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Jihadist ideology, Western counter-ideology, and the ABC modelMark Sedgwick aa Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus,DenmarkVersion of record first published: 19 Oct 2012.

To cite this article: Mark Sedgwick (2012): Jihadist ideology, Western counter-ideology, and theABC model, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 5:3, 359-372

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Critical Studies on TerrorismVol. 5, No. 3, December 2012, 359–372

SPECIAL SECTION: ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESSOF COUNTER-RADICALISATION POLICIESIN NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE

Jihadist ideology, Western counter-ideology, and the ABC model

Mark Sedgwick*

Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

(Received in final form 12 August 2012)

Counter-ideology is an important part of counter-radicalisation, but much counter-ideology aimed at jihadism is likely to be ineffective because it advances proposi-tions that make more sense to Western governments than to the Muslims at whomthe counter-ideology is addressed. This article uses an ‘ABC’ model to analyse themajor components of jihadist ideology. It shows that much of the counter-ideology isaimed at parts of the jihadist narrative that are widely accepted among Muslims, andso are almost immune to counter-ideology. It is the jihadist course of action – jihad –that is not widely accepted, and this is the element of jihadist ideology against whichcounter-ideology should be directed.

Keywords: counter-radicalisation; jihad; ideology; takfir; terrorism

Introduction

There is an agreement among all concerned with radicalisation and counter-radicalisation –scholars, Western governments, and jihadists – that ideology matters. Jihadists havedevoted considerable effort to promoting their ideology, developing increasingly sophis-ticated media operations in the process. Western governments have repeatedly stressedthe importance of countering jihadist ideology, and have taken various steps to do this.Scholars, as we will see, also accept that ideology is a central element in jihadism.

This article agrees. While ideology is far from the only cause of terrorism, it is a nec-essary cause, in the sense that ideology is necessary for there to be terrorism, even if itsexistence is not on its own sufficient to produce terrorism. All past terrorist groups canbe located within the context of one broader ideological movement or another (Sedgwick2007), and it is rare in the extreme for a terrorist group to outlive the ideological movementfrom which it emerged.1 The end of jihadist ideology, then, might reasonably be expectedto mean the end of jihadist terrorism.

As well as being important to counter-radicalisation, however, ideology and counter-ideology are also areas where concerns arise relating to trade-offs between security andfreedom of speech, and between security and freedom of religion. Counter-ideologyinvolves two distinct types of operation. One type of operation is disruption of jihadistpropaganda, primarily by removing jihadist material from the Internet and silencing jihadist

*Email: mjs@teo.au.dk

ISSN 1753-9153 print/ISSN 1753-9161 online© 2012 Taylor & Francishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2012.723520http://www.tandfonline.com

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ideologists, perhaps by deporting them. Such operations inevitably raise issues of freedomof speech, given the need to make judgements about when Internet material is jihadistpropaganda and when it is fair comment, and about when preaching is ‘extremist’ andwhen it is not. Sometimes this is obvious, but sometimes difficult judgements need to bemade, inevitably raising a risk of error.

The other type of counter-ideology operation is the promotion of messages thatcounter those promoted by the jihadists, including theological messages. As the BritishGovernment noted in its 2011 review of its counter-radicalisation activities, such operationsmay produce a perception that a Western government is setting itself up as a ‘theologicalarbiter’ to decide what Islamic doctrines are and are not acceptable (Home Office 2011,p. 50). As a result, the British review proposed that in future the British government shouldkeep away from theology, focusing instead on supporting ‘theologians, academics and com-munities’ who engage in theology (Home Office 2011, p. 52). This might be thought notto solve the problem entirely, since in effect it means that the British government will bedoing Islamic theology indirectly, not directly. A freedom of religion issue thus remains.

Difficulties associated with these trade-offs may be minimised by a tighter focusingof counter-ideology efforts, and that is what this article argues for, both to minimise thedifficulties associated with trade-offs and because much current counter-ideology – forwhich the British Prevent strategy of 2011 will be used below as a representative example –is anyhow likely to be ineffective. Much current counter-ideology advances propositionsthat make more sense to Western governments than they do to the Muslims at whom theyare addressed. These propositions are generally aimed at parts of the jihadist narrative thatare widely accepted among Muslims, and so are almost immune to counter-ideology. It isthe jihadist course of action – jihad – that is not widely accepted among Muslims, and thisis the element of jihadist ideology against which counter-ideology should be directed.

The British Prevent strategy is clearer about how counter-ideology should be deliv-ered – online, in mosques, universities and schools, and in ‘interventions’ targeted at‘vulnerable people’ (Home Office 2011, pp. 51–52, 58, 74) – than it is about what thecontent of this counter-ideology should be. It does, however, highlight three main focusareas:

(1) Unspecified indirect theological interventions.(2) ‘Better communication of Government security and foreign policies’, which seems

to be a continuation of the 2007 British message that ‘far from being at war withIslam, the [British] Government was making great efforts to address deprivation,human rights issues and governance in Muslim-majority countries’ (Home Office2011, pp. 7, 48).

