Fact Checking Ben Shapiro’s “myth of the tiny minority” part-2

here we shall continue exploring how Muslims are radicalized when we are finished we shall continue refuting ben Shapiro video, please again whenever ben mention sharia law and jihad make sure you read part one and what we will discuss below first to have a preconceived idea of how Muslims have viewed sharia law in history

“The Arab Development Report of 2005 and many other studies of Muslim countries well document the existence of significant poverty and illiteracy. These problems are found in Palestinian refugee camps and in the slums of Algiers, Cairo, Baghdad, and Jakarta as well as in many other non-Muslim developing nations. Poverty and lack of information and skills necessary for social mobility result from deep-seated economic and social problems that can generate broad-based discontent. But are a lack of education and poverty key factors that distinguish those with extremist views from moderates? The data say no.

The politically radicalized, on average, are more educated than moderates: 67% of the politically radicalized have secondary or higher educations (versus 52% of moderates).

Radicals are not more economically disadvantaged: 65% of the politically radicalized say they have average or above-average income, versus 55% of moderates.

Based on the largest and most in-depth study of its kind, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think presents the remarkable findings of the Gallup Poll of the Muslim World, the first ever data-based analysis of the points of view of more than 90% of the global Muslim community, spanning more than 35 nations.”[1]

“After analyzing survey data representing more than 90% of the global Muslim population, Gallup found that despite widespread anti-American sentiment, only a small minority saw the 9/11 attacks as morally justified. Even more significant, there was no correlation between the level of religiosity and extremism among respondents. Among the 7% of the population that fits in the politically radicalized category -- those who saw the 9/11 attacks as completely justifiable and have an unfavorable view of the United States -- 94% said religion is an important part of their daily lives, compared with 90% among those in the moderate majority. And no significant difference exists between radicals and moderates in mosque attendance.”[2]

“al-Qaeda’s narrative that the actions of the West are monolithic and that they are aimed entirely at expanding Western policies and advancing the West’s economic stance in the world”[3]

radical groups even went far and create video games that depict US soldiers as criminals and add Bush face to them , this is a clear indication of how their mentality work, why did they chose this political message in their video game instead of religious one painting westerners as non Muslim who deserve to die based on their religious affiliation alone, why did they choose American soldiers and inserted political leaders in their face as target for the player to kill?

 “terrorist groups worldwide have made no secret of their attempts to appeal to a younger generation. Various articles are written as early as 2006 discuss how websites created by terrorist groups were meant to draw in “a computer savvy, media-saturated, video game-addicted generation.””[4]

“One early jihadist website featured a video game titled “Quest for Bush,” in which players “fight Americans and proceed to different levels including ‘Jihad Growing Up’ and ‘Americans’ Hell.’”26 The game was released in 2006 by the Global Islamic Media Front, a radical organization with ties to al-Qaeda. According to one article, its “players are prompted to advance through six missions against soldiers who look like Bush, followed by a seventh mission against a character that looks like the president that takes place in a desert-like region. During the game, jihadist songs are played in the background.””[5]

ISIS had its own taste add to this mix they modified a specific version of grand theft auto video game and placed the player as jihadist who fight convoys law officers and American soldiers[6]

The common denominator seems to be that everyone who is radicalized and recruited online feels sympathetic toward that group’s cause, and people who feel there is “something missing” from their lives appear to be more susceptible than others. Radicalization is more widespread where conditions of inequality and political frustration prevail. It often takes root in people who sympathize with the plight of the oppressed and wish to show their solidarity. Radicalized men and women alike often feel despair, humiliation, and outrage over injustice and perceive few options for influencing change.5 One brief moment of intense emotion evoked in them while they watch a YouTube video of innocent victims in Africa or the Middle East can be all it takes to spark their interest.[7]

Mubin Shaikh was ones a radical Muslim had an interview with Vice magazine probably pulls the rug from underneath delusional ben fans who claim ideology is what radicalize these people
“VICE: What makes vulnerable young Muslims prone to being recruited by groups like the Islamic State?

