Radicalisation

A construction of stairs heading down to a beach near where I live was being crafted by a man whose name I recognised from a previous life. I introduced myself and he remembered me and my family from the church we used to attend, which he still attends. We chatted a while and he reflected on how God had created the world, that the trouble we face was because of the sins of the world, and so I said something like ‘great job you are doing on the stairs, see you later.’

I recalled a time earlier when I met another parishioner from that church on an interstate flight, and we had a similar discussion; God’s creation, the rejection of that by ‘the world’, a denial of the scientific evidence gathered over hundreds of years, things like fossil remains of extinct species was a trick God played on us, I suppose to test out faith in his creative ability. Coal, petroleum, gas and valuable metals had been placed by the all-knowing God as a resource to be used when our technological expertise or ability to monetise them developed so we could enrich ourselves from the hidden bounties.

That man was a teacher in a Christian school.

In the understanding we have of the origins of the earth, that it is in fact a ball floating in space, circling a star we call the sun and so many other aspects of understanding the world we inhabit, to be so focussed on the Biblical creation story as being truth is radical, as were the people who questioned the creation story, whether the earth was in fact flat or a ball, whether the sun magically found its way to the east just in time for sunrise in the morning, sinking below the western horizon in the late afternoon, to scurry off beneath the flat earth to do it all again tomorrow.

Some people who questioned that understanding were beheaded, imprisoned or otherwise silenced for daring to have such radical views. But times have changed.

Radical thinking though is still with us, sometimes just in questioning orthodoxies, sometime in violently forcing change or a reversion to ‘the halcyon days of yore’.

When teaching a year 10 class in a school with a significant immigrant population, a young man, a bit older than the rest of the class, a Muslim, insisted we should enforce Sharia Law in Australia. We were looking at the law and government as the teaching topic. His argument became quite strident, so I asked him to chat with me about it at the end of the class. When asking him why our laws needed to change he said ‘because they are not Sharia Law, they are not Islamic laws.’ I asked him in what ways were they different, and how different from other religious based laws, but he could not answer that. My next challenge was to ask him if he could live according to Sharia Law, so living his life in accordance with the laws as he saw them, what Australian laws would he be transgressing?

He had to go away and think about that, but did not raise the question again, at least not in class.

So how does radicalisation work, and how can the harms of violent radicalisation be minimised?

I don’t claim to have the answers, but it is surely is something we need to consider, and for that I look back on my own life, the life of an immigrant family, second language struggles, and deeply religious. In that, I was no different than many of my peers who arrived from Europe during the 1950s. We were Christian, and so sort of fitted in with mainstream Australia, but language was an issue for a while, although quite quickly when parents spoke to us in Dutch, we responded in English, again not uncommon.

The main area of difference was in church and church related activities.

Apart from attending Sunday services, both morning and evening, we had ‘catechism’ classes, learning all about the creeds which framed our religious observance, and as we grew older, youth clubs where as teenagers we bonded as a social group under strict oversight, and indoctrination of the dogmas which formed the guide-rails for our lives.

Those teachings seemed to place us, the believers, a step or two above the rest of the community we lived in, we were, after all, predestined by God to be his special people.

The area we moved to included welfare housing as well as established areas, and there was a predominately Italian community. The children of that community attended a Catholic school, fulfilling essentially the same function as the social environment of the church I grew up in.

As mentioned above, those dogmas reinforced the religious teachings, so much at odds with the lessons from state schools. And at times, at odds with the cultural environment we had moved into.

There were other elements too, but since we were not radically different from the rest of the community, and under the controls of the White Australia policy, did not stand out as much as the southern European immigrants, Italians and Greeks, so did not face the same degree of more overt racism.

In today’s world, things are a bit different. The newest wave of immigrants look different and dress differently, some wear turbans, others insist their women cover their hair, others are of a different skin colour. Each as they arrive need to find a way to transition into the adopted land’s cultures, and yet retain a sense of their identity, so often bound in the religion they grew up with.