(3) Advocating ‘the values of democracy, rule of law, equality of opportunity, freedomof speech and the rights of all men and women to live free from persecution of anykind’ (Home Office 2011, p. 44).

In addition, a further counter-ideology focus, not explicit in Prevent but correctly identifiedby Kenneth Payne (2009, p. 199), has been to argue that: ‘the ideological fault-line is notbetween Muslims and the rest: it’s extremists versus the moderates’ (p. 199). These fourfocuses of counter-ideology are fairly standard in current Western counter-radicalisationstrategies aimed at jihadism, and at first sight seem to make sense. As we will see, however,they are unlikely to be very effective, since they in fact mostly target the wrong aspectsof jihadist ideology. This is the case with all the anti-jihadist counter-ideology initiativesof which I am aware, with the single exception of the Information Operations Task Force(IOTF), a US military unit that operated in Iraq in 2005–2006, discussed later in this article.

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The British counter-radicalisation policy, at least as visible in the 2011 Prevent strategy,seems to be typical of current counter-radicalisation policies in recognising the importanceof ideology and making what appear to be sensible decisions about how and where todeliver it, but in getting much of the actual content of the counter-ideology wrong.

The IOTF is a rare example of a counter-ideology operation that used empirical means –principally focus groups – to test the effectiveness of its activities. Elsewhere, counter-ideology efforts, like counter-radicalisation efforts as a whole, have generally been assessedin terms of output rather than in terms of outcome. The reasons for this fall beyond thescope of this article, but the result is that there is at present almost no useful empiricaldata to provide a basis for judging the effectiveness of different approaches to counter-radicalisation in general and to counter-ideology in particular. Given this, this articlenecessarily takes an approach that is often theoretical more than empirical, focusing onwhat logically should be the case rather than on what actually is, or is not, the case.

Varieties of jihad

This article focuses on the ideology of the global jihad that was inspired and partly ledby al-Qaeda, and has been of primary concern to Western states since 2001. It ignores‘local jihads’, those taking place primarily in a single locality, in which the motivationsof actual or potential jihadists include important local issues that are not directly relevantelsewhere. The conflict in the former territories of the Palestine Mandate, for example,predates the emergence of jihadism, and major issues would remain there even if the globaljihad came to an end. Similarly, the struggle over inter-confessional distribution of powerin Lebanon predates the emergence of Hizbullah. Other current jihads that may be regardedas local include those in Somalia, southern Thailand, Chechnya, and in Afghanistan andthe Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. These local jihads do notconstitute a direct threat to the security of Western states, and so are of concern to Westerncounter-ideology operations only insofar as perceptions of them feed into the ideology ofthe global jihad.

The ideology of the global jihad is itself global. Counter-ideology, in contrast, is gen-erally delivered locally, in the context of national counter-radicalisation programmes. Thisis not ideal: in principle, counter-ideology should be as global as the ideology it seeksto counter. In practice, however, counter-radicalisation programmes must be expected toremain national, for reasons that lie beyond the scope of this article. What follows, then,deals with mismatched local responses to a global phenomenon, not with any globalresponse.

Jihadist ideology

As Kenneth Payne has noted, global jihadist ideology has become increasingly simple andcoherent as al-Qaeda has ‘shifted from being a centralized group with stable senior mem-bership to being effectively a brand that can appropriate any act of jihadi terror by groupsand individuals around the world’ (2009, p. 111), and there is a measure of consensusbetween four scholars who have recently examined global jihadist ideology, Jeni Mitchell(2008), Kenneth Payne (2009), John Turner (2010), and Heather S. Gregg (2010). Thesefour scholars have been selected as leading representatives of current views in the study ofterrorism, with two articles published in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and two publishedin Terrorism and Political Violence.

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In her analysis, Gregg uses a three-part analytical framework taken from AndrewHeywood who argues that all ideologies have three ‘features’:

(a) They offer an account of the existing order, usually in the form of a ‘world view’.(b) They advance a model of a desired future, a vision of the ‘good society’.(c) They explain how political change can and should be brought about – how to get

from (a) to (b).(Heywood 2007, pp. 11–12)

Although this three-part distinction is not absolute, Heywood is, I think, right, and thisarticle will follow Gregg in using Heywood’s model, which it will call ‘the ABC model’,renaming what Heywood calls a ‘desired future’ as ‘better world’, so that his three featuresbecome:

A-ccountB-etter worldC-hange (from A to B)

The jihadist account

There is basic consensus among our four scholars about the jihadist account of the existingorder, which is that there is a fundamental division between Muslims and non-Muslims,and that Muslims are suffering because of non-Muslims. Payne and Mitchell stress theinternational aspects of this account, while Gregg and Turner stress the domestic aspects.For Payne (2009, p. 112), it is fundamental to the jihadist narrative that Islam is underattack by the West, and for Mitchell (2008, p. 814):

Jihadist ideology posits a Manichaean struggle between Islam and the non-Muslim world[ . . . ] whereby powerful and aggressive infidel forces are determined to weaken andeventually destroy Islam.

