CultNEWS101 Articles: 3/12/2020

Jehovah's Witnesses, Twelve Tribes, Australia, Legal, Eliezer Berland, Israel, Child Abuse, Addiction, Edgar Cayce, Psychic, Scam, Jihad, Documentary, Shincheonji, Korea

Wales Online: Ex-Jehovah's Witness elder describes how he was abused by fellow worshipper as a boy

"For 15 years John and his family were committed Jehovah's Witnesses and highly thought of among the community who would meet at the Kingdom Hall in Barry. "I just put my head down and thoroughly enjoyed myself," said John. He was chair of the hospital liaison committee in Wales, trying to work with the medical profession to offer alternative treatments that didn't use donated blood for Jehovah's Witnesses.

"Jehovah's Witnesses don't have a death wish so I genuinely felt my work was helping people," he said. But then came the bombshell that Karen, who had just turned 16, had been abused by her uncle and Jehovah's Witnesses elder Mark Sewell.

Karen was just 12 when she first indicated that something was wrong, telling John she didn't like the way Sewell was kissing her when he visited. "It went over my head what she was trying to say," sighed John. "I don't remember ever thinking about my own abuse. I had no idea that there were other things going on." It wasn't until she wrote it all down on paper when she was 16 that Karen's parents discovered the full truth.

Like "good Jehovah's Witnesses" they dealt with the issue through the church's internal judicial system.

The Jehovah's Witnesses religion is one that polices itself and teaches members to avoid interaction with outside authorities. One of the rules set by the main governing body requires that for child sexual abuse to be taken seriously there must be two witnesses to it. In addition any alleged child sex abuse victims must recount their allegations in front of their abuser.

The whole process was a harrowing ordeal for Karen and the family eventually involved the police too. Even so no prosecution was brought at that time and Karen had to live with the judgement and disbelief of the religious community for 20 years.

It wasn't until July 2014 that businessman and former Butlins holiday camp driver Sewell was jailed for 14 years after being convicted of eight historic sex charges against girls and women in a period spanning more than eight years."

9Now: What drove religious elder to leave controversial cult

"'I think you could use that word, I don't normally. Sect is probably better- a little bit less emotional. But definitely high controlling," he told A Current Affair.

Czarnecki has never spoken publicly before about the three decades he spent as a leader of the Australian arm of the Twelve Tribes.

He contacted A Current Affair after our investigation in October revealed the severe disciplinary measures enforced on children as young as six months of age.

"How did I feel about it? I thought it was great," he said of his views of the group's disciplinary methods.

However, the arrival of his own children saw a change of heart.

"Life takes on a different flavor and smacking your own little human being on the bed there … sounds different all of a sudden," Czarnecki said."

The Times of Israel: Sex offender rabbi Berland remanded in miracles-for-cash probe

"When attorney for elderly rabbi raises concerns over his health, judge suggests he take Mentos mints, which he allegedly gave out as a 'wonder drug'.

The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Thursday extended by eight days the detention of Rabbi Eliezer Berland, a convicted sex offender who has been arrested anew for allegedly fleecing millions of shekels from terminally ill patients by promising miraculous recoveries.

Judge Sharon Lary-Bavly wrote in her decision that Berland "cynically exploited" his alleged victims by, among other things, giving "Mentos to patients under the guise of medication."

During the deliberations Berland's attorney Amit Hadad raised the issue of his client's poor health as a reason to not keep him in custody.

Lary-Bavly shot back, "Give him a Mentos."

Dozens of Berland's supporters demonstrated outside the court during the proceedings, their vocal protests audible in the courtroom."

Montrose Press: 'Cult' leader Ceus acquitted of murder, convicted of fatal abuse in deaths of sisters in Norwood

"For nearly three weeks, a Gunnison jury weighed the evidence against purported religious leader Madani Ceus, who was accused of murdering young sisters Makayla Roberts, 10, and Hannah Marshall, 8, in 2017.

The children's badly decomposed bodies were found on a Norwood farm that September.

Late Thursday, the jury returned a verdict: Not guilty of first-degree murder, but guilty of both charged counts of child abuse resulting in death, a class-2 felony.

"The jury's spoken and found the defendant guilty of child abuse causing death, which is certainly true," San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters said Thursday."

Salon: We need to rethink "tough love" as a response to addiction

" ... On average, 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. An estimated 20 million people are struggling with a substance use disorder in this country. It's important to understand that addiction starts long before the first drug is ever taken. Drug addiction is not a moral failing; it's a public health issue. People with addiction disorders are human beings struggling with a human condition. Ostracizing people who likely already feel damaged, unlovable, stigmatized does nothing to solve what is, almost invariably, at the core of addiction—emotional pain and trauma.

These earlier models of tough love keep those struggling locked in a cycle of shame. And that shame becomes a gatekeeper that prevents people from reaching out for help. That shame kills people. It nearly killed me.

Personal boundaries are healthy and essential for everyone. What does that look like when you have someone in your life struggling with addiction? Drugs aren't allowed in my house. You can't drive my car. I am not participating in illegal activity with you. I'm not covering up for you. If you are violent, physically or verbally, I will remove myself."

