RUTHFULLY YOURS

For over a decade, Europe’s struggle to successfully integrate its Muslim population has been evident. But throughout the years a new and distinctly European phenomenon arose, which is as significant as it is underreported: Gangster Islam. It entails the conflation of the seemingly a-religious street culture of youths from a Muslim background on the one hand, and elements of the Islamic religion on the other.

The German publication Der Spiegel once very briefly touched on the matter, a Danish documentary highlighted Islamic extremists recruiting gang members from a Muslim background, and a Dutch terrorism expert pointed out how Syrian returnees were more likely to live a life of crime in order to finance the jihad, than to actually commit a terror attack.

One would think that after having spent millions of euros on interreligious dialogues, cultural sensitivity trainings and moral diversity classes, Europe’s social scientists would have punctured the surface by now. But a fundamental discussion on how and why street culture and religion conflate, and what the implications of this new hybrid culture are, seems thus far to have been shied away from.

The analyses that have been made conclude gang members and jihadist mostly resemble one another in their tendency towards and fascination for violence. However, the resemblances between seemingly a-religious street youths from a Muslim background and Islamists, are actually more numerous and more fundamental. Their main parallels are:

1- Both harbour subversive intentions toward their European host societies

2- Both primarily identify themselves as Muslim

3- Both are vocal in their hatred for Jews

4- Both glorify violence

In the exploration of these parallels, “street youth from a Muslim background” will henceforth be referred to simply as “youths“.

– Subversive intentions –

Islamists have a historic and highly detailed system of beliefs dictating not to integrate into host societies, and when possible to subvert that social fabric by missionary work (Dawah) and/or violence.

Youths, on the other hand, seem to feel a more diffuse, a-historic and a-religious aversion toward their societies. It’s mostly a combination of conducting themselves in a manner that makes them very hard to live with (committing robberies, public intimidation and drug trafficking), being angry at their non-Muslim environment for thinking they’re hard to live with, and acting out frustrations over their alleged “exclusion and disenfranchisement” by being even more insufferable.

This manifests itself as a crime wave that undermines the general sense of security and social cohesion to the point where people are terrorised out of their neighbourhoods, or preemptively leave by choice.

This is a form of subversion without a clear ideological underpinning, but like their Islamist counterparts, it’s subversion nonetheless.

 – Both primary identify as Muslim –

Robberies, public intimidation, drug trafficking, and soft drug and alcohol usage might not appear to be all that pious. But their sense of identity and outward presentation has a distinctly religious character, as is the case with the majority of the overall European Muslim population.

A study by PEW points out that:

“Religion is central to the identity of European Muslims. With the exception of Muslims in France, they tend to identify themselves primarily as Muslim rather than as British, Spanish, or German. In France, Muslims are split almost evenly on this question. The level of Muslim identification in Britain, Spain, and Germany is similar to that in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Jordan, and even higher than levels in Egypt, Turkey, and Indonesia.”

Youths view themselves as a part of the worldwide Islamic nation (Ummah), and no matter how subversive their actions get, they would never speak of Islam with disdain, or openly obstruct the ‘Islamic cause’.

They have the utmost contempt for authority, but if they were to accept any authority at all, it’s very likely one that’s religious in nature. This is why the city of The Hague actively allows a Salafist mosque to patrol the streets to keep youths at bay.

That Islamists also primarily identify themselves as Muslim, needs little explanation.

– Just listen to their rap videos –

It is thus no coincidence some of these youths’ cultural expressions such as rap videos are laced with Islamic themes, terms and symbols. Take the Dutch-Moroccan rapper Ismo for example. In his debut video (which garnered more than 6,8 million views on YouTube in a country of only 17 million people), he can be heard bragging about his earthly success as a hustler, as well as rapping highly religious lines:

“I believe nothing blindly except the Quran.” “The devil calls but I won’t give him a chance.” “I hate the Jews even more than the Nazis” and “I won’t shake hands with faggots“.

(Milo must feel devastated).

A similar dynamic can be seen in French, British and German rap videos.

– Both hate Jews –

Multiple studies by the professor of sociology Mark Elchardus showed that more than half of all Muslim students in Brussels, Gent and Antwerp harbour antisemitic views; a percentage that’s probably even higher among youths with sociopathic tendencies. And it’s not exactly as if they’re trying to hide it either. Examples of youths saying things like “whenever I see them [Jews] I want to stab them“, performing Nazi salutes at Jews, or plainly saying that they hate Jews, are numerous.

That a similar antisemitism is also practiced daily by Islamists, is sadly self-evident.

– Both glorify violence –

A shared tendency towards and admiration for violence is so obvious even Europe’s social scientists picked it up. But, as was described, this is actually the least fundamental resemblance. Youths glorify gang related violence. Islamists glorify religious violence. However, it is also very common for youths to rejoice in religious violence. They can, for example, be seen praising Osama Bin Laden – “He hates Jews, we hate Jews” – or the Al-Qaeda operators that massacred the Charlie Hebdo staff.

– Conclusion –

What seems to stand out is that Islamists only very rarely address or condemn the subversive behaviour of their not so pious Muslim peers. One might wonder why. After all, they put the Muslim population as a whole in a bad light.

But actually, it seems to makes sense.

While Islamists subvert their societies in a religiously inspired manner, Muslim street youths do so in a more earthly fashion. The latter is highly advantageous to Islamists because, in the end, it is the subversion of non-Muslim societies by people who primarily identify themselves as Muslim.

European lawmakers and pundits think Europe’s problem with Islam, is solely that of Islamism. But in fact, the problem is more pervasive and widespread. Unless they start to acknowledge how the Gangster Islam dynamic is eroding European social fabrics, their policies will lag behind reality for decades to come.