For Gregg (2010, p. 295), who emphasises the domestic more than the international, thejihadist account is that ‘weak and corrupt Muslim leadership is to blame for the declineof the Muslim community and that leadership is weak because it has embraced the Westand strayed from the true path of Islam’. For Turner (2010, p. 543), who uses Arabic termsto headline his analysis, the jihadist account is simply, ‘jahiliya, the corruption of Islamicsociety’ in the form of the ‘imperialist non-Muslim West’ and ‘tyrannical Middle Easternsecular regimes’ (Turner 2010, p. 546).

Payne, Gregg, and Turner – thought not Mitchell – trace this account back to theEgyptian Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb (Payne 2009, p. 111; Gregg 2010, p. 298; Turner2010, pp. 549–550), who has become widely known in the West as the chief ideologistof violent Islamism, and is even mentioned in the British Prevent strategy (Home Office2011, p. 45). It sometimes appears that Qutb is seen in the West as being to Islamism asMarx was to Communism. In some ways this is true, but in others it is not: Qutb’s writingsare indeed an important inspiration for many Islamists and jihadists, but they are not anessential point of reference, as Marx was for Communists.

Mitchell (2008, p. 815), rather than tracing the jihadist account back to Qutb, empha-sises that it is essentially rational, not a function of religious belief: ‘If perception of

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threat were wholly religiously defined’, she points out, ‘there would be no differentiationbetween the threat posed by the United States and the threat from, say, the infidel nation ofBotswana.’

Although the jihadist account may be traced back to Qutb, something very similar to itmay also be found among ordinary Muslims who have never read Qutb. The power of thejihadist account derives largely from this, from the fact that it is closely aligned with ananalysis that is very widely accepted in many parts of the Muslim world, and is thus alsopresent among Muslim populations in Western Europe, who are often in touch with theircountries of origin, whether through visits, consumption of digital media, or new com-munications technologies such as Skype. As Turner (2010, p. 553) recognises, the jihadistaccount ‘resonate[s] with many across the Islamic world seeking coherent explanations forthe plight of their co-religionists in areas of conflict, poverty, struggle, and tyranny’. Likeany analysis of current events, the widespread analysis that Muslims are suffering becauseof non-Muslims derives partly from information concerning actual events and partly fromthe interpretation of that information.

The actual events that most closely concern Muslims, and so need to be interpreted bythem, have often been problematic by any standards. At home, there has been widespreadsuffering caused by poverty, misgovernment, and corruption. These problems are very visi-ble even to the small minority of Muslims, including those in Europe, who have not sufferedpersonally from their consequences. Abroad, the Palestinian problem has remained with-out any solution after more than 60 years, the conditions in which Palestinians live haveseemed to deteriorate rather than improve, and periodic Israeli attacks on Arab targets havecontinued. Islamic ideals are not taken seriously on the world stage, where Muslims knowthey are little respected.

This situation could be interpreted in many ways. It might be suggested, for example,that the fundamental problem at home was lack of democracy, transparency, and account-ability, and that the fundamental problem abroad was failure to deal effectively with thecontemporary international order. This is more or less the analysis of many well-educatedMuslims. A more widespread analysis, however, blames America, the Jews, and the Westin general. This analysis, which is very familiar to anyone who speaks Arabic and has spenttime in Arab countries over recent years, is reflected in poll data from sources such as thePew Global Attitudes Project.

A recent Pew survey (2011, p. 13) found that opinion in Lebanon, Egypt, andJordan blamed Western policies above any other cause for the relative lack of prosper-ity of Muslim-majority countries worldwide. Of all the Arab populations surveyed, onlyPalestinians placed government corruption above Western policies as a cause of lack ofprosperity, and 65% of Palestinians still blamed Western policies. 73% of Palestinians sawAmericans as hostile to them, a view shared by around 60% of Lebanese, Egyptians, andJordanians (Pew 2011, p. 17). A study by Furia and Lucas (2008) of the development ofanti-American attitudes over time found a high degree of correlation between such pollresults and ‘visible international political actions in regard to salient international issues’.Actual events in the Arab world explained periodic increases in anti-American sentiment,which then declined as those events passed. But while actual events explain the rise and fallof a view of American and the West as hostile and responsible for the Muslim world’s mis-fortunes, actual events do not on their own explain the degree of anti-American sentiment.For this, further explanations are needed.