India Times: India's Forgotten Legend Shankar Abaji Bhise Created More Inventions Than Anyone Else

" ... Once in the US, he shot to fame with an iodine solution that he created to enhance people's psychic abilities, which was also promoted by Edgar Cayce -- an American Psychic and Mystic. Followers of Cayce continue to use this solution. Post this, however, Bhise's trajectory shifted from science to occultism -- that eventually tarnished his reputation -- creating objects like a 'spirit typewriter' which was a different take on the mystical Ouija Board.  He passed away on 7 April 1935, in New York at the age of 68."

Patheos: Would you trust a psychic to tell you when Armageddon will start?

" ... Hospitals don't have paid faith healers on their staffs (although patients may invite them to the rooms of their loved ones), because what they claim to offer has no scientific backing, no evidence of efficacy. The equivalent of "quacks." And if psychics actually could foretell the future, such as what the Powerball numbers will be next week, they would be among the only — if not the only — winners ever. But they don't, so rationally speaking they're not."

Irish Times: CIARAN CASSIDY'S NEW FILM TELLS THE STRANGE TALE OF 'HOW SOMEBODY IN PHILADELPHIA AND SOMEBODY IN COLORADO AND SOMEBODY IN BALTIMORE AND SOMEBODY IN WATERFORD WERE ALL PLANNING TO KILL SOMEONE IN SWEDEN'

" ... 'So I was just exploring that world. How somebody in Philadelphia and somebody in Colorado and somebody in Baltimore and somebody in Waterford were all planning to kill someone in Sweden. It was all so strange. And it's a story that couldn't have happened in the 1960s or 70s it could have only happened at that moment.'

Cassidy's questions form the spine of his fascinating new feature documentary, Jihad Jane. Colleen LaRose's strange radicalisation began following an anonymous sexual encounter with a 'Middle Eastern guy' she met on holiday in Amsterdam. Returning to American life, while caring for her elderly mother and her partner's elderly father, she became fascinated by the Arab world and the Palestinian cause. It was a lonely and tough existence for someone her partner Kurt Gorman described as a 'social person'."

Stuff: Palmerston North warned about possible activity by Shincheonji cult

" ... Members of Crossroads Church were recently sent a letter warning about the Shincheonji cult, also know as New Heaven and New Earth.

Shincheonji was founded by Lee Man-Hee in South Korea in 1984, with Man-Hee professing to be the second-coming of Jesus Christ and claiming only he can properly interpret the Bible.

Shincheonji has been active in Wellington, with senior pastor Nick Field of The Street Church saying members of the group invited people from his church to Bible studies, which were then used as fronts to isolate people.

The letter to Crossroads members said Shincheonji recruiters were believed to be targeting highly populated student areas.

While having no confirmed sightings of the cult being active in Palmerston North, the church wanted to proactively let people know what was going on."

" ... There were overseas reports of Shincheonji recruiters infiltrating churches and stirring up concerns about the leadership by sowing lies about financial issues or inappropriate sexual relationships, she said.

Young people were targets for all cults, as they had likely never encountered a predator like cult recruiters before.

Students were especially appealing, as they were good at understanding abstract concepts, she said.

Despite the fears about Shincheonji, many people who entered cults did not regret the experience.

The deep relationships with members, often closer than family ones, the satisfaction of religious certainty and fast-paced action were all positives to those inside the cults, [Massey University senior lecturer Dr Heather Kavan]

said.

'The negative parts are the relentless pressure tactics and feelings of powerlessness against unassailable leaders.'"

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The Former Extremists Trying to Fight Extremism

Some who have renounced their past in neo-Nazi or jihadist movements now hope to save others from the same fate. But there are risks to this approach—not least to the “formers” themselves.

GILSINAN

The Atlantic

September 9, 2019

They have TED talks and TV shows and research centers. You can even book some for events through a talent agent.

Some were neo-Nazis. Some were jihadists.

All are now part of a small but growing field of ex-radicals fighting radicalism—across the ideological spectrum—in what’s become a de facto consulting gig for a handful of articulate “formers.” Whether through research, public speaking, or counseling services, these people say they now wish to pull people off the paths they themselves once took into hate or violence. That experience makes them infinitely more convincing than a government official tweeting discouragement at an ISIS sympathizer. But divisions also exist within the community over how exactly to tame the monster they once helped create—as well as accusations that some are just cashing in on their notoriety.

“You can get really famous by saying, ‘I used to be a jihadist and now I’m not,’” says Jesse Morton, who himself made headlines in 2016 when he briefly joined George Washington University’s Program on Extremism as a former jihadist recruiter turned scholar. He told me that former extremists can be among the most valuable voices countering extremism, but can also easily make the problem worse.

Who, after all, is watching the TED talks? Morton argues that there’s value in explaining the radicalization process to what he calls the intelligentsia, but there’s also an element of preaching to the choir. Most skinheads aren’t going to be convinced to reform by an Aspen Ideas panel, nor is that really the point of an Aspen Ideas panel. (The Aspen Ideas Festival, which has featured panelists such as Morton, is co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic.) The problem, as Morton sees it, is that former extremists can provide fodder for current extremists by allowing propagandists to point to them and their ideas as the enemy. Formers can, in their eagerness to condemn their own prior worldview, exacerbate the very us-versus-them narrative that helps fuel radicalism in the first place.

