CROSS ROADS
The face of Islamist radicalization in Jammu & Kashmir has changed over the past two decades, capitalizing on accelerating developments and trends in the realm of communication technologies that have rendered information and digital content almost ubiquitously accessible. These processes have transformed some of the channels through which radicalization of the individual and broader communities as a whole can take place, in particular raising the dangers of self-radicalization. Whilst this raises new concerns for intelligence and security services, especially concerning the early detection of at-risk individuals, it cannot be deduced that the ultimate character of radicalization, namely its social and normative dimension, has changed as well.
Radical messages and those espousing them continue to speak to those who perceive themselves marginalized by societies and their institutions, providing a framework to them that provides sense, meaning and context to the suffering of the individual and the individual’s partially transnationally imagined social community.
Put differently, cyber radicalization in Jammu & Kashmir has shifted aspects of how radicalization technically takes place without fundamentally shifting the underlying reasons for why radicalization takes place. The advent of a globally accessible digital space has not undermined the role and significance of previously more dominant channels of radicalization, including the work of the ever-growing radical Islamist parallel institutions that have increasingly become integrated and accepted into the educational and social fabric of Jammu & Kashmir.
Contemporary Islamist radicalization in Jammu & Kashmir can consequently be treated as a hybrid in which both dimensions of radicalization, in-person and online, serve complementing rather than competing functions.
Unlike in-person radicalization, cyber radicalization operates more independent from interpersonal linkages and the physical access to extremist ideas or individuals and groups espousing these ideas. Owing to its existence as a networked entity, cyberspace defies boundaries and is hence theoretically open to anyone connected to the internet. As such, advancements in cyberspace have subsequently allowed terrorist organizations to circumvent many of the physical anti-terror measures put in place.
In addition, digital access and proficiency have become less coupled to economic income than it has been in previous decades, with the internet now being more accessible to people of lower socio-economic-educational standing as well. Radical thoughts and materials readily and globally available, allow young individuals to radicalize themselves without necessarily being exposed to prior integration into radicalized social contexts, further facilitating the radicalization of these youngsters that have been born and bred in social environments without the degree of violent inter-communal conflict which previous generations in Jammu & Kashmir witnessed and lived through.
Although cyber radicalization operates in a territorially less bound and constrained manner, its basic purpose and message overlaps with that of in-person versions of radicalization. Online forms of radicalization in Jammu & Kashmir also engender stories and narratives that situate the perceived experience of the youngsters in Jammu & Kashmir in the struggle of Muslims elsewhere, like Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, the US and Europe.
Cyber radicalization therefore also speaks to sentiments of degradation and exclusion – as such, it is the mode of engagement rather than the underlying messages that manifests the most palpable difference between in-person and cyber radicalization. It goes without saying that cyber radicalization as such is coupled with developments in and the expansion of cyberspace more generally, meaning that as cyberspace expands both in societal use and significance, so will its use by terrorist organizations.
Crucial for the purposes of radicalization, both online and offline, is how social narratives situate the struggles and experiences of the to-be-radicalized individual in a grander, more global context. Narratives, regardless of how they are created and disseminated, consequently mark a way of making sense of the world and the individual’s place, past, present and future in it. They shape the way individuals think of, and live, their lives. Radicalizing narratives therefore appeal to different cognitive frameworks to incentivize alignment with the radical cause. These narratives rest on mainly Political, Moral, Religious and Social-psychological foundations.
It is clear that both online and offline narratives play onto caveats that, at least in Jammu & Kashmir, are connected to perceived feelings of exclusion, marginalization and humiliation. Radical narratives target these negative feelings and re-write them into a radicalized identity that seeks vengeance for the perceived experienced victimization, indicating that radical ideas are enabled by perceived social environments of exclusion.
The emergence of cyberspace as a security space manifests new challenges for security and intelligence communities. Previous forms of surveillance, for instance in the form of focusing on at-risk individuals and communities, emerge as an increasingly inefficient mode of operation as with cyber radicalization the essential danger is self-radicalization.