In order to have meaning, events must be interpreted and placed in a narrative.Individuals do not construct their own narratives from scratch. Narratives are provided by

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the media, by an individual’s social circles, and to some extent by each individual. They arealso provided by what is called ‘popular historical memory’, which can produce what PninaWerbner (2009, pp. 445–446) has called ‘a sense of perpetual victimhood’. Arab popularhistorical memory, which dwells on defeat and occupation at the hands of European impe-rialists, has led to widely accepted explanations of the Muslims’ current problems in termsof the past. Widespread misgovernment and corruption was thus understood in terms ofleaders being American puppets. Poverty was explained in terms of colonialist exploitationand theft of natural resources. Oil was understood as a concern of US foreign policy, not interms of maintaining energy security, but in terms of the motivations originally ascribed toimperialism by Lenin, which worked their way into the Arab newspapers and school textsof the 1960s. Foreign-policy problems are seen as the continuation of earlier imperialism.

The jihadist account, then, is not an obscure doctrine drawn from Qutb, but is veryclose to an analysis that is very widespread among Muslims. For these reasons, the jihadistaccount is hard to target with counter-ideology.

The jihadist vision of a better world

Just as there is basic consensus among our four scholars about the jihadist account ofthe existing order, so there is basic consensus about the jihadist vision of a better world.As often happens, utopia is in many ways simply the reverse of the account of the present:justice instead of injustice, prosperity instead of poverty, with the Muslims strong andrespected instead of weak and subject to attack. Beyond this, utopia is often understood interms of Islam and Sharia.

For Mitchell (2008, pp. 814–816), the jihadist vision is of a ‘fair and just society’guided by Sharia. For Turner (2010, p. 543), it is ‘uncorrupted Islam’, and for Gregg (2010,p. 297) too, the solution is Islam, which ‘provides a total way of life and offers completedirection for governance, economics, and society’. One point of disagreement emergesbetween Payne (2009, p. 111), for whom the ‘utopia’ is summed up by Bin Laden’s1998 declaration of his goal as being ‘to liberate the lands of Islam from unbelief andto apply the law of God Almighty’, and Mitchell (2008), who objects that the liberation ofhistorically Islamic territory and the creation of a Sharia-based society are not the jihadists’vision but rather their ‘political objectives’, the immediate goals of their strategies, distinctfrom the ultimate vision of the fair and just society.

Mitchell is right that the liberation of Islamic territory is a means to an end, not part ofthe jihadist vision. Islam and the Sharia-based society, however, are more than just meansto an end: in the jihadist understanding, as in the understanding of many ordinary Muslims,Islam, the Sharia-based society, and the fair and just society are in practice much the samething.

‘Sharia’ can have several different meanings. For some, notably for Salafis and otherswith a background in Saudi interpretations of Islam, it means a fairly narrow version ofclassic interpretations of Islamic law. The emphasis is thus on a society that observes thedetailed rules of the Sharia, both in terms of people doing that which is right (praying,giving alms) and avoiding that which is wrong (theft, adultery, dancing, female singers).For others, Sharia has a somewhat wider meaning: not only people observing rules but asystem or state that is an actualisation of God’s will. The first of these understandings of theSharia might be called literalist, and the second might be called idealist. The idealist under-standing represents – though its proponents would not accept this analysis – an amalgamof classic Islam and of elements drawn from various modern Western ideologies. It values,for example, social justice and social solidarity, which it sees as being part of the original

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Islamic message, despite the fact that such concepts were first developed in early modernEurope. In the idealist understanding, then, ‘Sharia’ includes many of the same ideals thathave wide appeal in the West.

Jihadist ideology emphasises the desirable consequences of the absence of current evilsand of the implementation of the Sharia more than it does actual forms of government, thedetails of which are generally not worked out. Western thought expects the nature of societyto result from economic and political factors, notably systems of government devised byhumanity. Many Muslims, including jihadists, are more concerned with moral factors, andwith systems of law revealed by God. 85% of Egyptians and 76% of Jordanians recentlytold pollsters that Islam has a positive impact on politics (Pew 2010, p. 11).2 To the extentthat systems of government are considered in jihadist ideology, the two key concepts are therighteous ruler and consultation in the form of shura, a term used in the Quran that is seenas having a contemporary political meaning. A righteous ruler operating with shura was,for example, the form of government nominally implemented by the short-lived ‘IslamicEmirate of Iraq’ that was proclaimed in 2006. The proclamation in question was notable fora total absence of any detail or recognisable political programme. This is typical of jihadistideology, and is at least in part because such detail would be more likely to be divisivethan unifying. Within jihadism there are different and contradictory views on some of thedetails.

