Melbourne teen-turned-suicide bomber Jake Bilardi’s blog did not long survive its author, immediately suppressed and deleted when he atomised himself in Syria. Quadrant Online preserved a copy, however, as both an illustration and indictment of where the left’s anti-West agit-prop can lead
Make no mistake, the much vaunted and extremely expensive ‘deradicalization’ of suspected jihadist converts and sympathisers will fail miserably. This can be guaranteed unless it is complemented by a systematic challenge to the anti-Western ideology that dominates the universities, the education system, much of the media (especially the ABC), and the Internet. It is this radical narrative of Western treachery and wickedness that engulfs the minds of young would-be jihadists and provides the ideological rationale for their self-destructive embrace of terrorism.
Consciously of not, jihadists and their supporters and sympathizers all parrot a modified version of the Marxist-Leninist narrative of Western imperialism, exploitation, oppression, racism, war crimes, murder, rape, and atrocity that was the centrepiece of communist bloc agit-prop campaigns throughout the Cold War and had a particular impact on the Middle-East. As Barry Rubin,editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs observes: