The theater of the absurd seems to have found a place to perform in the current atmosphere created by the threat of Islamic terrorism in both Europe and the United States.
Belgium, which has seen its deeply-rooted radical Islamic nature exposed by the attacks in Paris and Brussels, thinks it has the answer to the phenomenon of Islamic radicalization. The Muslim Executive of Belgium placed an ad seeking counselors to deradicalize inmates. The advertisement lists the following qualifications, looking for candidates with “sufficient religious knowledge” and a “resistance to stress.”
In essence, Belgium outsourced hiring for this experimental state-run deradicalization program to the country’s religious leaders.
It’s a bad idea that cannot work, and is especially untenable if Americans tried to follow suit.
Can you imagine if, after any terrorist attack or plot in the United States, instead of responding with force against the terrorist organizations that perpetrated those heinous acts, we simply placed an advertisement in the help wanted section of a newspaper announcing the job opening for someone who could “cure the problem”?
We’d call it what it is, naive foolishness.
Yet 15 years after 9/11, we find that some have actually taken that approach to the threat of Islamic radicalization and the acts of terrorism it produces.
In European city after city – Brussels, Copenhagen, Paris, Toulouse – we have seen innocent civilians – men, women, and children – maimed or killed by people who were radicalized. Now we know that many of the terrorists were radicalized while serving time in prison for petty offenses. It was in the cauldron of the penitentiary that they were exposed to radical Islamic terrorists as well as to literature and clergy that facilitated their transition from crook to jihadist.
The United States is not immune to this disease. In Chattanooga, Garland, Texas, New York City, Philadelphia, San Bernardino and elsewhere individuals who had become radicalized committed attacks and murder in the name of Allah.
Authorities know that the journey to Islamic radicalization may take many paths including social media, videos, literature, or a charismatic facilitator. But the end result is always the same. It produces people who are willing to kill anyone, including themselves, while thinking they are pleasing God. False promises of virgins and paradise spur them on.