





Islam, Religious Violence, "Brainwashing," and Countersubversion Chip Berlet print page Fri Mar 11, 2011 at 10:22:45 AM EST The hearing on Islamic radicalization staged by Rep. Peter King is an appalling example of the media being sucker-punched. Where in the recent news coverage were interviews with social scientists who actually study how religious ideology can intersect with violence and terrorism? Let's start with some basics. People do not become religious fundamentalists because they have been "brainwashed," coerced, or are mentally unstable. They become involved in social movement mobilization and recruitment built around themes of religious obligation. Most religious fundamentalists are not violent. There is no direct causal relationship linking religious fundamentalism and violence. When religious fundamentalists use violence or terrorism, the single most significant common factor is a sense of humiliation. As Jessica Stern, an actual expert on religion and terrrorism, explains: "...one of the primary tasks of a religious terrorist leader is to capitalize on some feeling of humiliation, often related to identity, that they find in potential members. It could be a personal feeling of humiliation, or it could be civilizational, national. They make their followers feel that the way to forge a new identity is by getting involved with this violent group." [More Here] There should be serious hearings on the potential for terrorism in our society and how to protect our nation without tossing the Bill of Rights into the shredder. Actual experts should give testimony. Experts like Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. There should be serious hearings on the potential for terrorism in our society and how to protect our nation without tossing the Bill of Rights into the shredder. Actual experts should give testimony. Experts like Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. Instead we have the Lieberman hearings where ideologically-biased testimony is presented at hearings led by a smart and cynical hypocrite who uses his stage for political gain. And we have the King hearings led by a witch-hunter so ignorant and bigoted that he probably would have lost a game of tic tac toe against Joe McCarthy. Over at the National Catholic Reporter is an excellent article on the link between the King and McCarthy hearings by Michael Sean Winters [More Here] The theoretical linkage is a concept called "countersubversion," which is a fancy name for a political or religious witch hunt. As readers at Talk to Action know, this is one of my pet areas of research. Historian David Brion Davis noted that movements to counter the "threat of conspiratorial subversion acquired new meaning in a nation born in revolution and based on the sovereignty of the people," and that in the US," crusades against subversion have never been the monopoly of a single social class or ideology, but have been readily appropriated by highly diverse groups." Frank Donner. a historian and civil libetiers attorney, perceived an institutionalized culture of countersubversion in the United States "marked by a distinct pathology: conspiracy theory, moralism, nativism, and suppressiveness." This countersubversion hysteria is linked to government attempts to disrupt and crush dissident social movements in the United States. Donner suggeted that conspiracists in the government and private sector periodically create a "countersubversive" apparatus as a response to dissent. The FBI's counterintelligence program of illegally spying on and disrupting dissidents from the 1950s to the 1970s, dubbed COINTELPRO, is an example of an operational conspiracy ironically based on a conspiracist worldview that suspected widespread subversion by leftists. Davis points out that: "genuine conspiracies have seldom been as dangerous or as powerful as have movements of countersubversion. The exposer of conspiracies necessarily adopts a victimized, self-righteous tone which masks his own meaner interests as well as his share of responsibility for a given conflict. Accusations of conspiracy conceal or justify one's own provocative acts and thus contribute to individual or national self-deception. Still worse, they lead to overreactions, particularly to degrees of suppressive violence which normally would not be tolerated." How long before the mainstream media repudiates this new witch hunt? How long before the mainstream media repudiates this new witch hunt?



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Islam, Religious Violence, "Brainwashing," and Countersubversion | 21 comments (21 topical, 0 hidden) comments (21 topical, 0 hidden)