The conveyor belt theory is a caricature of those who seek to tackle extremism
In discourse around counter-extremism we often hear about the ‘conveyor-belt theory of radicalisation’, widely understood as the idea that non-violent extremism acts as a conveyor belt leading to violent extremism.
Or, in other words, non-violent extremists are heading towards violent extremism in a linear fashion, hence to prevent terrorism we must tackle non-violent extremism.
Critics of those that point to the role of non-violent Islamist groups in the radicalisation process, such as CAGE, keen to rebut this theory, refer to it as ‘discredited’ or suggest there is no evidence to support it.
What seems to have evaded most concerned with this subject area is that the conveyor belt theory actually doesn’t exist. Yes that is correct, there is no conveyor theory of radicalisation and no-one has proposed such a theory.
I would be happy to be proven wrong on this point but my research suggests such a theory was never put forward by anyone and the term ‘conveyor belt theory of radicalisation’ was concocted by those that are now critics of the theory. It is a grand straw man; the mother of all straw men if you like.
When asked about proponents of the fictitious conveyor belt theory, the critics often end up pointing to the Quilliam Foundation. However, no Quilliam spokesperson has ever referenced the conveyor belt theory. According to the Quilliam website:
“One can be a radical without being violent, or advocating violence. However, some who follow an Islamist agenda do use their political/religious beliefs in order to justify acts of violence, including violence that deliberately targets civilians. As such, Islamists often provide a narrative in which Islam as a faith is portrayed as being under attack. Such an interpretation can play into the hands of those who argue that Islam is in need of self-defense, even if it includes attacking civilians, including Muslims. Non-violent Islamists can champion this narrative, providing the mood music to which suicide bombers dance.”
This is a far cry from the conveyor belt theory that critics claim Quilliam posits. It therefore appears that the conveyor belt is nothing more than a caricature of those who seek to tackle non-violent extremism, often because such individuals are non-violent extremists themselves or allied to them. Having exposed this dirty trick, a number of additional points also need to be made.
Firstly, the term ‘non-violent extremism’ is slightly misleading because the organizations and individuals that it refers to (such as Hizb ut Tahrir) are not really non-violent but do not believe in terrorist attacks as a means of achieving political goals. They certainly believe in offensive jihad to conquer territory once their Islamic state has been established and they certainly intend to be violent towards gays, ex-muslims and those that do not conform to their moral norms.
So non-terrorist rather than non-violent would be more accurate.
Secondly, regardless of whether or not it causes terrorism, such non-terrorist extremism is problematic in itself. To have groups of individuals preaching the destruction of the West – as well as the necessity of establishing an Islamic state that implements barbaric capital punishments and kills dissenters – can cause a few problems in society. One of those problems being that it helps create a future support base for such a state when it does emerge, as we are now learning.
Thirdly, where there are non-terrorist extremists, terrorist extremist will eventually emerge just as if racism or homophobia were to proliferate in any society there would eventually be violent racist and homophobic attacks. This is just plain common sense and is borne out by the facts. Throughout the 90s we had Hizb ut Tahrir preaching the importance of defeating the West and establishing an Islamic state. Towards the late-90s, al-Muhajiroun splintered off and eventually began engaging in calls for jihad with many adherents now convicted of terrorism related offences.
Ideology interprets grievances, shapes identity and presents idealistic solutions that ultimately guides behavior. Extremist ideology preached with fervor sets the kettle boiling and eventually some of the water spills over.
Interestingly, those keen to deny the links between violent and non-violent extremists often argue the opposite when it comes to Islamophobia. They are very keen to point out the links between groups like the English Defence League, Britain First and anti-Muslim hate crime. Ideology suddenly becomes key and a precursor to violence when it is right-wing but not when it is Islamist.
We have a bizarre situation in this country whereby few are interested in trying to understand radicalisation yet many appear keen to use it to critique their political opponents. In the eyes of the hard-left, radicalized Muslims are a tool to exploit in a grand strategy to oppose western capitalism. Islamist extremists who preach the importance and necessity of establishing an Islamist state suddenly pretend their efforts are not linked to those seeking to establish their ideology through violent means.
Meanwhile we have sections of the press and academia that have already decided that the real issue is nasty Tory policies like Prevent – rather than extremists advocating religious supremacy.
Amjad Khan is a Muslim writer and commentator
28 Responses to “Extremism and the conveyor-belt fallacy”
johndowdle
THE failure in addressing radicalization is the failure to accept and understand the extent to which Western forces have contributed towards radicalization.
For example, allowing Zionists routinely, systematically and daily to murder Palestinians and – again – routinely, systematically and daily to steal Palestinian land and property without the West adopting a truly ethical stance on it all serves the sense of grievance.
Zionists inside and outside Israel have to be challenged to start behaving like decent human beings if we are to at least diminish some little part of the sense of grievance young Muslim men and women currently feel.
Until we in the West shed our hypocrisy and historical blindness on the subjugation of other peoples we cannot provide a rational rejoinder to the radicalizers.