Mubin Shaikh: You're dealing with a social movement. It's beyond a terrorist group. And social movements have grievance narratives. The reason why those grievance narratives resonate is that they are based in fact. It might not be complete fact and it might be their way of interpreting world events, but the reality is that when they say that their grievance is about Western foreign policy, particularly the bombing of Muslim countries—they're not wrong when they say that.

When I was around in 1995, we would watch videotapes [of jihadist propaganda], and then [DVDs] came out and we watched DVDs. But what modern day social networking has done is it's accelerated that exponentially. You're sitting there at a television screen or computer screen, you're watching these images over and over and over—it's traumatizing you. Your eyes will be overwhelmed with visual images of death, destruction, killing, torture, oppression [of Muslims].

The psychological term is "vicarious deprivation." So now, I've not deprived myself individually, but I'm watching these videos about my people being oppressed and suddenly their deprivation and their oppression becomes my deprivation and my oppression, and enter that extremist message, "OK, you see that now? You feel that now? What are you going to do about it?"”

how much clear can it be? foreign policy and on going western bombing and oppression of Muslims in Muslim lands and the on going dehumanization and discrimination that immigrants face are the main cause of radicalism, this is a slap to ben and Ayaan Hirsi ali fans, who claim western intervention don’t cause radicalism, how long can they remain in denial or reality and facts? if they don’t trust any source watch radicals interview, I’ve seen countless of them, you can see the anger over oppression and revenge for injustice glowing in their eyes, and that is what drives them, not this idea of “Oh I picked up the Quran, hmm this verse tell me to go out and kill infidels, will (closes the Quran and pick up AK-47) I’m about to kill some infidels” this is not how it works in real world people

more on so

“But you have the Islamic State themselves and also [critics of Islam] like the New Atheists, quoting passages like Chapter 9, Verse 5 saying, "Kill all the non-believers."

Yeah, I do find it ironic that ISIS and New Atheist types, or anti-Muslim types, quote the same verses in the exact same way. They say, "Islam is about terrorism, and here are the verses to prove it." So I remind them that I also used to believe this stuff. I also used to cherry pick and misquote the verses the same way both of them do it. So in Chapter 9, Verse 5, I used to say the same thing. I said, "Look, the verse says, 'Kill the kuffar, wherever they are.'" Now, in fact, that's not what it says. I mean, it's a portion of a longer verse. And that portion actually says, "Al-Mushrikin," it talks about polytheists. So when the scholar in Syria was trying to de-radicalize me, he said to me, "Tell me, do you normally begin reading chapters from verse 5? Maybe you should start with verse 1. I don't know, it's just a thought.

So Verse 1 talks about "The polytheists... This is in regards to the polytheists with whom you made a treaty and have violated the treaty." If you look at Verse 4, which directly precedes Verse 5, it says, "Not included in these instructions are those polytheists who kept the covenant, the treaty and did not assault you and participate in violence against you. Then keep the term of your contract with them." So it makes it very clear. The content is very specific, it's those people who are actually fighting you unlawfully because you're a Muslim. Because, in that context, the polytheists were fighting the Muslims just because they were Muslim because they believed in one God and they made the call to one God. So looking at that context and, as opposed to what they're doing today, you can see that [the Islamic State] has completely [distorted it]. Now they've applied this verse to include even Jews and Christians. "”[8]

Now I also forgot to add one point, we will use ISIS as a comparison point for radicalism, so whenever Ben cites a country we will first look at their support for ISIS, since ISIS representing the most height point of radicalism.