“If you’re promoting a polarized narrative and don’t realize it, then you’re part of the problem,” Morton says.

Deradicalization and counter-extremism programs, especially those involving former extremists, are relatively new in the United States, but they have a longer history in Europe, according to Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the Program on Extremism, who helped recruit Morton to work there as a researcher. The U.K.’s Quilliam—which describes itself as “the world’s first counter-extremism organization”—was founded as a think tank in 2007 by three British former radical Islamists.

The Obama administration launched its own “countering violent extremism” initiative in 2011, with a variety of programs aimed at helping local law enforcement share information, do community outreach, and try to prevent attacks. The program was always a target for criticism, ranging from complaints about underfunding to accusations that it unfairly focused on and stigmatized Muslim communities. Right-wing extremism, moreover, was not a top priority then, and one organization dedicated to countering it got some funding under Obama but saw it lapse under Trump.

But there wasn’t a systematic effort to recruit formers into that project early on. Vidino had observed the European experience and thought such a strategy might be useful in the United States, though he told me he was aware of “some of the issues.”

Read: How many attacks will it take until the white-supremacist threat is taken seriously?

Those included the fact that what radicalizes one person doesn’t necessarily radicalize another—so any former’s personal experience might not be persuasive to anyone else. Another concern is that formers themselves might have unresolved personal problems—something that became clear when Morton was arrested on drug and prostitution charges in 2017. The university did not deem it appropriate for Morton to stay after he was charged. “You go from prison as a well-known jihadi to front page in The New York Times as somebody who’s fighting terrorism—that [would mess] up a lot of people,” Vidino said.

But he still believes former extremists can provide valuable contributions, both in helping understand extremism and helping to combat it. He recalled seeing Morton address a room full of FBI agents. “If I go there and give a talk, I’m a boring academic,” Vidino said. “Jesse would bring it home in a very personal way.” Morton now works with the former NYPD officer Mitch Silber, who once investigated him, at a counter-extremism organization called Parallel Networks.

Silber says he got interested in working with formers after meeting Quilliam’s founders. “They had this unique credibility and legitimacy because they’ve been on the other side,” he told me.

Since then, he has also worked with Bryant Neal Viñas, who was picked up in an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan in 2008. He pleaded guilty, cooperated with the FBI, and served eight years in prison. Now Viñas writes articles, talks to the Council on Foreign Relations, and is interviewed on podcasts. “You go to the depths of depression and rock bottom, alone, and left for dead almost, and then suddenly there is this one route open to redemption, and potentially even financial security,” Silber says. “It’s hard not to see a person taking that lifeline and making the most of it.”

But the counter-extremism path not necessarily a lucrative industry for many formers—indeed, it’s barely even an industry. Viñas works construction jobs to stay afloat. Shannon Foley Martinez, who describes herself as a former violent white supremacist and has spoken about leaving the movement on the Today show, told me that she gets occasional consulting contracts but mainly tends bar. She has seven children and a stepson, and when organizations fly her to conferences to speak, she has to pay for child care and often ends up losing money, she told me.

Martinez, too, worries about the potential for formers to do harm even when trying to do good; she noted that there are no real “industry standards” and that this, along with competition for limited work opportunities, has contributed to rifts in the broader community she calls the “formersphere.” “What happens if you’re working with someone and they go on to commit an act of violence against themselves or others?” she asked. She warns people she counsels that she has to report any specific threats of violence to authorities. But, she said, “I don’t know if that’s accepted practice.”

Nevertheless, she says she has worked with many formers who are driven not by a desire for recognition but a sense of responsibility to use their own past wrongs to help others avoid them. “My personal take on it is anyone doing good work, and anyone ... helping other people, I am all for that.”KATHY GILSINAN is a staff writer at The Atlantic, covering national security and global affairs.



https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/risks-former-extremists-fighting-extremism/597583/

Who are the new jihadis?

Olivier Roy

The Guardian
April 13, 2017

There is something new about the jihadi terrorist violence of the past two decades. Both terrorism and jihad have existed for many years, and forms of “globalised” terror – in which highly symbolic locations or innocent civilians are targeted, with no regard for national borders – go back at least as far as the anarchist movement of the late 19th century. What is unprecedented is the way that terrorists now deliberately pursue their own deaths.

Over the past 20 years – from Khaled Kelkal, a leader of a plot to bomb Paris trains in 1995, to the Bataclan killers of 2015 – nearly every terrorist in France blew themselves up or got themselves killed by the police. Mohamed Merah, who killed a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, uttered a variant of a famous statement attributed to Osama bin Laden and routinely used by other jihadis: “We love death as you love life.” Now, the terrorist’s death is no longer just a possibility or an unfortunate consequence of his actions; it is a central part of his plan. The same fascination with death is found among the jihadis who join Islamic State. Suicide attacks are perceived as the ultimate goal of their engagement.

This systematic choice of death is a recent development. The perpetrators of terrorist attacks in France in the 1970s and 1980s, whether or not they had any connection with the Middle East, carefully planned their escapes. Muslim tradition, while it recognises the merits of the martyr who dies in combat, does not prize those who strike out in pursuit of their own deaths, because doing so interferes with God’s will. So, why, for the past 20 years, have terrorists regularly chosen to die? What does it say about contemporary Islamic radicalism? And what does it say about our societies today?