The jihadist utopia, then, is not so much a particular political system as a particularstate of affairs. That state of affairs has wide appeal, and there is almost no possibilityof counter-ideology challenging it. Justice is generally desirable, after all. Being strongand respected instead of weak and subject to attack is also generally desirable. Just as thejihadist account is not an obscure doctrine drawn from Qutb but rather very close to ananalysis that is very widespread among Muslims, so the jihadist vision may be found inQutb, but is also very close to a vision that is very widespread among Muslims.

The jihadist means of change

Once again, there is basic consensus among our four scholars about how jihadists seek toachieve change to move from A to B, from their account of the existing order to their visionof a better world. Jihadists seek to achieve this change through jihad. This is what distin-guishes them from other Islamists (Mitchell 2008, p. 814), and from the many millions ofordinary Muslims who to a greater or lesser extent agree with the jihadist account of theexisting order and the jihadist vision of a better world.

The jihadist view on the means of change subdivides into a number of discretedecisions:

(1) The decision that it is appropriate in general for force to be used to address theproblems noted in the account and so to move forward to the better world.

(2) The decision that the force in question should involve terrorist attacks on civiliansrather than merely attacks on military targets.

(3) The decision that it is acceptable for Muslims as well as non-Muslims to be killed.

In addition to these three decisions, which proceed in logical sequence, comes a fourthdecision out of sequence: the decision that martyrdom is desirable.

The first and fourth of these decisions – the use of force and the desirability of mar-tyrdom – are emphasised in jihadist propaganda, while the others are avoided. Of the twodecisions that are avoided, that which holds the killing of Muslims to be acceptable is the

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most controversial proposition of all among ordinary Muslims, and so is the single weakestpoint in jihadist ideology.

All four decisions may be considered from both a religious and a rational perspective.From a religious perspective, the decision that it is appropriate in general for force to beused is not really controversial. Nearly all believing Muslims accept in principle that jihadin self-defence is legitimate, and some do not even require that jihad be in self-defence.From a rational perspective, however, the decision to use force is open to dispute. That jihadin self-defence is legitimate does not necessarily mean that it is necessary and appropriate.The decision to use force in a global jihad is essentially a strategic decision, justified by theconviction that that global change is a prerequisite for local change, and that non-violentmethods are unlikely to produce that change. This decision is one that has been made bynon-jihadist radicals in the past, not only by jihadists. Before Ayman al-Zawahiri, duringthe so-called ‘third wave’ of far-left terrorism of the 1970s, neo-Marxist radicals cameto the same conclusion, in which they were following some of the ‘first wave’ anarchistterrorists of the late nineteenth century (Rapoport 2004). Given the view that Arab leadersare American puppets, jihad against America and its allies makes sense. Given the viewthat the USSR collapsed as a result of its defeat in Afghanistan, and that the USSR wasdefeated by mujahidin, jihad against the remaining superpower makes even more sense.

The decision that the use of force should involve terrorist attacks on civilians (ratherthan merely attacks on military targets) is more controversial in religious terms, and some-what less controversial in rational terms. In religious terms, a distinction is made in mostinterpretations of the Sharia between combatants and non-combatants that is not very dif-ferent from the distinction made by the Geneva conventions. Terrorist attacks on civilianscan thus be justified in Islamic terms only by arguing that the civilians in question are not,in fact, non-combatants, an argument that can be made when the civilians in question canbe understood as part of an occupying force, but which is difficult to make otherwise –although the jihadists do, of course, make it.

In rational terms, however, the decision to use terrorist tactics is somewhat easier tomake. The theoretical logic of terrorism is complex, and is probably unknown to mostjihadists, but certain terrorist acts have been so effective that little theoretical knowledgeis required to appreciate their usefulness. On several occasions, for example, the policiesof Western governments have been very visibly impacted by terrorist violence. The classicexample is the Beirut barracks bombing of 1983, which led to the withdrawal of Americanforces from Lebanon. The more recent example is the Madrid bombing of 2004, whichled to a change of government in Spain and the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq.Beyond this, it is fairly easy for anyone to see, even without an in-depth study of thetechnical literature on terrorism, that 9/11 increased the numbers of Muslims fighting theWest. In fact, the consequences of 9/11 provided a perfect example of how two centralelements of terrorism, provocation and endorsement, are meant to work. 9/11 provokedthe US into actions that very significantly increased hostility to the US through most of theMuslim world, and also secured some endorsement of al-Qaeda as the leading opponent ofthe US.3

The decision that it is acceptable for Muslims as well as non-Muslims to be killed interrorist attacks requires only religious justification, since the distinction between Muslimsand non-Muslims is a religious one, not a ‘rational’ one. The jihadists’ key religious jus-tification for killing Muslims is that the Muslims to be killed are not, in fact, Muslims.In Islam, there are two basic ways of deciding who is and who is not Muslim. The first, towhich most Muslims subscribe, is to accept anyone who considers themselves Muslim asindeed Muslim. The second, to which a minority of Muslims but many jihadists subscribe,

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is that someone is only a Muslim if they actually behave like a Muslim. Classifying some-one as a non-Muslim on this basis is takfir, and the second way of deciding who is and isnot Muslim is thus also known as takfir.

