TITLE:
The Jihadist Complex
AUTHORS:
Ishmael D. Norman
KEYWORDS:
Jihadist Complex, Radicalism, Terrorism, Jihadist, Motivation, Instrumentalized, Al Qaeda, ISIS, West Africa
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.6 No.2,
February
16,
2016
ABSTRACT: Objective: This is an
exploratory review of the literature to map out the characteristics of the jihadist
complex as a tool for understanding the conduct better than we do now. I assessed
the factors leading to youth disenfranchisement to determine whether they were contributory
push factors among the youth that are attracted to jihadist causes. What are the
modalities for reducing some of the underlying causes of radicalism in the Sub-region
and elsewhere? Method: For the theoretical analyses, I relied on five thematic areas
theorized by various security researchers that jihadist radicalism is youthful,
that it is built on Islamic religious “narrative”, that they are a disenfranchised
rebels without a cause, that they are not empathetic towards the suffering of vulnerable
Muslims, that due to these antecedents, radicals are “instrumentalized” by groups
such as Al Qaeda or ISIS. Result: The result shows the literature on radicalism,
jihadist terrorism is still emerging and suffers from the lack of systematic epidemiologic
formulation for the analyses of this social conduct. It appears there is confusion
among researchers about whether the terrorist suffers from what can be described
as “Jihadist Complex”. Discussion: Jihadism is not an esoteric subject that should
elude classification with regards to the behaviors of those engaged in this cause,
since there is inherent stratification in the social backgrounds that the jihadists
come from Africa, Asia, UK or Germany. Conclusion: To address a social challenge,
one has to have the capacity to appraise the cause/effect aspect of the challenge
on a given person or a group thereof. Jihadist push and pull factors can be understood
and classified just as many human conducts are classifiable.