The latter question is all the more relevant as this attitude toward death is inextricably linked to the fact that contemporary jihadism, at least in the west – as well as in the Maghreb and in Turkey – is a youth movement that is not only constructed independently of parental religion and culture, but is also rooted in wider youth culture. This aspect of modern-day jihadism is fundamental.

Wherever such generational hatred occurs, it also takes the form of cultural iconoclasm. Not only are human beings destroyed, statues, places of worship and books are too. Memory is annihilated. “Wiping the slate clean,” is a goal common to Mao Zedong’s Red Guards, the Khmer Rouge and Isis fighters. As one British jihadi wrote in a recruitment guide for the organisation: “When we descend on the streets of London, Paris and Washington … not only will we spill your blood, but we will also demolish your statues, erase your history and, most painfully, convert your children who will then go on to champion our name and curse their forefathers.”

While all revolutions attract the energy and zeal of young people, most do not attempt to destroy what has gone before. The Bolshevik revolution decided to put the past into museums rather than reduce it to ruins, and the revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran has never considered blowing up Persepolis.

This self-destructive dimension has nothing to do with the politics of the Middle East. It is even counterproductive as a strategy. Though Isis proclaims its mission to restore the caliphate, its nihilism makes it impossible to reach a political solution, engage in any form of negotiation, or achieve any stable society within recognised borders.

The caliphate is a fantasy. It is the myth of an ideological entity constantly expanding its territory. Its strategic impossibility explains why those who identify with it, instead of devoting themselves to the interests of local Muslims, have chosen to enter a death pact. There is no political perspective, no bright future, not even a place to pray in peace. But while the concept of the caliphate is indeed part of the Muslim religious imagination, the same cannot be said for the pursuit of death.

Additionally, suicide terrorism is not even effective from a military standpoint. While some degree of rationality can be found in “simple” terrorism – in which a few determined individuals inflict considerable damage on a far more powerful enemy – it is entirely absent from suicide attacks. The fact that hardened militants are used only once is not rational. Terrorist attacks do not bring western societies to their knees – they only provoke a counter-reaction. And this kind of terrorism today claims more Muslim than western lives.

The systematic association with death is one of the keys to understanding today’s radicalisation: the nihilist dimension is central. What seduces and fascinates is the idea of pure revolt. Violence is not a means. It is an end in itself.

This is not the whole story: it is perfectly conceivable that other, more “rational”, forms of terrorism might soon emerge on the scene. It is also possible that this form of terrorism is merely temporary.

The reasons for the rise of Isis are without question related to the politics of the Middle East, and its demise will not change the basic elements of the situation. Isis did not invent terrorism: it draws from a pool that already exists. The genius of Isis is the way it offers young volunteers a narrative framework within which they can achieve their aspirations. So much the better for Isis if those who volunteer to die – the disturbed, the vulnerable, the rebel without a cause – have little to do with the movement, but are prepared to declare allegiance to Isis so that their suicidal acts become part of a global narrative.

This is why we need a new approach to the problem of Isis, one that seeks to understand contemporary Islamic violence alongside other forms of violence and radicalism that are very similar to it – those that feature generational revolt, self-destruction, a radical break with society, an aesthetic of violence, doomsday cults.

It is too often forgotten that suicide terrorism and organisations such as al-Qaida and Isis are new in the history of the Muslim world, and cannot be explained simply by the rise of fundamentalism. We must understand that terrorism does not arise from the radicalisation of Islam, but from the Islamisation of radicalism.






Far from exonerating Islam, the “Islamisation of radicalism” forces us to ask why and how rebellious youths have found in Islam the paradigm of their total revolt. It does not deny the fact that a fundamentalist Islam has been developing for more than 40 years.

There has been vocal criticism of this approach. One scholar claims that I have neglected the political causes of the revolt – essentially, the colonial legacy, western military interventions against peoples of the Middle East, and the social exclusion of immigrants and their children. From the other side, I have been accused of disregarding the link between terrorist violence and the religious radicalisation of Islam through Salafism, the ultra-conservative interpretation of the faith. I am fully aware of all of these dimensions; I am simply saying that they are inadequate to account for the phenomena we study, because no causal link can be found on the basis of the empirical data we have available.

My argument is that violent radicalisation is not the consequence of religious radicalisation, even if it often takes the same paths and borrows the same paradigms. Religious fundamentalism exists, of course, and it poses considerable societal problems, because it rejects values based on individual choice and personal freedom. But it does not necessarily lead to political violence.

The objection that radicals are motivated by the “suffering” experienced by Muslims who were formerly colonised, or victims of racism or any other sort of discrimination, US bombardments, drones, Orientalism, and so on, would imply that the revolt is primarily led by victims. But the relationship between radicals and victims is more imaginary than real.

Those who perpetrate attacks in Europe are not inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, Libya or Afghanistan. They are not necessarily the poorest, the most humiliated or the least integrated. The fact that 25% of jihadis are converts shows that the link between radicals and their “people” is also a largely imaginary construct.

Revolutionaries almost never come from the suffering classes. In their identification with the proletariat, the “masses” and the colonised, there is a choice based on something other than their objective situation. Very few terrorists or jihadis advertise their own life stories. They generally talk about what they have seen of others’ suffering. It was not Palestinians who shot up the Bataclan.

