In covering stories of women recruited through social media, news outlets often fetishise female terrorists and contribute to stereotypes of radicalised women as femme fatals or individuals who have struggled to integrate into Western culture. Research increasingly suggests they are educated and highly politicised women who seek power and a sense of agency over their lives.

What role does the media play in influencing the decisions female extremists make and how can journalists better cover the issue?

Chaired by Flora Bagenal senior reporter for the Women and Girls Hub by News Deeply.

Speakers:

Nikita Malik is a Senior Researcher at Quilliam, where she heads research on women, children, and families against radicalisation. Nikita has presented findings to EU and UK Parliament, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the Department of State (DoS), and the EU Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN). She also heads Fempower”, a pioneering outreach program on gender extremism, providing training workshops to women in local communities, schools, and universities on the issues of honour based violence, forced marriage, FGM, and domestic abuse.

Fatima Zaman is currently delivering Prevent, part of the UK government’s counter terrorism strategy. She coordinates multi-agency efforts to prevent individuals from being drawn into
terrorism. She previously led ministerial policy work relating to counter terrorism. She is also a
global CVE Advocate at the Kofi Annan Foundation, working to counter extremism through peer-to-peer engagement.

Charlie Winter is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation. He studies terrorism, insurgency and innovation, with a focus on online and offline strategic communication. He is pursuing a PhD in War Studies at King’s College London, examining the outreach efforts of the Islamic State in a comparative historical context. Winter regularly consults for governments and often appears in international broadcast and print media. He is an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism.

Edit Schlaffer is a social scientist, writer, activist and holds a PhD from the University of Vienna. In 2002 she founded Women without Borders, an international research-based NGO, encouraging women to take the lead in their personal and public lives. Her research and activities focus on women as agents of change and as driving forces to stabilize an insecure world.

Presented in partnership with News Deeply.

Belgian journalist Rudi Vranckx joined an audience at the Frontline Club on Monday 1 February 2016 to discuss his documentary My Jihad, in which he explores how a small Belgian community is confronting extremism.

Loving the q&a @frontlineclub with @RudiVranckx after the screening of #myjihad pic.twitter.com/5PuJfdspiv

— Albany (@albanyassociate) February 1, 2016

Following a screening of the powerful film, which reveals how a town in a country that saw 400 young people travel to Syria last year is tackling the problem, Vranckx admitted that Belgian society – and the rest of Europe – has a lot of work to do.

“This film was made before the attacks in Paris and I’m afraid the situation is getting worse,” Vranckx said. “Even today a popular paper had the headline that read: ‘Our people are tired of foreigners’.”

Vranckx went on to explain that it is currently the symptoms of the issue – rather than the root causes – that are being dealt with. In My Jihad he meets Imad, a local youth councillor who has responded to cases of radicalisation by engaging with young Muslims on the subject of extremism.

“The issue is fear,” said Vranckx. “Fear of losing identity, fear of being isolated by one’s religion. The basic fight is a fight within Islam.”

This divide manifests itself in the film through Vranckx’s interviews with the mothers of the young Belgians who have fled to Syria.

“I spoke to one woman whose son was declared dead several times after fleeing. The news was on the front page of two newspapers, but it was not him,” Vranckx said.

“In the end he was one of the Paris killers. Before returning to Europe to commit the attack he didn’t even say hello to his mother. He didn’t say anything before blowing himself up.”

Vranckx commented on his respect for Saliah, who featured significantly in the film, and spoke in depth about her son leaving for Syria unannounced and his subsequent death.

“Saliah is very brave to have spoken about it,” said Vranckx. “She opened the door to other mothers in a similar situation.”

What role could the #media play in addressing the #identity #politics that are impacting today’s #youth? – @frontlineclub #MyJihad Q&A

— Alexandra Simmons (@arlsimmons) February 1, 2016

When questioned by a member of the audience on why there were no fathers interviewed in the film, Vranckx responded that the women tended to be more open.

“I spoke to some men whose sons had gone to Syria, but in the end they decided against being interviewed on film. They were too ashamed.

“The women were more willing to speak about the issue. Plus, in many cases the fathers were absent from the household.”

He said he has “never come across a parent who justified the fighting.”

Another audience member questioned the relationship between the young people who leave Europe to fight in Syria and the local fighters in the country, to which Vranckx responded that they had little in common.

“The locals often view Muslims who travel from Europe in a negative light,” he said. “Many local fighters believe they are not helping.

“They do not speak the language; they do not know the country. They come with a ‘Visit Syria’ travel book in their pocket. They rarely connect with the local people.”

Despite receiving threats over My Jihad from both sides of the debate on Islamic extremism, Vranckx explained that it is crucial to broach the subject, describing it as a “blind spot.”