In the case of takfir, the question arises of what constitutes behaving like a Muslim.One view, held by some jihadists, is that anyone who assists the enemies of Islam is nota Muslim. A pious Muslim traffic policeman (for example) may thus be considered asa non-Muslim and so a legitimate target because he is, as a policeman in the service ofan illegitimate ruler, assisting the enemies of Islam – even though in other ways he is amodel of Islamic piety, and his assistance to the ruler consists only of directing traffic. Thisextreme variety of takfir is the most controversial part of jihadist ideology.

The final decision that martyrdom is desirable might be made on rational grounds –non-Muslims have sacrificed themselves in battle too – but is primarily a religious deci-sion. Just as nearly all believing Muslims accept in principle that jihad in self-defence islegitimate, so do nearly all believing Muslims believe that the person who dies in jihadreceives the rewards of martyrdom. The question that arises here is whether a particularconflict is jihad or not, as a person who dies in a conflict that is not jihad does not receivethe rewards of martyrdom. But if a conflict is jihad, the religious desirability of martyrdomis not at issue.

Countering jihadist ideology

When the content of representative British counter-ideology as revealed by the 2011Prevent strategy is matched against jihadist ideology as analysed in terms of the ABCmodel, it becomes clear that three of the four areas of counter-ideology address the jihadistaccount of the existing order and the jihadist vision of a better world, both of which are farfrom exclusive to jihadists and are in fact quite widely shared. The fourth strand of counter-ideology, the theological, might in principle address any area of jihadist ideology. Only itmight address the jihadist means of achieving change, which is otherwise not addressedby counter-ideology. It is, of course, the means of change that is exclusive to jihadistsand is not widely accepted among Muslims, and so should logically be the main focus ofcounter-ideology.

Countering the account and the vision

In terms of the ABC model, defending Western security and foreign policies to show that‘far from being at war with Islam, the [British] Government was making great efforts toaddress deprivation, human rights issues and governance in Muslim-majority countries’addresses the jihadist account. As we have seen, jihadist ideology blames the West for theplight of the Muslim world; the counter-ideology message is that the West is doing its bestto ameliorate the plight of the Muslim world. This message can only be described as a ‘hardsell’. Firstly, it has been widely accepted among Muslims for around a century that the Westis responsible for the plight of the Muslim world. Secondly, any variety of contact between aWestern government and an authoritarian Arab regime fits the narrative of Western supportfor such regimes much more easily than its fits the narrative that Western counter-ideologyis seeking to promote. Thirdly, even if Western governments are occasionally addressingdeprivation, that does not mean that they are not also supporting authoritarianism. Finally,the foreign policy stories that ‘stick’ are those dealing with dead children, not those dealingwith aid programmes.

Similarly, the counter-ideology focus of relocating the fault line between extremists andmoderates rather than between Muslims and non-Muslims primarily addresses the jihadist

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account. If the Muslims are not suffering because of non-Muslims, then the whole jihadistideological structure falls apart. This message, however, is also a hard sell. The idea ofthe global community of Muslims, the umma, is very well established indeed, and impliesthe complementary category of non-Muslim. Muslims are of course all sorts of things aswell as Muslims – women, Palestinian, Swedish, football fans – but the category ‘Muslim’remains an important one, and the fault line between Muslim and non-Muslim can hardlybe eliminated.

Counter-ideology advocating democracy, the rule of law, equality, and freedom, in con-trast, addresses the jihadist vision. As we saw above, the jihadist vision is ultimately oneof the fair and just society, a vision that is shared not only with most Muslims but alsowith most Westerners. The difference between the message of jihadist ideology and thecounter-ideology message, then, comes down to whether the fair and just society should beassociated with Islam and the Sharia, with democracy and freedom, or with both of these.This message that the fair and just society should be associated with democracy and therule of law is not an especially hard sell. It does not, however, mean that the fair and justsociety should not also, and perhaps primarily, be associated with Islam and the Sharia.It also suffers from the problem that, as Payne (2009, p. 121) has pointed out, the col-lection of values associated with democracy in this message ‘manifestly clashes with thevalues held by some Muslims’. An alternative vision of a better world that includes sexualliberation, most notably, is more likely to reinforce jihadist ideology than undermine it.