Up until the mid-1990s, most international jihadis came from the Middle East and had fought in Afghanistan prior to the fall of the communist regime there in 1992. Afterwards, they returned to their home countries to take part in jihad, or took the cause abroad. These were the people who mounted the first wave of “globalised” attacks (the first attempt on the World Trade Center in New York in 1993, against the US embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the US Navy destroyer Cole in 2000).

This first generation of jihadis was mentored by the likes of Bin Laden, Ramzi Yousef and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. But from 1995 onwards, a new breed began to develop – known in the west as the “homegrown terrorist”.

Who are these new radicals? We know many of their names thanks to police identification of perpetrators of attacks in Europe and the US. More still have been caught plotting attacks. We also have all the biographical information that has been gathered by journalists. There is no need to embark on painstaking fieldwork to figure out terrorist trajectories. All the data and profiles are available.

When it comes to understanding their motivations, we have traces of their speech: tweets, Google chats, Skype conversations, messages on WhatsApp and Facebook. They call their friends and family. They issue statements before they die and leave testaments on video. In short, even if we cannot be sure that we understand them, we are familiar with them.

We certainly have more information on the lives of terrorists operating in Europe than we do on jihadis who leave for foreign countries and never return. But, as a Sciences Po study on French jihadis who died in Syria has shown, there are many similarities between these groups. Here I will focus primarily on Franco-Belgians, who supply most of the ranks of western jihadis. But Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and the Netherlands also have significant contingents on the frontlines.

Using this information, I have compiled a database of roughly 100 people who have been involved in terrorism in France, or have left France or Belgium to take part in global jihad in the past 20 years. It includes the perpetrators of all the major attacks targeting French or Belgian territory.

There is no standard terrorist profile, but there are recurrent characteristics. The first conclusion that can be drawn is that the profiles have hardly changed over the past 20 years. Khaled Kelkal, France’s first homegrown terrorist, and the Kouachi brothers (Charlie Hebdo, Paris, 2015) share a number of common features: second generation; fairly well integrated at first; period of petty crime; radicalisation in prison; attack and death – weapons in hand – in a standoff with the police.

Another characteristic that all western countries have in common is that radicals are almost all “born-again” Muslims who, after living a highly secular life – frequenting clubs, drinking alcohol, involvement in petty crime – suddenly renew their religious observance, either individually or in the context of a small group. The Abdeslam brothers ran a Brussels bar and went out to nightclubs in the months preceding the Bataclan shooting. Most move into action in the months following their religious “reconversion” or “conversion”, but have usually already exhibited signs of radicalisation.

In almost every case, the processes by which a radical group is formed are nearly identical. The group’s membership is always the same: brothers, childhood friends, acquaintances from prison, sometimes from a training camp. The number of sets of siblings found is also remarkable.

This over-representation of siblings does not occur in any other context of radicalisation, whether on the extreme left or Islamist groups. It highlights the significance of the generational dimension of radicalisation.

As the former jihadi David Vallat has written, the radical preachers’ rhetoric could basically be summarised as: “Your father’s Islam is what the colonisers left behind, the Islam of those who bow down and obey. Our Islam is the Islam of combatants, of blood, of resistance.”

Radicals are in fact often orphans – as the Kouachi brothers were – or come from dysfunctional families. They are not necessarily rebelling against their parents personally, but against what they represent: humiliation, concessions made to society, and what they view as their religious ignorance.

Most of the new radicals are deeply immersed in youth culture: they go to nightclubs, pick up girls, smoke and drink. Nearly 50% of the jihadis in France, according to my database, have a history of petty crime – mainly drug dealing, but also acts of violence and, less frequently, armed robbery. A similar figure is found in Germany and the United States – including a surprising number of arrests for drunk driving. Their dress habits also conform to those of today’s youth: brands, baseball caps, hoods, in other words streetwear, and not even of the Islamic variety.

Their musical tastes are also those of the times: they like rap music and go out to clubs. One of the best-known radicalised figures is a German rapper, Denis Cuspert – first known as Deso Dogg, then as Abu Talha al-Almani – who went to fight in Syria. Naturally, they are also gaming enthusiasts and are fond of violent American movies.

Their violent tendencies can have outlets other than jihad and terrorism – as we see in the gang wars of Marseille. They can also be channelled, either by institutions – Mohammed Merah wanted to enlist in the army – or by sport. One group of Portuguese converts, most of whom were originally Angolan, left London to join Isis after bonding at a Thai boxing club started by a British NGO. Combat sport clubs are more important than mosques in jihadi social life.

The language spoken by radicals is always that of their country of residence. In France, they often switch to a Salafised version of French banlieue speech when they reconvert.

Prison time puts them in contact with radicalised “peers” and far outside of any institutionalised religion. Prison amplifies many of the factors that fuel contemporary radicalisation: the generational dimension; revolt against the system; the diffusion of a simplified Salafism; the formation of a tight-knit group; the search for dignity related to respect for the norm; and the reinterpretation of crime as legitimate political protest.

