‘SALAFISM’
When youths engage in violence and pres-sure their peers, when other religions, skin colors, ethnicities or ‘undesirable’ sexu-al orientations or ways of thinking and living are denigrated, this should entail preventive interventions at the school or
youth center in question. This also applies when an absolute claim to truth is made.
The task of prevention is to hook into con-crete positions and behavior and to initiate a debate on this.
STORIES FROM THE FIELD II
During a workshop conducted in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, a young man remarked that ‘Germans have sex on the subway’ when answering the question of what differentiates ‘Turks’ and ‘Germans’. These kinds of – often derogatory – ascriptions are part of the ‘us-and-them discourse’
that youths like to take up and push. (Youths of German ancestry often point to deep religiousness and macho behavior when describing what they consider as ‘typical’ for ‘Turks’ and ‘Arabs’.) Instead of reacting to such attributions with a rebuke or outrage, it could be worthwhile to get youths to discuss their various moral concepts and ask whether these are shaped by religion or culture. It turns out that often very reasonable values, views and desires are behind such ‘exaggerated’ and provocative opinions.
These are things that can easily be discussed even if there are differences (for example, when this issue is ‘types of sexuality’ or ‘revealing body images’).
Rhetorical questions from training sessions with pedagogues: How do you react when one of your students calls out in class that the Sharia is more important to him than this country’s Basic Law?
1. I call the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
2. I seize this opportunity to start a class discussion about what we consider important in life.
4. How do I recognize Salafist indoctrination and radicalization processes?
Only very few youths and young adults undergo a radicalization process. Such radicalization is at the very end of diverse processes that generally take place over a long period of time. Usually a ‘completely normal’ and legitimate quest for personal identity is at the beginning of any ideologi-zation and – possible – subsequent radical-ization. This can be a search for belonging, for example. At an early stage (i.e. when
universal prevention can still be effective), a long series of everyday factors (family environment, school, social, religious or cultural background, job/career prospects or experiences with discrimination) play a role in terms of what kinds of perspectives and orientations youths develop. If reli-gion and piety are – or become – signifi-cant as part of this quest, youths frequent-ly have no reference persons in the famifrequent-ly,
school or mosque from whom they can get satisfying answers to their questions.
In the light of this circumstance, the Internet takes on a central role at the be-ginning of almost every ideologization process. Almost inevitably, youths will come across Salafist propaganda targeted at their concerns in connection with reli-gion or their sense of alienation and dis-enfranchisement. Salafists offer their own specific message while presenting simpltic answers and solutions to complex is-sues. This is where a young person’s sense of uprootedness and discontent is met with an explanation and incorporated into a worldview: I’m not the only one who is affected. This ideology names the culprits of my plight or the plight of all Muslims.
During this stage of Salafist indoctrina-tion, personal contacts play an important role. This can be a religious community, Salafist preachers and mentors or individ-uals in connection with seminars on Salaf-ist-brand Islam.
Indeed, direct contacts generally play a crucial role in the radicalization process.
Youths join peer groups and their indoctri-nation is reinforced as they become part of a community. Others approve of and hard-en their views and this mutual hard- encourage-ment leads to a conviction that it is time to take action – not just for the youth’s per-sonal salvation but also for the collective on whose behalf they allege to act. Often-times concrete events such as a political
grievance related to global affairs or prob-lems in one’s own life, serve as the trigger – the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
In the case of youths and young adults who take the step from a readiness to com-mit acts of violence to actually taking ac-tion (by joining ISIS, for example), there are usually additional personal factors in-volved. This can include: traumatic family experiences, violence in their upbringing, perceiving experiences made by their par-ents as humiliating, fathers who are men-tally or physically absent or a sense of hav-ing no future, alienation or non-belong-ing. All of this can engender frustrations and a sense of powerlessness that can be vented with anger, aggression and vio-lence. (This is comparable to the motives of someone who is running amok: Want-ing – for once in one’s life – to turn the ta-bles on society, being on top of things and having the desire to make others feel insig-nificant). This also goes with a naïve thirst for adventure and a desire for self-effica-cy among youths and young adults who are fascinated by the idea of playing an im-portant role in the establishment of a new society, a new world as promised by Salaf-ist propaganda.
Possible signs of indoctrination and radicalization:
• Is an individual espousing extreme reli-gious views – even vis-à-vis other Mus-lims? Or is this merely provocation (also by breaching taboos) and atten-tion-seeking?
• Does this individual take a closed worldview? Or is he simply engaged in ideological experimentation?
• Is the youth gravitating away from fam-ily and old friends from sports clubs and the like and calling them infidels (kuffar)? Or is he just trying out new peer groups, youth scenes and cliques?
• Is the youth abandoning his previ-ous lifestyle and denigrating it? Is he closing himself off? Who are his new friends, the new group? Which Internet sites is he interested in?
• Is this new affiliation also visible phys-ically – growing a beard, wearing a caf-tan, shortened pants, camouflage or (among women) a full veil?
Please note: This type of behavior can – but doesn’t necessarily – point to indoctrination or radicalization. Generally there is no need to worry unless the individual in question has modified their behavior on several fronts at once.
„READ!“-CAMPAIGN: SALAFIST PROPAGANDA IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND SOCIAL MEDIA.
Our focus here is on universal, or primary, prevention aimed at sensitizing youths to views that are hostile to freedom and de-mocracy in the run-up to any potential in-doctrination processes. The idea is to pre-vent Salafist indoctrination by means of civic education and youth work under specific conditions and portents, in other words, directed at specific needs, issues and target groups. Questions concerning religion, piety and belonging are raised and play a central role in these efforts. The following suggestions and advice funda-mentally apply both to schools and to youth outreach programs – even though there will be considerable differences in terms of the hands-on work and the possi-bilities given. It is up to you, the educators, to source and draw on suitable content, formats, methods and materials in addi-tion to what is presented here.
The overriding goal of prevention work comes down to motivating youths in het-erogeneous groups to think about this cen-tral question: ‘How do we want to live?’ It is critical that they develop independent thinking skills that equip them to form own opinions and defend these. In our ex-perience this makes youths immune to the simplistic offerings and worldviews es-poused by Salafism and other fundamen-talist ideologies. Specifically, we want to single out the following objectives: Pro-moting integration as a mutual process;
addressing hostility to Islam and recogniz-ing experiences with racism and discrimi-nation; developing value-oriented posi-tions among youths; fostering the ability of one’s charges to tolerate and respect di-versity, plurality and ambiguity; sensitiz-ing them to simplistic worldviews and concepts of ‘the enemy’ (i.e. the ‘evil West’) and especially also to Islamist views that are contrary to our basic freedoms.