Gregg (2010, pp. 307–308) disagrees, arguing that ‘challenging the vision for a betterworld promised by revolutionary Islam is the best means for fighting the ideology’, andadvocating support for ‘a marketplace of ideas’ to this end. Her logic is that Islamism willbe no more able to deliver the utopia that it promises than Communism was able to deliverits vision, and that – by implication – the Western system, which to some extent doesdeliver on its promises, is thus destined to triumph over Islamism, just as it did over com-munism. This may be true, but it is a very long-term argument. It took several generationsbefore the USSR’s failure to deliver became sufficiently obvious for Communist ideologyto be generally discredited, and for the system that it legitimised to be delegitimised as aconsequence of this. And that system had to become established in much of Eurasia beforethis could happen.

Although it is still too early to see whether this will be the case, there is a possibilitythat Gregg may be proved right by the aftermath of the Arab revolts of 2011. At the timeof writing, only some transitions look likely to prove successful in the short term, but if theevents of 2011 lead to pluralistic democracy in even one country and to the benefits thatthis system brings, an alternative vision of a better world will have been established andwill have the potential to undermine the jihadist vision.

Three of the four standard counter-ideology focus areas, then, address the account andthe vision, and are unlikely to prove very effective. They may be convincing to Westerngovernments and publics, which do not believe that they are responsible for the plight ofthe Muslim world, do not make a primary distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims,and are convinced that democracy and freedom produce fair and just societies. This doesnot mean, however, that they are likely to be effective in response to jihadist positions thatdiffer little from views that are widespread in the Muslim world, and so also among thoseMuslims in the West who share the perspectives of their friends and relations in the Muslimworld.

Fortunately, however, there is no need for counter-ideology to address these aspects ofjihadist ideology, since they do not, on their own, produce terrorism. As has been said, theyare widespread in the Muslim world, and terrorism is not. They are also the staple ideology

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of the numerous Islamist political parties that are found throughout the Muslim world,and operate smoothly and generally unproblematically within democratic political systems(Kurzman and Naqvi 2010). The jihadist account and the jihadist vision are important partsof jihadist ideology, but they are not the problematic parts of that ideology.

What can and does produce terrorism is the jihadist judgement on means of change, andthe only part of the counter-ideology revealed in the Prevent strategy that might addressthis most important part of jihadist ideology is the remaining main counter-ideology focus,unspecified indirect theological interventions. These might also attempt to address thejihadist account and vision, but are unlikely to have much impact if they do. Theologicalarguments, however, may have power when it comes to the jihadist decision on means.

Countering the means

As we have seen, each of the four decisions that underlie the larger decision that the globaljihad is the best means of attempting to move from the jihadist account to the jihadistvision may be considered from both a religious and a rational perspective. Those that aremost sensitive to theological arguments are the decision that it is appropriate to use force interrorist attacks on civilians and, especially, the decision that it is acceptable for Muslimsas well as non-Muslims to be killed. Those that are most sensitive to rational argumentsare the decision that it is appropriate in general for force to be used, and the decision to useforce in the form of a global jihad including attacks on civilians.

These were the points emphasised by the Information Operations Task Force (IOTF),a US military unit that operated in Iraq in 2005–2006. Its activities are best known froman article by Glen M. Segall (2009), and since Segall himself worked with the IOTF, thereis a possibility that his article reflects a more positive view of its effectiveness than anindependent assessment would. However, the IOTF seems to have avoided the problemscommon to most other counter-ideology initiatives, perhaps because of its use of focusgroups to test and refine its messages, and perhaps because it was so close to its targetaudience.

Unlike the British Prevent strategy and other similar counter-radicalisation policies, theIOTF did not focus on the jihadist account or on the jihadist vision. It made no attempt toexplain or defend Western policies or values. Instead, IOTF messages focused on jihadistmeans. In an average of 20 TV documentaries a month and many hours of radio program-ming in 2005–2006, IOTF messages emphasised atrocities committed against Iraqis byjihadists, emphasised the least palatable elements of jihadist means, always referring notto ‘al-Qaeda’ but to ‘the takfiris’. Takfir is rejected with distaste by the vast majority ofMuslims, and Gregg (2010, p. 305) points to the extremely negative consequences for sup-port for al-Qaeda of the attacks in Amman in 2005 that killed almost 60 Muslims, as wellas the alienating effects of the killing of Sunni Muslims in Iraq. This, then, is the weakestpoint in jihadist ideology, and the point on which counter-ideology can most productivelyfocus.

The IOTF also emphasised that the jihadists were losing – that their strategy was notworking. This is an approach that could usefully be taken by counter-ideology outsideIraq, since it is almost inevitable that the global jihad will ultimately fail in its objectives.All past attempts at global revolution have failed, after all. The anarchists failed, and thefar-left terrorists of the 1970s failed. When the global balance of power has shifted, asit did away from old systems such as the Austro-Hungarian empire after the First WorldWar or from Europe to America after the Second World War, major local and regionalconsequences have indeed followed around the world, but such global shifts have happened

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because of the rise of new powers and the collapse of old ones, not because of the activitiesof revolutionaries. In reality, the USSR collapsed for many reasons, not only because ofAfghanistan, and the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan was not only the result of theactivities of the mujahidin.