I think I made my case as to how Muslims and immigrants are being radicalized, again watch Asadullah reply to Sargon of Akkad for more sources

let us now continue with Ben Shapiro video, and if it happens that we come across a single issue other than sharia or radicalization that we didn’t discuss I’ll dedicate a section for it

@02:32 “Bangladesh not a country you tend to think of as Muslim but there are 149 million Muslims living there, as of 2013 just over quarter said or targeting of civilians is some times justified another 82% want sharia to be the official law and two-thirds say honor killings of women can sometimes be justified, Honor killing! Two-thirds that are 129.9 million radicals”

Constitution[9]

now let us focus on two parts, I will ignore the part related to sharia law because as I explained before in part 1 of my response, you can’t call someone radical for supporting sharia(not to mention Bangladesh (38%) say sharia should be open to multiple interpretations.[10]), so let’s see regarding support for targeting civilians, now I was searching for the claim that over quarter support targeting civilians, I could not find a single pew study that makes that specific statement, the closest we have is a Gallup poll that stated 41 percent of Bangladesh people support intentionally targeting civilians, that is about 60 million people, but we shall look at the reason behind such figure, and is it because Islam?

““Unofficially, the number of Bangladeshis going to fight in Syria and Iraq is up to 30. Bangladesh is becoming a transit route to Isis from India. We also have growing numbers of Bangladeshi diaspora guys coming here from Britain to recruit,” the intelligence specialist said.

Fertile ground awaits the foreign visitors. “There are very strong pockets of fundamentalism throughout Bangladesh,” said the director of an NGO specializing in security issues. “Jamaat-e-Islami [JEI] has a lot of grassroots support.””[11]

so this who are poor and ill educated to be radicalized as we explained before

““There are very large numbers of young men who don’t have a job or any prospects. Their only experience is the madrassa [religious school] and the mosque. In rural areas, they don’t even have access to social media.

“These people want to be used, so they are very easily manipulated. When Bengalis from the UK come in, they are very easy to lead. The jihadi recruiters are coming from London, from Germany, from the US. They are educated, they have been to university, so they are more sophisticated,” the director said.

“The lack of government services and political exclusion [JEI has been barred from standing in national elections] has created space for the fundamentalists. They tell people: come to the mosque, follow religious rules, bring your friends. It is all softly, softly … These kids will do whatever they’re told. Nobody asks any questions of religious leaders. If the leaders say ‘do it’, they do it.””[12]

JSD (Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal) can also be linked to radicalism, as it proved a new era of radicalism Sreerada Datta claims “disillusioned with ‘abandoning’of its leftist ideologies soon after the liberation of Bangladesh a large group of young cadres broke from Awami league to take up more radical stance[13]

“Islamist terrorism is on the rise in Bangladesh, fueled by militant groups taking advantage of the country’s version of the “culture wars.” With tens of thousands of Islamists angered by what they see as a secular war on Islam and with al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State maneuvering to exploit the ferment, the threat picture is darkening, especially because Bangladesh’s government has not acknowledged the presence of transnational groups.”[14]

“Islam-based political and social demands are not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh. One of the earliest demands of the “Muslim Bengal” was a desire for a separate treatment from the Hindus”[15]

we will learn later on that depression and anxiety caused by unfair systems leads to radicalism

“The sense of well-being can be based on questions of materialistic, cultural or social status. Such differences are accepted as normal and can hardly be cause for such reaction. It is when these differences are seen as unjust and unfair, that they begin to have a psychological impact on a person. This relative depression is created when a person sees that the rights he has enjoyed in the past are shrinking or that others are enjoying more advantages than him. Such feelings are observed in the Muslim communities in Europe, even among the second or third generation Muslim residents there. The main reason behind this is the lack of integration. They feel that they and their community are excluded from the social structure and deprived by the system. The existing conditions prompt such feelings within them.”[16]

“I believe that this relative depression is one of the causes behind a large section of the youth from the new middle class in Bangladesh, who are now involved in militancy. This depression cannot be understood simply from the standpoint of those afflicted by depression. One must take into consideration whether an individual considers the prevailing system around him as unjust. His identity is an important factor here. How does he identify himself as an individual? Does he consider himself excluded from society? The acute sense of exclusion, the extent of this feeling of discrimination and the anger generated from these feelings, create the possibility of radicalization. ‘Possibility’ is a key word here because it is not proven beyond question that this feeling is enough to lead to radicalisation.”[17]

