, our
agendas, or ways we see the world.’
Keep in mind that I am not condoning acts of violence by any side or carried
out in any name of God or nationalistic identifications. I am simply pointing
out that it is real conditions and experiences that have given credence to the
so-called “radicalization” process. There are agents recruiting and organizing
people to join their cause, but it is recruitment based on some stark and harsh
realities produced by war, greed, and attempting to fashion entire regions in
the United States’ political image.
Therefore it stands to reason that to combat so-called radicalization the US
and its partners need to ethically evaluate it motives and initiatives and
stand to be judged in a world court where warranted. The US and its allies need
to allow countries and regions to develop without interference, manipulation or
control. The mechanisms of radicalization would be muted and impotent if the US
and its partners addressed human rights violations carried out around the world
by itself, its partners and its allies. There would be no fertile ground to
recruit from if people felt the processes were fair and just rather than
exploited by a few nations and corporations at the expense of everyone else.
This is a part of what needs to happen to thwart radicalization. The US and its
allies must right the wrongs they have done and attempt to restore regions and
people to govern their own selves no matter how those structures might look in
the end.
As far as who, when and how Syed Farook and Tasheen Malik and the countless
others were radicalized? The answer to this question is found in a world that
has been ravished by war and greed; in the conditions of despair that has been
created; in the powerless feeling pushed around by the powerful; and it is
there in refugee camps and at funerals from drone strikes that we will find the
agents of anger that breeds radicalization that we claim we do not understand.