Another common feature is the radicals’ distance from their immediate circle. They did not live in a particularly religious environment. Their relationship to the local mosque was ambivalent: either they attended episodically, or they were expelled for having shown disrespect for the local imam. None of them belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, none of them had worked with a Muslim charity, none of them had taken part in proselytising activities, none of them were members of a Palestinian solidarity movement, and lastly, none of them, to my knowledge, took part in the rioting in French suburbs in 2005. They were not first radicalised by a religious movement before turning to terrorism.

If indeed there was religious radicalisation, it did not occur in the framework of Salafi mosques, but individually or within the group. The only exceptions are in Britain, which has a network of militant mosques frequented by members of al-Muhajiroun, which gave rise to an even more radical group, Sharia4UK, led by Anjem Choudary. The question is therefore when and where jihadis embrace religion. Religious fervour arises outside community structures, belatedly, fairly suddenly, and not long before terrorists move into action.

To summarise: the typical radical is a young, second-generation immigrant or convert, very often involved in episodes of petty crime, with practically no religious education, but having a rapid and recent trajectory of conversion/reconversion, more often in the framework of a group of friends or over the internet than in the context of a mosque. The embrace of religion is rarely kept secret, but rather is exhibited, but it does not necessarily correspond to immersion in religious practice. The rhetoric of rupture is violent – the enemy is kafir, one with whom no compromise is possible – but also includes their own family, the members of which are accused of observing Islam improperly, or refusing to convert.

At the same time, it is obvious that the radicals’ decision to identify with jihad and to claim affiliation with a radical Islamic group is not merely an opportunistic choice: the reference to Islam makes all the difference between jihad and the other forms of violence that young people indulge in. Pointing out this pervasive culture of violence does not amount to “exonerating” Islam. The fact that these young people choose Islam as a framework for thought and action is fundamental, and it is precisely the Islamisation of radicalism that we must strive to understand.

Aside from the common characteristics discussed above, there is no typical social and economic profile of the radicalised. There is a popular and very simplistic explanation that views terrorism as the consequence of unsuccessful integration – and thus the harbinger of a civil war to come – without for a moment taking into account the masses of well-integrated and socially ascendant Muslims. It is, for instance, an unassailable fact that in France far more Muslims are enrolled in the police and security forces than are involved in jihad.

Furthermore, radicals do not come from hardline communities. The Abdeslam brothers’ Brussels bar sat in a neighbourhood that has been described as “Salafised” – which would therefore be off-limits to people who drink liquor and women not wearing the hijab. But this example shows that the reality of these neighbourhoods is more complex than we are led to believe.

It is very common to view jihadism as an extension of Salafism. Not all Salafis are jihadis, but all jihadis are supposedly Salafis, and so Salafism is the gateway to jihadism. In a word, religious radicalisation is considered to be the first stage of political radicalisation. But things are more complicated than that, as we have seen.

Clearly, however, these young radicals are sincere believers: they truly believe that they will go to heaven, and their frame of reference is deeply Islamic. They join organisations that want to set up an Islamic system, or even, in the case of Isis, to restore the caliphate. But what form of Islam are we talking about?

As we have seen, jihadis do not descend into violence after poring over sacred texts. They do not have the necessary religious culture – and, above all, care little about having one. They do not become radicals because they have misread the texts or because they have been manipulated. They are radicals because they choose to be, because only radicalism appeals to them. No matter what database is taken as a reference, the paucity of religious knowledge among jihadis is glaring. According to leaked Isis records containing details for more than 4,000 foreign recruits, while most of the fighters are well-educated, 70% state that they have only basic knowledge of Islam.

It is important to distinguish here between the version of Islam espoused by Isis itself, which is much more grounded in the methodological tradition of exegesis of the prophet Muhammad’s words, and ostensibly based on the work of “scholars” – and the Islam of the jihadis who claim allegiance to Isis, which first of all revolves around a vision of heroism and modern-day violence.

The scriptural exegeses that fill the pages of Dabiq and Dar al-Islam, the two recent Isis magazines written in English and French, are not the cause of radicalisation. They help to provide a theological rationalisation for the violence of the radicals – based not on real knowledge, but an appeal to authority. When young jihadis speak of “truth”, it is never in reference to discursive knowledge. They are referring to their own certainty, sometimes supported by an incantatory reference to the sheikhs, whom they have never read. For example Cédric, a converted Frenchman, claimed at his own trial: “I’m not a keyboard jihadi, I didn’t convert on YouTube. I read the scholars, the real ones.” He said this even though he cannot read Arabic and met the members of his network over the internet.

It probably makes sense to start by listening to what the terrorists say. The same themes recur with all of them, summed up in the posthumous statement made by Mohammad Siddique Khan, leader of the group that carried out the London bombings on 7 July 2005.

The first motivation he cited is atrocities committed by western countries against the “Muslim people” (in the transcript he says, “my people all over the world”); the second is the role of avenging hero (“I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters,” “Now you too will taste the reality of this situation”); the third is death (“We love death as much as you love life”), and his reception in heaven (“May Allah ... raise me amongst those whom I love like the prophets, the messengers, the martyrs”).

The Muslim community such terrorists are eager to avenge is almost never specified. It is a non-historical and non-spatial reality. When they rail against western policy in the Middle East, jihadis use the term “crusaders”; they do not refer to the French colonisation of Algeria.