I accept that finding the bases for following such courses of action is not easy.
Enslaving peoples in the Americas is a largely European course of action in recent history.
However, relations between European descendants and indigenous peoples in places like Canada, New Zealand and Australia are gradually improving as a result.
We should do the same thing where what we refer to as the Middle East (more correctly South West Asia) is concerned. Then, much of the heat of grievance would be removed. We must learn to stop interfering and leave the peoples there to sort out their own affairs.
ISIS is in reality a creature of the West, funded by America and supported by Jordan, the Saudis, Turkey and – indirectly – the Zionists in Israel. They all made ISIS possible.
Bquad
You speak of the West and the Muslim world as they are two singular monolithic entities. Even if your argument regarding foreign policy is true for some cases of radicalisaton, this does not explain terrorist attacks in other European countries that have very little history of foreign imperialism or adventurous foreign policies.
Simplifying the complex process of radicalisation to one casual factor is frankly sheer lunacy. The notion that people suddenly decide to believe in an ideology that wishes to impose a state based on theology solely on the basis of perceptions of foreign policy ignores so many other factors. The Muslim world is not one homogenous group and radicalisation has many causes, it removes any agency from the person becoming radicalised. I’m not arguing that foreign policy isn’t a significant cause of grievance to some who become radicalised, but your analysis (if it can be called that) is far too focused on one causal factor.
Also how would you explain non Muslim converts to Islamic extremism? Why would these people choose to espouse these values?
It seems like really you despise Western foreign policy, and are using the subject of radicalisation as a tool to push your dogma.
johndowdle
My measured response to your vituperative remarks is to take them specifically.
When you ask “…how would you explain non Muslim converts to Islamic extremism?” my answer is that such phenomena is a gradual process. Obviously, those who convert to them do not start out by advocating extremist measures, do they?
They start by appealing to their sense of lack of identity, saying that if they become converts they will become part of a new community in which they will be equally valued, in which all their past “sins” are forgiven by ‘Allah’ and they are re-born.
It is only gradually that the rhetoric changes towards inducing them into an increasingly radicalized outlook such that they end up becoming completely deluded and ready to adopt a truly murderous and rapine mind-washed framework.
That is why we in the West have to not only adopt a heightened moral and ethical stance but also act accordingly in a way which is beyond reproach.
Do I despise Western foreign policy? Well, just look at what the illegal invasion of Iraq triggered and the wholly uncritical support of Zionism has attained.
Can you or anyone else truly claim that these events, plus illicit support for ISIS has gained us any kind of respect among people who consume Muslim beliefs?
Bquad
Oh someone found the thesaurus, congratulations. Nothing bitter and abusive about my comment. It is lunacy to reduce the complex process of radicalisation to one factor as you seem so keen to do.
Your argument does not account for attacks that occur in Denmark, a country who hasn’t really been involved in Western imperialism to any comparable extent with the UK. Why does France have so many terror incidents when they as a nation took a more moral approach regarding the Iraq War? If it was a simple matter of foreign policy decisions, surely they wouldn’t have had the attacks they have had.
What do you mean our blindness to historical subjugation? The UK voted to recognise Palestine in the UK parliament last year. A lot of other European countries do the same and show great sympathy to the Palestinian cause. That to me does not suggest an uncritical support of Zionism at all.
The way you talk about the Muslim world and the West is also highly problematic. The Muslim world has agency, it doesn’t just have things happen to it and not react. Islamic fundamentalism predates the fall of the Ottoman empire, it has a long history and it is not just dependent on the West pissing people off for its spread. We can adopt a heightened moral stance all we like, won’t stop Saudi Arabia spreading its hateful ideology around the world, it won’t stop the Pakistani government using terror as a political tool and it wouldn’t stop Hamas from clamping down on minority rights. Islamic extremism is simply not just about the interaction between the Islamic world and the West.
Isis has not been illicitly supported by any significant way. Some armaments may have got to them, but to suggest the US is somehow in alliance with ISIS is a very farfetched statement, I would apply a considerable burden of proof before I believed that. Glenn Greenwald even dismissed the idea that the US/Mossad trained Al Baghdadi, so someone pretty close to Snowden doesn’t buy it. A false causality on your part I imagine.
Jack
Tracing back causes ad infinitum is quite a childish way to see the world. You choose the Balfour declaration really rather arbitrarily, if you are going to see things so abstractly, and not grounded in the world of power politics as they actually are. What of the forces that created the West? A lot fo people, and I assume you are one of them, love telling people how much the ‘West’ (taken, unlike the Muslim world, to be completely homogeneous in its evil) has been influenced by the East. Is the East, then, not the REAL cause of the Israel/Palestine conflict? What about Balfour’s parents? Or his parents? Grow up and can the verbosity; it’s disgusting. Also, stop condemning Zionism while supporting another movement that also claims ownership of land based on historical links. Its pathetic. Israel’s great.