“I don’t make the programme for an elitist group who know their own views,” he said. “I want to reach ordinary people, the people at risk.”

In the last year alone over 400 young Belgians have traveled to Syria. In My Jihad, directed by Mark De Visscher, reporter Rudi Vranckx visits the region of Vilvoorde to investigate why young Belgians from the area are becoming radicalised, and how the Muslim community is working to combat this trend.

“Everyone in Vilvoorde knows someone who’s left” explains Moad, a young Belgian Muslim. In the last year a number of Moad’s schoolmates have left Belgium for Syria to take up arms for ISIS. What is driving these young men to turn their backs on their families and their friends to sacrifice everything? Moad believes that “it’s a shared responsibility… there is nowhere else here for young Muslims to go.”

The film also introduces Imad, a youth counsellor. Like many other Muslims in Vilvoord, Imad has responded to cases of radicalisation by engaging with the local Muslim youth through charity; offering them guidance and support to create a sense of belonging within the community. One of Imad’s pupils explains, “ISIS is an ideology. You cannot bombard an ideology… an ideology has to be fought intellectually.”

Encouraging residents of Vilvoorde to voice their own perspectives, director Mark De Visscher creates a moving and revealing portrait of a small community confronting extremism. My Jihad offers a fascinating and topical insight into a growing issue, providing a valuable perspective on the impacts of extremism for Muslim communities in Europe.

Directed by: Mark De Visscher
Runtime: 52′
Country: Belgium
Distributor: Journeyman Pictures

By Sara Elizabeth Williams

The West’s reaction to 9/11 was excessive and misguided, wrongly influenced by hubris, hysteria and ignorance. Ten years on, we are still mired in a mess largely of our own making.

Last night’s First Wednesday Special: Changing world – conflict, culture and terrorism in the 21st century, which was in association with BBC Arabic, looked at how the decade post-9/11 has reshaped our world. Chaired by presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, the discussion at the Royal Institution of Great Britain turned to the question of what we learned – and how could we have done things differently?

For all their differences of opinion, the five members of the panel – journalists Mehdi Hasan, Isabel Hilton and Michael Goldfarb, ex British diplomat and founder of Independent Diplomat Carne Ross, and co-Founder and executive director of Quilliam and Founder of Khudi, Maajid Nawaz were in agreement on the most critical point: the reaction to 9/11 was a wrong one.

The response to non-state terrorist action should no be a declaration of war against individual states, but action against the non-state organisations.

The state-directed violence employed has destabilised entire populations and brought about some of the very things it sought to eradicate. Homegrown radicalisation comes at a devastating cost, and it is one we are becoming all too familiar with in the Islamic world and in the US and Europe.

Nawaz, who was formerly on the UK national leadership for the global Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, reminded the audience that the process of radicalisation is the result of a political awakening, not a religious experience. For this reason, the right reaction would have been to support democratisation. But this wasn’t on the policy agenda:

“For decades we have been following a policy of sponsoring dictatorships and human rights abusers, and we ended up with a choice: support dictators or terrorists. But there was a third way: we could have supported civil society.”

While terrorism undermines the rule of law, Ross and Hasan pointed out that the West’s reaction did the same: we failed ourselves and the communities we sought to reach. The price of this mistake, according to Hilton, who is editor of chinadialogue.net.

“Now we have no moral standing to talk about human rights. In the course of the war on terror, we threw away everything that was worth defending. The damage we did to ourselves was greater than that which was done to us.”

Hilton also brought up the language of fear and safety – the American rhetoric over the last ten years. This, again, was the wrong invocation: ten years on, Americans still don’t feel safe. But is the mistake reversible? Hasan, who is senior political editor at the New Statesman, described a “fear industry grown our of control”.

Another cost is financial. Being at war has become normal for Americans. This affects policy: few politicians are willing to question Homeland Security spending. But for how long? Goldfarb, who is an author, journalist, broadcaster and GlobalPost’s London correspondent, answered:

“‘The war on terror’ is the worst phrase ever concocted. It’s a forever concept that can never end.”

The panel also looked at how the West’s misreaction to 9/11 may have paved the way for China’s global advance. Hilton, an expert on the subject, pointed out that China is seeking economic power by securing food, resources and access to water while letting other states get on with the international security agenda. In another ten years, we may consider this anniversary the beginning of a second turning point in the geopolitical landscape.  One of the evening’s most-tweeted comments was made by Hilton, who noted:

“Wars have very, very long tails… they don’t end when the whistle blows.”

For those at tonight’s event, it would seem that the end of these wars will be a long time coming, indeed.

The hashtag for this event was #fcbbca