Radicals never refer explicitly to the colonial period. They reject or disregard all political and religious movements that have come before them. They do not align themselves with the struggles of their fathers; almost none of them go back to their parents’ countries of origin to wage jihad. It is noteworthy that none of the jihadis, whether born Muslim or converted, has to my knowledge campaigned as part of a pro-Palestinian movement or belonged to any sort of association to combat Islamophobia, or even an Islamic NGO. These radicalised youths read texts in French or English circulating over the internet, but not works in Arabic.

Oddly enough, the defenders of the Islamic State never talk about sharia and almost never about the Islamic society that will be built under the auspices of Isis. Those who say that they went to Syria because they wanted “to live in a true Islamic society” are typically returnees who deny having participated in violence while there – as if wanting to wage jihad and wanting to live according to Islamic law were incompatible. And they are, in a way, because living in an Islamic society does not interest jihadis: they do not go to the Middle East to live, but to die. That is the paradox: these young radicals are not utopians, they are nihilists.

What is more radical about the new radicals than earlier generations of revolutionaries, Islamists and Salafis is their hatred of existing societies, whether western or Muslim. This hatred is embodied in the pursuit of their own death when committing mass murder. They kill themselves along with the world they reject. Since 11 September 2001, this is the radicals’ preferred modus operandi.

The suicidal mass killer is unfortunately a common contemporary figure. The typical example is the American school shooter, who goes to his school heavily armed, indiscriminately kills as many people as possible, then kills himself or lets himself be killed by the police. He has already posted photographs, videos and statements online. In them he assumed heroic poses and delighted in the fact that everyone would now know who he was. In the United States there were 50 attacks or attempted attacks of this sort between 1999 and 2016.

The boundaries between a suicidal mass killer of this sort and a militant for the caliphate are understandably hazy. The Nice killer, for instance, was first described as mentally ill and later as an Isis militant whose crime had been premeditated. But these ideas are not mutually exclusive.

The point here is not to mix all these categories together. Each one is specific, but there is a striking common thread that runs through the mass murders perpetrated by disaffected, nihilistic and suicidal youths. What organisations like al-Qaida and Isis provide is a script.

The strength of Isis is to play on our fears. And the principal fear is the fear of Islam. The only strategic impact of the attacks is their psychological effect. They do not affect the west’s military capabilities; they even strengthen them, by putting an end to military budget cuts. They have a marginal economic effect, and only jeopardise our democratic institutions to the extent that we ourselves call them into question through the everlasting debate on the conflict between security and the rule of law. The fear is that our own societies will implode and there will be a civil war between Muslims and the “others”.

We ask ourselves what Islam wants, what Islam is, without for a moment realising that this world of Islam does not exist; that the ummah is at best a pious wish and at worst an illusion; that the conflicts are first and foremost among Muslims themselves; that the key to these conflicts is first of all political; that national issues remain the key to the Middle East and social issues the key to integration.

Certainly Isis, like al-Qaida, has fashioned a grandiose imaginary system in which it pictures itself as conquering and defeating the west. It is a huge fantasy, like all millenarian ideologies.
But, unlike the major secular ideologies of the 20th century, jihadism has a very narrow social and political base. As we have seen, it does not mobilise the masses, and only draws in those on the fringe.

There is a temptation to see in Islam a radical ideology that mobilises throngs of people in the Muslim world, just as Nazism was able to mobilise large sections of the German population. But the reality is that Isis’s pretension to establish a global caliphate is a delusion – that is why it draws in violent youngsters who have delusions of grandeur.

This is an edited extract from Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State by Olivier Roy, published by Hurst.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/apr/13/who-are-the-new-jihadis

'This could be your child:' STU professor helps families with children lost to jihadist movement

Yahoo News
CBC

March 28, 2017

Young Canadians continue to join extremist movements and it needs compassion and community to help them and their families, says Alexandra Bain, the new director of Hayat Canada, an outreach program for people with children involved in violent extremist groups.

Bain, who teaches religious studies at St. Thomas University, says she also once lost someone to an extremist group. The youth are lured into what she describes as a cult and despite all the best efforts from their families and the police, children continue to leave, she says.

She now hopes to engage more volunteers to help and work with the families. Many of them are often horrified at what their child is doing and feel alone in coping with the situation, she said.

"Watching it grow over the years and watching young people be affected by these ideas and by these social attractions from other young people who are like-minded, it does seem to be like a virus," she says. "You can't tell who's going to be hit next."

"This could be my child, this could be your child."

First-hand experience

Bain worked with Hayat Canada for a number of months before the organization's founder, Christianne Boudreau, asked her to take over as director.

Boudreau's son died while fighting with ISIS in Syria in 2014. In a previous interview with CBC, she says she grew tired of waiting for Canada to take action on de-radicalization so she ventured out on her own.

She is now involved with at least 50 families in 11 countries — 20 of the families in Canada — as well as with extractions and interventions in Syria. She says she chose Bain to take over the Canadian chapter of Hayat because she's compassionate, challenges the system, and puts the families first.

Bain says she knows what it's like to be in their shoes. The 26-year-old man she lost to a jihadist movement was like family, she says.

"The impact it had on our family, not just on myself but on my children, who were watching, I at that point decided that I wanted to do something to make sure that families don't have to face this alone," says Bain.

