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Al-Qaeda's most famous web propagandist is jailed, but the internet remains its best friend
An excellent article in the latest issue of The Economist. It warrants serious attention.
Internet Jihad: A World-Wide Web of Terror
Seeded on Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:40 PM EDT
Article Source: The Economist- Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.
- Public Discussion (9)
The internet's decentralised structure, with its origins in military networks designed to survive nuclear strikes, now gives jihadi networks tremendous resilience. Jihadi websites constantly come and go, sometimes taken down by service providers only to reappear elsewhere, sometimes shifted deliberately to stay ahead of investigators. As one expert put it: "It's like the old game of Space Invaders. When you clear one screen of potential attackers, another simply appears to take its place."
- 4 votes
#1 - Mon Jul 16, 2007 2:42 PM EDTYou beat me to this seed, Raat. I found this article fascinating.
- 3 votes
#2 - Mon Jul 16, 2007 4:00 PM EDTIt certainly is that. And yet, when you think about the everything that is happening with citizen media, social networking, etc and the rate of change and adoption, it is not surprising. The article makes chlling reference to terrorism journalism.
I feel it puts us in a unique and challenging position to raise the bar for better balance.
- 3 votes
In your article about "8 Things" you mentioned:
a yearning to help make a difference to the world around me through the power of the written word.
Well, you are doing just that. This article is quite an education and it's your input that brought it to me.
I find this quote to be important:
What is needed is a systematic campaign of counter-propaganda, not least in support of friendly Muslim governments and moderate Muslims, to try to reclaim the ground ceded to the jihadists.
After reading this article I think a "systematic campaign of counter-propaganda" is clearly an action item. I wonder if anyone in say…Home Security?...would be working on this.
- 3 votes
#3 - Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:18 PM EDT
Thank you Zap. Your comment means more to me than you might ever realize.
Totally agree with the action item you suggest. I would like to think that those in positions of power are doing something. However, I do feel that the responsibility starts from each and every one. Bottom up messaging!
- 5 votes
This article is in the least highly sobering. I have started thinking of Al Qaeda and other jihadi groups as viral or organic. The failure of coalition governments is that they think they are trying to "chop off the head of a beast". This is not so. There is no head, rather many roots. You must eliminate the food supply.
What is the food supply? People. You must make extremism irrelavent to those that can choose to take it up. In the US during desegregation, the KKK fed on people that were afraid of integrating cultures. Once people found that the integration would lead to a better life for everyone, the KKK became less and less relevant. I don't mean to make a direct comparison to the situation, but simply to say that an extremist group feeds on willing recruits. The recruits are willing today. Why?
Marginalization, manipulation, fear, economic hardship, etc... and no doubt more. But if you notice, many jihadists are immigrants to Western countries. In those countries they have found the only place for them is a ghetto. The anti-Western speech is confirmed by Western reaction to immigration. So what?
Each of us can build a bridge and make extremism irrelevant. Rather than living into the claims of extremists, we can defy their claims by pursuing our Muslim brothers and looking to know them, learn from them, and do them good. If any leading government embraced this (as Hezbollah has by giving aid to the poor), they would find that extremism begins to dry up. The entire thing is run by volunteers and donors! They must believe that jihad is their best option so we must defy this rather than pounding the table and saying, "We will not deal with murderers". Yes, murder is an attrocity, but what is murder to us is justified to them. It doesn't matter if we believe it is justified, just that we recognize that they don't see it as murder, but justified acts of war. I think they are flat wrong, but I must show them they are wrong through my actions. We are caught in a game of trying to hurt the other group into submission. There is a better way.
- 4 votes
#4 - Wed Jul 18, 2007 3:20 PM EDTYou know how much I value your thought and perspectives Matt on this issue. So to merely thank you for commenting here appears trivial. I said on a thread today talking about meta stuff brought on by the 8-thing tagging that I would have happily traded the votes and comments on my piece there for this seed. Because that is meta whereas this is real. That is about popularity and ego whereas this is about a long term solution to human conflict and a future for mankind.
As you say, mankind has to find an alternative way to just us and them. It never has worked and never will. And the onus is on those on the 'right' side to lead. By engaging with people instead of simply standing on their side of the fence. I do believe that it can be done. Simply because the majority of ordinary people on all sides of the divide want that. But no one is taking a lead by putting their money where their mouth is.
I will never believe that we on Newsvine do not have a key input, and valuable contribution, that we can make. But we have to get away from the current and sharing a vision for the future.
- 3 votes
And the onus is on those on the 'right' side to lead.
That's right.
Simply because the majority of ordinary people on all sides of the divide want that.
I think we can call people into that. I think that as you point out, they want to. They need to know how. We can share stories about the bridges we've built, the friends we've made, what we've learned from "the others" and how alike we are. I know London needs this now more than ever. It would be amazing to put 10 Brits face to face with 10 Muslim immigrants and let them get to know each other. The Brits would be truly blessed by the family, community based living of Muslims and the spectacular hospitality they shower on you.
We spend time putting "singles" together in mass blind dates. They never seem to end in love, because we have a fundamental cultural flaw. We are detached inside. We go looking for what we can get from others rather than looking for what we can give. If we could experience that, we would finally receive the love we all yearn for.
- 3 votes
Thanks Matt. My latest seed calls for your voice of wisdom. I sense it;s not going to be easy there.
- 3 votes
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