Countering terrorism on the internet
Mon 12 May 2008
Bev Murfin, Journalism
The internet is a renowned breeding ground for terrorism, but it also has potential to counter terrorism by fostering understanding among disparate religious and ethnic groups.
As a global communication system, the internet was recognised as a resource for terrorist activities such as recruitment, training, fundraising, and instigating fear.
The SITE Intelligence Group monitored terrorist and extremist websites.
SITE director Rita Katz and senior analyst Josh Devon told Forbes Magazine the internet helped fragmented networks merge to form global terrorist groups that went beyond national and physical boundaries.
In the UK, homegrown terrorism was a major concern for security authorities since London’s 2005 transit system attacks.
Police and security services monitored Islamic extremists, and in 2006 the Telegraph reported surveillance of terrorist activity included internet communication between groups, often young Muslim men at college or university.
The article also reported that attempts were being made to improve community cohesion through a series of meetings between government ministers and Muslim leaders of immigrant religious and ethnic groups.
These community groups developed a diaspora consciousness based on their shared ethnic origin, culture, historical tradition or language.
In World Wide Webs: Diasporas and the International System, Lowy Institute for International Policy researcher Michael Fullilove said the growth in diaspora consciousness raised security issues.
“While diasporas can be a medium for transmission of social risk, they can also mitigate risk by supporting young people who might otherwise fall prey to more dangerous forms of identity politics, such as Jihadist Islamism,” Dr Fullilove said.
“One reason they were susceptible to the fundamentalist siren song is that they lacked their parents’ connection to the culture of their homeland – that is, they were insufficiently diasporic.”
Dr Fullilove said radical Imams rejected traditional homeland culture to fight a worldwide jihad against individuals, organisations or countries they regarded as hostile to Islamic fundamentalism.
“It is not diasporas that turn disaffected young Muslims in the West into tools of destruction; to some extent at least, it is their resistance to diasporas,” Dr Fulliove said.
“Diaspora consciousness may actually reduce the alienation felt by Muslims living in Western countries.”
In the UK the internet was being used to counter terrorism by undermining Muslim extremist propaganda.
TechNewsWorld reporter Katherine Noyes said a grassroots program that rejected violence as a legitimate way of practicing Islam was "the Radical Middle Way" (RMW).
“Partially funded by the government, the RMW maintains a website featuring presentations by scholars of religion on the tenets of Islam,” Ms Noyes said.
The RMW About Us website stated that “the RMW project is a Muslim grassroots initiative aimed at articulating a mainstream understanding of Islam that is dynamic, pro-active and relevant, particularly to young British Muslims".
The site also said the project was based on a rejection of all forms of terrorism, and a commitment to the emergence of a distinct British Muslim identity that encouraged the active involvement of British Muslims in social, public and economic life of Britain.
In February 2008, BBC reporter Kurt Barling reported on the results of a Gallup poll that challenged the idea that Muslims were torn between Islam and Britain.
Mr Barling, quoting Abdul Malik who set-up the RMW, said the project was a way to show young Muslims that there was a wide spectrum of views in Islam.
“Given the range of ethnicities and countries of origin of many migrant Muslim communities this should come as no surprise,” Mr Barling wrote.
Muslim identity in Australia
Institute for Social Research Swinburne University researcher Liza Hopkins said a study of mainstream Australian media over last five years showed that Australia’s rich heritage of ethnic diversity was being suppressed by pigeonholing disparate religious and ethnic groups as "Muslim-Australians".
“These portrayals conflate ‘Muslim’ identity with terrorism, violence, extremism, political instability, denigration of women and general backwardness,” Dr Hopkins said.
“There is increasingly the sense that Muslims are somehow un-Australian and that Islam itself is seen as threat to the Australian way of life.”
Parliament of Australia Parliamentary Library Social Policy Section researcher Janet Phillips said there was a great deal of misunderstanding about Muslim communities in Australia.
“Muslim Australians are not a homogenous group as some media reports might lead us to believe, but make up a small, culturally diverse section of Australian society,” Ms Phillips said.
“The vast majority of Muslim Australians see no conflict of loyalty between Islam and Australian citizenship.”
In 2005 the Howard Government, in consultation with Muslim Community Reference Group (MCRG), developed A National Action Plan to Build on Social Cohesion, Harmony and Security (NAP).
“The NAP seeks to address the underlying causes of terrorism, including the social and economic factors that encourage radicalisation and motivate extremist behaviour, as a contribution to a comprehensive approach to counter-terrorism," the plan said.
In an interview with Stephen Crittenden on ABC Radio National in March 2008, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs Laurie Ferguson said the MCRG had undertaken a number of significant projects before it “went into hibernation”.
Mr Ferguson also said the Federal Government was actively considering whether and how to re-establish a similar reference group.
In a submission to the 2020 Summit Nadiyah Amira al-Sayed Atiya said Muslims in Australia were shunned because Australians in general did not understand Muslims as an immigrant community or Islam as a faith.
“We need the wider community to understand and value us as human beings; not label us all as terrorists because we are Muslim,” Ms al-Sayed Atiya said.
Only time would tell if this suggestion was taken up, and whether the internet would play a part in fostering ethnic and religious understanding and countering terrorism in Australia.
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