Saving children

But Hayat is not just a contact for families in crisis, connecting them with community resources, volunteers and counselling services.

It also tries to prevent other children from following in the footsteps of a friend, sibling or cousin.

Bain recently noticed an small increase in people joining extremist groups. In the earlier years, they would not tell anyone about their plans until they arrived in Turkey or Syria. But now people are leaving "and nobody knows they are gone, and nobody hears from them again."

The families feel helpless, and shy away from contacting the police, as incarcerations and medical examinations often make matters worse, she says. Instead of seeking official support, they now contact groups like Hayat. But if Bain or any volunteer feels there is a definitive threat against an individual or a place, they contact the police.

"We are there to help people and everyone knows we are there to help," she says.

Disengagement

Bain says radical extremists can lure the youth because they often feel disenfranchised with their life, struggle with drugs, or have problems with their parents, and provide them with "very easy answers to life's questions." Then they introduce them to a like-minded group that becomes their new family.

"In fact, more important than their family, and they are taught to abandon their family because their family does not have the same ideology," she says.

Hayat encourages families to stay in touch with their children even after they leave because sometimes they do come back. She says radicalization is not as much of a problem as is disengaging them from their extremist views and support of violence.

"The very best advocates for this are the families themselves," she says. "So the first thing the families need is support."

She added that there are organizations that help people leave extremist groups and set up a new life in another country, she said. Those who return to Canada and are not deemed criminals by the state often suffer from post-traumatic stress, and require counselling to be "re-engaged in a new life," she says.



https://ca.news.yahoo.com/could-child-stu-professor-helps-224500316.html

CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/25/2016

KKK, Faith Healing, Word of Life Christian Church, Rick Ross, The Temple of the Jedi Order, Psychic, ISIS, Jihad, Polygamy, FLDS, Heaven's Gate, legal, UK

​New York Times: ​

Inside the Ku Klux Klan, With an A&E Documentary Series

New York Times: Generation KKK,” an eight-part documentary series, beginning Jan. 10 on A&E, that burrows in with high-ranking Klan members and their families.

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/inside-ku-klux-klan-with-a-documentary.html

GMA: AFTER 20 REPORTED DEATHS Local exec orders Cotabato faith healer to stop healing practice

"Citing reports, the vice mayor said that at least 20 patients who had undergone healing from Tungcua had died due to wrong medications."

“I instructed the families of those [who] perished to file charges against the faith healer. But they are hesitant. I don’t know what their reasons are,” he said.

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/after-20-reported-deaths-local-exec.html

Observer-Dispatch: Pastor, brother sentenced in Word of Life case

Are allegations by Irwin justified?

As part of Tiffanie Irwin's efforts to withdraw her guilty plea Monday, she described a number reasons why she believed she should be able to take her case to trial.

Her accusations include: that she was denied a fair trial and a fair judge, that her plea was coerced as a result of the requirements of her plea offer, that the case's top prosecutor violated a gag order and that a grand jury witness's testimony was "so prejudicial" it should have caused the case to be thrown out.

The grand jury witness was not identified in court, but motions previously filed by Irwin's attorney, Kurt Schultz, indicate that Cult Education Institute founder and Executive Director Rick Ross is the expert in question. Irwin alleged that Ross is a "convicted felon" and alleged that he was called to testify to show the Word of Life Christian Church is a cult.

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/pastor-brother-sentenced-in-word-of.html

The Guardian: Jedi order fails in attempt to register as religious group

The Temple of the Jedi Order, members of which follow the tenets of the faith central to the Star Wars films, sought charitable status this year, but the Charity Commission has ruled that it does not meet the criteria for a religion under UK charity law.

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/jedi-order-fails-in-attempt-to-register.html

Palm Beach Post: Magistrate rejects new trial for psychic Rose Marks on fraud charges

"After a nearly month-long trial in 2013, a jury convicted Marks of 14 counts of fraud for taking millions from heart-broken customers. They testified they believed Marks’ claims that she had connections to the after-life that would help them overcome their personal tragedies."

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/magistrate-rejects-new-trial-for.html

Indian Express: IS 'brainwashing' children to attack Europe

"The Islamic State group is providing children apps to access violent jihadi websites and offering rewards, if young recruits say they were willing to attack monuments in Europe."

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/is-brainwashing-children-to-attack.html

Salt Lake City Tribune: Polygamist defendants in food stamp fraud promise to obey judge to stay out of jail

"Defense attorneys on Tuesday told a federal court judge that their clients, in order to stay out of jail, will be willing to check with the judge before following any questionable orders from Warren Jeffs, president of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saint."

http://www.sltrib.com/home/4731175-155/polygamists-in-food-stamp-case-go

FANZINE: CURIOUS: AN INTERVIEW WITH LIVING REPRESENTATIVES OF HEAVEN'S GATE

"Heaven’s Gate, a Christian/sci-fi amalgam founded in the 1970’s by Bonnie Nettles (Ti) and Marshall Applewhite (Do) claimed, and still claim, via their website, that what happened was not suicide, just a process that had to be undertaken to catch a ride on a UFO that was trailing behind the comet Hale-Bopp."

http://www.cultnews101.com/2016/12/curious-interview-with-living.html

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