This is not a new thing, it has been around as long as there have been differences, as long as there has been migration from one part of the world to another.

Radicalisation has degrees, from the type of discourse with people who adhere to beliefs such as creationist to others who insist that ‘the sins of the world’ need to be addressed with a violent attempt at overthrowing the existing system with one which fits their interpretation of their beliefs.

It can be as benign as the Jehovah’s Witness practice, which sees their government as coming from their Biblical God, so they do not vote, do not join the military and have very strict rules regarding membership. They pay taxes and have passports to travel as well as accepting the benefits of being citizens of the country they live in. Biblically, following the instruction of Jesus regarding taxes, to ‘render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s’.  If a person leaves the fellowship however, they leave any contact with other Witnesses, they are excommunicated to such a degree that even family are uncontactable. Radical, yes, but not a threat to the way our society functions, or can be as extreme as  we see in other beliefs.

Problems arise when issues of faith or belief are dogmatised. They become rules to live by, establishing an alternative which does not fit into the mainstream orthodoxy.

An interesting question to google is how the various religious texts deal with judgementalism, which is behind so much religious discrimination. It seems that it was not just Jesus who warned not to judge others, since you too may be judged, the teaching in the Quran is similar, as are Taoist and Hindu teachings. The teachings really ask that believers hold the laws up as a mirror, to set standards for personal behaviour, rather than to pointing out shortcomings of others. Probably the best example is when Jesus, confronted with a couple caught in the sin of adultery asks that those who are without sin cast the first stone, to begin the prescribed punishment of stoning the adulterers.

Unfortunately, it is far easier to judge others than to look at one’s own shortcomings.

But it’s not only religion which radicalises. Addiction to social media influencers are just as pernicious. An example can be the influence of the Tate brothers and the rise of the ‘manosphere’, the hyper-masculinity which has impacted so many young boys.

Radicalisation is much more subtle than the violence of a terrorist attack, it can be the ugliness female teachers face when young boys in class bark, or tell the teacher to get into the kitchen or any number of taunts which flow incessantly, it can result in the sort of behaviour which some footballers thought was ok, they’re tough men, football heroes who can do whatever they like, or some entitled seventeen-year-old boys who think it’s OK to rape a young girl.

Despite their best efforts to control access, hard core pornography has become for some young people their sex education, portrayal of sex as power plays, as objectification of women, of anything but placing sex in a love context, as part of a reply heart felt intimate relationship.

Or it can be footballers or other sporting heroes who feel so entitled that the hero worship gives license to take liberties with women.

It can be the privileged social status of some men who are able to hide behind anonymity when facing sexual assault or domestic violence charges.

It manifests as antisemitism as people go down the YouTube and social media threads about the horrors of Gaza and The West Bank where genocide or ethnic cleansing is ongoing, seemingly never ending.

It can be the response to the Islamaphobic threads which express the fears of having Sharia Law become our laws as we are apparently being over-run by Muslims.

And yes, in religious circles, the vulnerable, the naive are indoctrinated, are radicalised to commit acts of terrorism, especially when that religion is marginalised, pilloried. Where insults are directed at people who dress in particular ways, as dictated by their religious leaders, where people are spat at because they are deemed to be less than whoever is doing the spitting.

Through social media, the problem with the way information is accessed, algorithms determining the sort of stuff people access, the information is extremely one-sided, it will repeat and expand on what is on the threads, so the idea that there may be another side, a more nuance approach, a means to apply critical thinking is discouraged, normalising the fears and attitudes toward the targeted people. Much the same when in religious circles or influencers such as Turning Point USA, the conservative movement headed by Charlie Kirk with the promotion of tradition gender roles, traditional stay at home wives, anti gay and sexual diversity definitions. A winding back the clock to an earlier time when things were clear cut… except for those for whom it was not clear cut, when homosexual acts were criminal acts, or indigenous people who were dispossessed, marginalised, discriminated against, or the freshly arrived immigrant struggling to adjust to new cultural environment.