Foreign policies also play critical rule in radicalization

“Those who point to political reasons behind the radicalization of youth in Europe, maintain that anger and discontent are important issues. We can also term this as a socio-psychological explanation, where frustration creates an aggressive mindset or where humiliation sparks feelings of vengeance, opening the way to radicalisation. In this regard, the foreign policies of European countries play a considerable role. The general feeling of Muslims in Europe is that if Muslims in the Middle East or elsewhere are oppressed, this is tantamount to oppression on them too. Surveys run in Europe, particularly in Britain, support this contention. This cannot be restricted to Europe alone. Muslim communities all over the world strongly share similar sentiments.

The foreign policies of the US and other countries of the West, the ‘war on terror’ launched by George W Bush and Tony Blair, and the various wars over the past decade and a half, are blatant proof of double standards of the western countries and the wrongful laws they have propagated.

The anger is not only directed towards the western powers. A section of society is drawn towards extremism when they feel the government of a particular country supports such policies, or when the scope to oppose such policies is restricted, or if it is felt that those in power are backed by such powers, or that not enough protest is being generated within the society. They then feel justified in waging war against the West. They consider these positive points for radicalisation.

Even regional events can have an influence on individuals and the Kashmir crisis is an example in this regard. Politics in one’s own country can also lead to political anger and frustration. It is nothing new for extremism to erupt in an outburst of anger when civil rights are cramped.”[18]

continuing

“Generally speaking, there are two important factors that drive a person to violence. Firstly, a crisis or incident in one’s personal life can act as a catalyst. The incident does not even have to take place in the person’s own life. It can take in the family, in someone else’s life, or in society as a whole, and also work as a catalyst. Secondly, there is the matter of social network.

Marc Sageman's book ‘Understanding Terror Networks’ published in 2004, Quintan Wiktorowicz’s 2005 research book ‘Radical Islam Rising: Extremism in the West’, Paul Gill’s research work ‘Suicide Bomber Pathways Among Islamic Militants’ published in 2008, and plenty of other such research, indicate that groups or communities, social relations, linkages and bonds, play an extremely important role in an individual’s participation in violence. It is clear from such research that just as radicalisation takes place through recruitment drives of terrorist organizations, it is also often self-inspired, among friends and family members.

There are all indications of a network among the militants in Bangladesh, killed or missing over the past few weeks. It is important to interrogate those in custody to find out whether they were inspired by each other to join such radical activities, or whether they formed social bonds only after joining militant organizations like IS. We have seen examples elsewhere of radicalisation among groups of friends.

The six Bangladeshi-origin young men in Britain who joined ISIS in Syria would live together in Portsmouth. The ‘Al-Britain Brigade Bangladeshi Bad Boys’, were not known for participation in politics or for religious practice. Masud Chowdhury (31), Mohammed Mehdi Hasan (19), Mamunur Mohammed Rashid (24), Mohammed Hamidur Rahman (25), and Asaduzzaman (25), inspired by another friend of theirs, Ifterkhar Zaman, left Britain to join the war in Syria in October 2013. When Masud Chowdhury, the father of two, returned home, he was arrested and given a four-year prison sentence in December 2014. The rest lost their lives in Syria. They were all friends. Ifterkhar Zaman and Asaduzzaman were related. Peer pressure in a group instigates similar behavior. If not, a member could break away”[19]

according to a conducted article done by Ambassador Tariq Karim & Dr. Madhumita Srivastava Balaji titled “Rising Trend of Religious Radicalization in Bangladesh,” they state the following

