A panel consisting of Farhad Khosrokhavar, French-Iranian sociologist, research director at the EHESS and Cedric Baylocq-Sassoubre anthropologist who answered questions Rachid Id Yassine, a researcher at the School of Advanced Social Science (EHESS) tried to provide answers to the theme”Faced with jihadism: Reasoning”, a debate organized by the CCME pavilion that takes part in the book fair for the seventh consecutive time.
The words of Mr. Khosrokhavar are clear “Radicalization is not unique to Islam” in fact, he believes that this is a trend that is as much about other religions as well as some forms of secularism including the extreme right movement.
For him, radicalized Islam is one of the preferred patterns of radicalization but it is not the only one. It is divided according to social conditions specific to the societies in which it grows, he also notes the emergence of a new form of radicalism that is the fruit of the Syrian tragedy.
“It is an ultra minority phenomenon whose consequences are far beyond their quantitative and numerical dimension”
He also criticizes the double standards of the West which reacts to jihadism only when it hits home, he cites the recent events in France that killed 11 people while the victims of the Syrian protests are in the thousands, he explains this by a globalized and hegemonic public opinion as well as the corporate selfishness.
Cédric Baylocq-Sassoubre reviewed some intellectuals and historical foundations that serve as a springboard for the jihadist philosophy, he speaks particularly of the “anathémisation” of all that is different and the semantics distortion of the Salafist discourse
He also went through the various stages of the jihadist practice as set out by Thomas Hegghammer including Islamist movements State-oriented, the Nation-oriented, the Umma-oriented, the Morality-oriented and the Sectarian. Each of these categories can take violent forms and non-violent.
Thus, the State-oriented is characterized by a desire to change the social and political order. The Nation-oriented is defined by a desire to establish sovereignty over a given territory perceived as occupied or dominated by non-Muslims. The Umma-oriented is distinguished by a concern to protect the Muslim nation conceived as a whole, from any threat (non-Muslim). The Morality-oriented is characterized by a desire to influence Muslim behavior in a more conservative and literalist direction. “sectarian” jihadism is manifested by the desire to reduce the influence and power of competing movements.
Furthermore, he calls for ending the use of the term Islamism because it implies political Islam and radical Islam which is based on violence.
Before putting an to end to this debate, the French Moroccan writer Ed Yassin Rashid author of the book “Islam in the West,” was quick to point out that radical Islam feeds off tendentious interpretations of the Islamic law texts which increases the credibility of extremism based on religion, although “jihadism in its current sense has nothing to do with Islam, because Islam is a religion of peace and non-violence. “
