The 21st century has gotten off to a violent start across the globe, said one expert in Muslim radicalization, with hatred becoming the dominant feeling as populations reject the idea of a “political utopia.”
“No one anymore believes in that,” Farhad Khosrokhavar told The West Block’s Tom Clark over the weekend, referring to ideas of successful multicultural integration and equality.
“The 21st century is the century of hatred. Hatred has become the dominant feeling among many groups.”
Canada may be one of the few exceptions, Khosrokhavar added, but even here, disenfranchised young men and women are turning to violent jihadism as an outlet for their frustration. The problem is even more pronounced in Europe.
“Usually it is not the first generation (of refugees or immigrants) that is the most dangerous, it’s the second,” he explained. “The first generation usually tries to adapt, to get involved in social life.”
It is their children that become the issue.
“They are in between. They will have a problem of identity. Are they Canadian? Are they Syrian?” Khosrokhavar told Clark.
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Often coming from the middle class, these young converts to jihasm frequently have no roots in Islam and fail to understand what the religion stands for. They become Muslim because they believe “it gives them the key of fighting through jihad. And jihadism becomes a kind of ideology that is anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, at the same time anti-feminist … regressive, repressive, all of it together.”
While the outlook seems bleak, Khosrokhavar was careful to add that this isn’t an insurmountable problem.
“Societies can tackle that. Once you know it, once you become aware of it, you can prevent them from going (to fight overseas),” he said. “We have to take measures, and the West is inventive enough to do so.”
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