“Bengalis in the eastern province of undivided Pakistan constituted well over half of Pakistan’s total population as aggregated in all its five provinces, they were subjected to extreme racial and cultural subjugation and economic exploitation and deprivation. The long simmering resentment of the Bengali community finally acquired political traction when they were politically disenfranchised following the only free national elections held in December 1970 that resulted in Bengalis winning the majority in the National Assembly but being prevented from forming the national government. The chain of events following this eventually vented explicitly in the Declaration of Independence in 1971. During the Liberation War, the Bengalis were subject to grisly and inhuman torture. Bangladesh’s war of Independence has been the genesis of this Secular-Islamic divide that still impacts the country’s politics. The secular and democratic politics of the Awami League were fiercely opposed by the Jamaat-e-Islami, the foremost religious political movement that favored a unified, and undivided Islamic Pakistan.”[20]

so apparently the independence war happened prior to 1970 have affected the population moral views, driving them into more religious violence and radicalism, as we can see, these are political reasons rather than Islamic motivations, it was not Islam that caused these bangles to have an extreme view and more radical tendencies

“Sustained economic discrimination further contributed significantly to an early consciousness of a separate and secular identity in the then East Pakistan. Further on, Jinnah’s Declaration in Dhaka of Urdu being the only state language of Pakistan made matters worse for the regionally active Bengalis of this region”[21]

if we read further Ambassador Tariq Karim & Dr. Madhumita Srivastava Balaji will provide a section dedicated to explaining by their own admission why radicalization happened in Bangladesh

“Major causes for the growth of radicalization in the Bangladeshi society were the absence of good governance, lack of social justice, the absence of rule of law, antagonistic relations between leading political parties bordering on extreme hostility, politically engineered violence and politics of vendetta. The current wave of global pan-Islamic resurgence has also influenced a significant section of Bangladeshi Muslims as manifested in the widening network of deeply radicalized religious entities well beyond the existing Jama’at-e-Islami network that it inherited at the time of independence.”[22]

End of Part 2

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[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/104941/what-makes-radical.aspx

[2] http://www.gallup.com/poll/28678/Framing-War-Terror.aspx?g_source=position8&g_medium=related&g_campaign=tiles

[3] Long and Wilner, “Delegitimizing al-Qaida.”

[4] Bruce Hoffman, “The Use of the Internet by Islamic Extremists,” Testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, May 4, 2006, RAND, www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/2006/RAND_CT262-1.pdf.

[5] CNN, “Web Video Game Aim: ‘Kill’ Bush Characters,” CNN World News, Sept. 18, 2006, www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/09/18/bush.game/index.html.

[6] INQUISITR, “ISIS Uses ‘Grand Theft Auto’ Mock Up to Recruit and Boost Morale,” Sept. 19, 2014, www.inquisitr.com/1486558/isis-uses-grand-theft-auto-mock-up-to-recruit-and-boost-morale/.

[7] Gabriel Weimann, “Social Media’s Appeal to Terrorists,” Insite Blog on Terrorism and Extremism, Oct, 3, 2014, http://news.siteintelgroup.com/blog/index.php/entry/295-social-media’s-appeal-to-terrorists.

[8] ibid

[9] http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/pdf_part.php?id=367

[10] http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/

[11] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/16/british-jihadis-bangladesh-extremism-uk-isis-sheikh-hasina

[12] ibid

[13] Sreerada Datta political violence in bengladash page.433

[14] https://ctc.usma.edu/posts/how-bangladesh-became-fertile-ground-for-al-qaida-and-the-islamic-state

[15] I. P. Khosla, “Bangladesh-India Relationship”, South Asia Journal, July–

September 2006 (13), 36.

[16] http://en.prothom-alo.com/opinion/news/115833/Reasons-behind-radicalisation

[17] ibid

[18] ibid

[19] ibid

[20] Ambassador Tariq Karim & Dr. Madhumita Srivastava Balaji “Rising Trend of Religious Radicalization in Bangladesh” page.5

[21] ibid

[22] ibid