Arguing against the jihadist strategy also has religious consequences. While partici-pation in defensive jihad is required of all, it is not required to fight if defeat is certain.Islamic doctrine on jihad here coincides with strategic common sense. If it can be demon-strated that the jihad will certainly fail, then, this counterargument has both religious andrational force. As Omar Ashour (2007) has shown, strategic calculation was ultimately themain reason why one major jihadist group, the Egyptian Islamic Group (EIG), made thedecision to abandon the jihad.

Finally, the IOTF tried to undermine one further argument in favour of jihadist means‘death, rather than being glamorous, was shown to be stifling and suffocating – “an excru-ciating missed opportunity” ’. Counter-ideology aiming at this is especially importantbecause, as Gregg (2010, p. 305) has pointed out, there are those for whom ‘jihad is theends, not the means’.

Some elements of the IOTF’s message were applicable only in Iraq, for example, thosestressing the alien nature of foreign jihadists and a plan to subjugate Iraq. Nationalisticelements like this can only be used within a national context, not globally. Others elements,however, are more generally useful, notably those given above. The IOTF, then, provides anexcellent example of how to direct counter-ideology against the jihadist means, an examplewhich could usefully be followed by counter-radicalisation programmes.

Conclusion

Counter-ideology, if oriented against the jihadist decision on means as was done by theIOTF in Iraq, can perform a useful role in counter-radicalisation, and can do this with-out raising significant issues of principle. Counter-ideology oriented against the jihadistaccount of the existing order or the jihadist vision of a better world, however, seems tobe the norm, is unlikely to have any significant impact, raises certain issues of principle,and – most important of all – is unnecessary. It is unlikely to have any significant impactbecause the counter-ideology arguments are hard to make and because the relevant partsof jihadist ideology are closely aligned with what many millions of Muslims think, and arelikely to carry on thinking. It is unnecessary because these parts of jihadist ideology donot in themselves give rise to terrorism, and are indeed compatible with democratic poli-tics. These conclusions are supported at an empirical level by the experience of the IOTF,and are supported at a theoretical level by the analyses developed in this article. As wasnoted above, empirical data on the effectiveness of counter-ideology initiatives are gener-ally lacking, since the evaluation of all forms of counter-radicalisation has focused muchmore on output than on outcomes.

The most effective non-religious argument to make against the jihadist decision onmeans is the strategically based argument that the jihad will fail in achieving its aims. Thisargument is hard, but not impossible, to make – both on the basis that in general terrorismhas only achieved its ultimate objectives under circumstances very different from thoseconfronting jihadists, and on the basis that alternative means might work better. Religiouslybased arguments are unlikely to prove effective save as an extension of this strategicallybased argument or when made in terms of the doctrine of takfir. This is not only open toreligiously based arguments, but is also generally unpopular. Similarly, it could usefully be

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stressed that individual jihadists are not heroic but rather stupid, incompetent, inadequate,and ridiculous.

As was stated at the beginning of this article, ideology is central to terrorism. Since itis rare in the extreme for a terrorist group to outlive the ideological movement from whichit emerged, the end of jihadist ideology might be expected to mean the end of jihadist ter-rorism. Historically, however, the eradication of terrorism has not required the eradicationof all elements of the relevant ideology. History is full of ideologies such as anarchism thatgave rise to terrorist movements that were defeated or collapsed, even though the ideologyitself survived for some time after. The central problem is the terrorism, not the ideology,and not all elements in an ideology are equally important in leading to the use of violence.

Just as there are limitations to the importance of ideology, so there are limitations tothe importance not only of counter-ideology but even of counter-radicalisation. In the past,when radical ideologies have faded, this has not been because of counter-radicalisation, butbecause circumstances changed to remove whatever originally made the ideology attrac-tive. This is what happened with Communism, and what might conceivably happen withjihadism in the aftermath of the events of 2011.

Notes1. When this happens, what was originally a terrorist group may have become a violent criminal

enterprise.2. The 85% and the 76% were calculated by adding together those who thought that Islam had a

big impact on politics and that this was good, and those who thought that Islam did not have abig impact on politics and this was bad.

3. Al-Qaeda was in fact much less successful at endorsement than at provocation.

Notes on contributorMark Sedgwick is professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.He previously taught for many years at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He is the authorof a number of books on Islam and articles on radicalization and terrorism, including ‘The Conceptof Radicalization as a Source of Confusion’ (Terrorism and Political Violence, 2010) and ‘Al-Qaedaand the Nature of Religious Terrorism’ (Terrorism and Political Violence, 2004).

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