Paper presenters
- Jeppe Fuglsang Larsen: “Reinstating and contextualizing religion in the analysis of Islamist radicalization processes”
- Jone Salomonsen: “Breivik’s intersection: the religious and the political”
- Tine Gade: Religion and foreign policy in the face of Daesh
Abstracts
Reinstating and contextualizing religion in the analysis of Islamist radicalization processes
Jeppe Fuglsang Larsen, Aalborg University
Current research on radicalization and Jihadism employs a broad range of theoretical approaches. This is in part a result of an ongoing debate about root causes for Islamist radicalization. One of the most debated issues regarding root causes has been how, when, and if Islam as a religion plays a role in the radicalization process. An argument often made is that Islamist radicalization is not a religious phenomenon or that Islam is not a driving factor. Drawing on interviews with former radical Islamists and people with personal and professional knowledge about current and former radical Islamists, I argue that we need to reinstate but also contextualize religion as central component in our analysis of driving factors behind Islamist radicalization. The interviews show that religion played a central role both on a personal level for the Islamists themselves and collectively for the radical Islamist group they were a part of. The paper then attempts to explain why the interviewees became religious and why they became part of radical Islamist groups. I argue that a missing theoretical approach in the research field is a sociology of religious emotion. This perspective can help us understand how social conditions and personal grievances can be connected to strong religious emotions and to a feeling of being part of a chosen religious group. The paper thus argues that by applying a sociology of religious emotion to our understanding of Islamist radicalization processes, we can reinstate and understand the role of religion in an analytically rewarding manner.
Breivik’s intersection: the religious and the political
Jone Salomonsen, University of Oslo
To support his terrorist attacks, Breivik mobilized religious symbols both from Christianity and pre-Christian Norse religion. He placed the Celtic cross on his manifesto and carved Odin and Tor's runes onto his guns. The killing at Utøya was staged as sacrificial, with himself as ultimate martyr. The 'Norwegian people', for whom Breivik was willing to risk his life, was imagined in terms of ethnos (blood), not as demos (association). As an 'indigenous' Norwegian, Breivik identified with neopagan Nordic Odinists. As a ‘political’ warrior he identified with radical nationalist Christians across Europe and the US. This apparent contradictory mix of (local) pagan with (universalist) Christian symbols was not invented by Breivik. It is implied in the theological idea that people of non-Jewish descent may need to revive their own ethnic ‘Old Testament’ to obtain a relevant, contextual interpretation of the ‘New Testament’. In Breivik’s case, Norse mythology is both his ancestral religion and the Old Testament horizon for his nationalist form of cultural Christianity. Furthermore, the theological image of a unified, divine will is replicated in Breivik's image of society as a unified subject, of 'People-as-One'. Thus, Breivik subordinates his ‘politics’ to a profoundly theological representation of the world. According to Hannah Arendt, politics does not create church or tribe but civil society. It deals with the coexistence and association of different men, not with society as a unified One. I argue, therefore, that Breivik has no political project but articulates a yearning to return to kin-based, patriarchal camps.
Religion and foreign policy in the face of Daesh: Responses to Jihadism in Saudi Arabia and Morocco
Tine Gade, NUPI
This paper will discuss responses to Jihadism in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. It will first describe the general counter-terrorism efforts and domestic reform of religious institutions carried out by Saudi Arabia and Morocco since 2013. In a second part, the influence of religious actors in the foreign policies of the two states will be compared.
The aims of the paper is two-fold: First, to gather knowledge about measures to combat jihadism in two under-researched Arab states. It specifically looks into a new field of research, the transformation of religious foreign policies in two key states in the New Middle East. Secondly, and more fundamentally, it aims to discuss the role of religious actors in foreign policy in the Middle East after the recent military defeats of Daesh.
Morocco and Saudi Arabia are chosen as case studies because they have initiated domestic reforms in the wake of terrorist attacks (in 2003). Saudi Arabia and Morocco are regional powers and important learning centres for students of Islam worldwide. Morocco clearly promotes itself as a ‘model’ of Islamic moderation – a means to gain international PR, boost trade and economic interaction. Morocco is known for its strong Sufi networks with transnational and popular appeal. Yet, Moroccans also constitute one of the largest nationality groups in Daesh in Syria and Iraq.[1]
Saudi Arabia is frequently under international pressure because of the royal family’s 274-year-old pact with the Wahabi religious establishment. This has given the Wahabi clergy a right to control education and law inside the kingdom, and operate their own autonomous religious foreign policy networks, against religious legitimation to the regime. Today we observe a general power centralization under the influential crown prince Mohamed bin Salman; the clergy like other actors have lost prerogatives. New institutions to combat terrorism have been created under the defence ministry, bypassing the Wahabi religious establishment. Saudi Arabia has also agreed to replace Salafi imams in Geneva and Brussels, while Saudi-sponsored clergy the Middle East have taken a hard-line anti-Shia stance against Iran.
[1] The number is particularly high if we also include dual nationals and Moroccans living in France and Belgium.