This does not mean that necessarily more people will become radicalized but that those that are at risk of radicalization may become radicalized more quickly and more easily. Security and intelligence services would consequently do well by acknowledging that radicalization derives its functioning from situating the individual, and by implication, their broader community, in a narrative that speaks to their sentiments, whereby the main focus of security agencies must lay on identifying these sentiments, understanding them and their root causes, and, ultimately, addressing the perceived social structures that incentivize radicalization, both online and offline.
As cyber radicalization fosters more opportunities for at-risk individuals to radicalize themselves quicker and easier and facilitates the access to radicalizing materials without necessarily accelerating public radicalization as such, it raises the stakes for security services to detect early stages of radicalization. This phenomenon of cyber radicalization will require policy responses that consistently account for technological, methodological and procedural changes.
Assessing the role of cyber radicalization in relation to in-person radicalization reinforces the analysis that radicalization as a phenomenon is a distinctly social development that consequently requires predominantly social responses. This is not to say that short-term solutions, such as removing content from social media platforms or blocking accounts that disseminate radical narratives, do not matter or should not be continued.
That said, radicalization is an issue that must be addressed in its root cause, namely the perceived feeling of exclusion and marginalization. Any other policy response will be a mere short-term fix that does not provide a sustainable way of addressing the issue at hand. Developing independent counternarratives thus differs from other tactical policy approaches such as content removal or blocking accounts by seeking to address the social dimension of radicalization.
At present, terrorist organizations have proven effective in ‘winning’ the contest of socio-political narrative, appealing to sentiments and capitalizing on the echo chamber effect. To reclaim some of the lost control, societies such as Jammu & Kashmir, faced with rampant subterranean Islamist radicalization must seek to reclaim control over the narrative and the normative assumptions of what it means to live in a pluralist society.
Scholars identify four key caveats that must be included in any efficient counter narrative: (i) Disparage the idea that Western countries and societies are fighting Islam, (ii) Counter the idea that Muslim terrorists protect the values of Islam and or Muslim societies, (iii) Delegitimize the notion that terrorist attacks on Western civilians or fellow Muslims – in this context viewed as collateral damage – are valid forms of political resistance and expression and (iv) Discourage the idea that non-terrorist Muslims are morally and religiously obliged to aid and or support terrorists in their activities or terrorist narratives.
The arguments provided here generate a comprehensive framework through which to counter the way in which terrorist narratives make sense of the societies that surround them. However, it is critical that the creation of counternarratives must not seem imposed in a top-down manner. Although the State and its institutions inevitably will have to play a key role in facilitating these narratives, it is paramount that the narratives are coordinated with, organized and supported by the communities they seek to speak to. In this context, governments and their agencies must work closely with non-state actors within the community to ensure the legitimacy of the narrative and, thus, the legitimacy of the operation.
In this context, it is paramount for governmental institutions as well as civil society in Jammu & Kashmir to reclaim the narrative regarding the advantages, rather than the disadvantages, of living in pluralist, heterogeneous and democratic community.
Independent counternarratives, created in accordance and engagement with the needs and desires of the Kashmiri community most affected by radicalization, can and should serve a useful practical strategic approach towards this process of reclaiming the narrative and, thus, making sense of the said community in a different way. However, reclaiming a social narrative will be insufficient to generate long-lasting change without an accompanying attempt to genuinely integrate these youngsters and address the perceived structural issues underlying their very radicalization.
Only if the emotive roots of radicalization are addressed, namely that of individual and group-based perceived experiences of marginalization and exclusion, counternarratives will be capable of serving their ultimate strategic purpose.
Anti-radicalization and de-radicalization are multipronged and multidimensional strategic approaches which require determination, sensitivity and patience by the state.
There are, regrettably, no overnight solutions.
(The Author is the Director of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at: [email protected])
