NoNonsense ISIS and Syria. Phyllis Bennis

to their country despite being born and raised there. Laws in Europe that prohibit hate speech are widely seen as perpetuating double standards, since they prohibit antisemitism but allow racist and Islamophobic slurs under the guise of free expression. Paris imam Mehdi Bouzid spoke of Cherif Kouachi, one of the Charlie Hebdo attackers, saying: ‘We had lost him. Their message – the message [of radical Islam] – is tempting to those like Cherif. It promises them a place, acceptance, respect. They do not have that here.’

      For some young people growing up in the squalid immigrant slums that surround many European cities, desperation and the lack of opportunity set the stage for often-petty criminal activity and sequential jail terms in violent prisons, which sometimes leads to indoctrination into some of the most radical versions of political Islam. Shortly after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, the international press started paying attention to studies indicating that, as Reuters described it, ‘prison radicalization is a problem in countries ranging from Britain and the US to Afghanistan. However, France stands out because over half its inmates are estimated to be Muslim, many from communities blighted by poverty and unemployment.’ The disproportionate number of French prisoners who are Muslims, at 50 per cent compared to their estimated share of between 5 and 10 per cent of the population, reflects the same harsh reality that civil-rights attorney and author Michelle Alexander, in her seminal book The New Jim Crow, highlighted regarding African-Americans in US prisons: that the criminal justice system perpetuates racial inequality.

      In one of the distinctions between ISIS and other jihadi organizations, including al-Qaeda, the declaration of a ‘caliphate’ has led ISIS to focus on recruiting professionals, such as doctors and engineers, and their families to come to live in this new quasi-state. Images of family life in the ‘caliphate’ form part of slick, web-based recruiting campaigns. In Raqqa, the ISIS ‘capital’ in Syria, thousands of local residents have been forced out, their homes distributed to ISIS fighters, supporters and their families, who also receive money, electricity and healthcare. Reportedly, education for children – boys and girls – is available, shaped by the ISIS version of Islam and sharia law. At the same time, extreme brutality – toward local civilians, particularly women, non-Muslims, anyone who opposes ISIS rule, anyone who differs from the ISIS leadership’s fanatical interpretations of Islam – remains the norm.

Is the typical ISIS fighter a Muslim of Middle Eastern descent?

      Not all foreign supporters are coming from Western countries. As an imprisoned Saudi human rights activist told the Washington Post: ‘So many Saudis are engaged with the Islamic State because of the lack of political freedoms in our country. They are frustrated because they cannot express themselves.’ Describing young prisoners being recruited to join the Islamic State, he said: ‘It’s like committing suicide for them to join the Islamic State, but they feel that their lives don’t matter because of the injustice in this country. That’s what happens when people are deprived of their rights.’

      But throughout 2014, reports also began to surface regarding young people, mainly Europeans, who were either almost secular, non-practising Muslims or not Muslim at all, choosing to join ISIS or other violent organizations because of alienation or other reasons unrelated to religious extremism. As the author of Inside British Islam, Innes Bowen, told Business Insider magazine: ‘There was no single type of person who becomes a radical in the UK, and no single pathway to their ideology. There must be a range of motivations – a sense of adventure, a misplaced sense of duty or idealism – some of those recruited are well versed in ideology and the politics of their radical cause, others are surprisingly ignorant.’ Numerous press outlets reported the story of young recruits in Europe who purchased Islam for Dummies and The Koran for Dummies on Amazon before leaving for the Middle East.

      The assumption that most would-be terrorist recruits are likely to be practising Muslims, most likely from an Arab or other immigrant background, and somehow identifiable through racial and religious profiling, needs to remain suspect. A classified 2008 report from Britain’s MI5 that was leaked to The Guardian acknowledged that,