Online vs. Offline Radicalisation
The use of the internet in radicalisation is indisputable, but the question is really how often does radicalisation take place online compared to ‘offline’ (interactions with people in the real world) radicalisation?
A study conducted in 2021 by Kenyon et al. looks at over 200 extremists convicted of terror offences in England and Wales and analyses the way each individual was radicalised. It’s important to note too that these individuals do not all belong to one type of extremist, but it looks at all types including right-wing extremism, Islamist extremist, animal rights etc.
The findings showed that between the years 2005 and 2017, radicalisation online has been on the rise, while ‘offline’ radicalisation has been declining. Of those convicted on extremism charges, 35% of the offenders arrested between the years 2005 and 2009 were radicalised online. Between the years 2010 and 2014, there was a rise in online radicalisation with 64% of offenders having been radicalised online, and a sharp increase again in 2015 to 2017, where 83% of those convicted on extremism offences were radicalised online.
While online radicalisation has been on the rise, ‘offline’ radicalisation has been declining over the same period. Between the years 2005 and 2009, 65% of offenders were radicalised offline, which saw a decline between the years 2010 and 2014, when 36% of offenders were radicalised offline, and a further decrease in 2015 to 2017 when only 17% of offenders were radicalised offline.
This reflects society’s increased use of the internet and extremist groups’ ability to radicalise individuals with greater ease.
I was having a chat with someone over dinner yesterday and we spoke about these statistics, and he asked me why it was that there was a decline in offline radicalisation. He said he understood that online radicalisation was on the rise – this is to be expected with the internet taking off the way it has done and the influence of social media in our lives, but wouldn’t that mean radicalisation as a whole is just on the rise, rather than one increase and the other decrease?
Fundamentally, I think the way individuals are radicalised is different in the digital age and the aims of the extremist groups are also different. Before the year 2000, when an individual was radicalised they usually joined a group, and they acted together. This is the same for all kinds of extremism, including (not limited to) animal rights, right-wing extremism, and Islamist extremism. There was a group element to radicalisation. If we focus just on Islamist extremism for now (because that’s what my PhD is on), individuals who joined a jihad would travel to the country where the jihad was, such as Afghanistan or Bosnia, because a jihad was usually in a country where a war was taking place. But the definition and understanding of jihad started to change for extremists sometime around the year 2000 and it no longer meant joining a fight or struggle but could be fighting against a perceived threat to Islam. This saw, for example, many terror attacks carried out by Saudi men on their own country in the early 2000s, which was to protest against the House of Saud and the westernisation and modernisation of the country.
There are three key terms to know for this bit: dar al-Islam (land of Islam), dar al-harb (land of war), and dar al-kufr (land of unbelief). Dar al-Islam is commonly accepted as being any Muslim country/land that is ruled by Shari’ah law, however, there is some disagreement on what qualifies as dar al-harb and dar al-kufr. The traditional understanding is that dar al-harb is any country where there is a war or jihad happening and is an actual and literal land of war, and dar al-kufr is any land that is not under Islamic rule and is the land of the ‘non-believers’. Islamist extremists in recent decades have been conflating dar al-harb and dar al-kufr, and promoting the narrative that military personnel from any country which partakes in a (perceived) war against Islam (whether they be fighting or stationed there) accept that their country is now a land of war too or dar al-harb. This was pushed in extremist magazines which made the case that the UK and US as well as many other countries were to be considered countries of/for war, because of their involvement in Iraq, their being stationed in Saudi Arabia, and many other reasons. They also argued that any land that is not under Islamic rule is one of war.
The pushing of such sentiments and promoting individuals to carry out attacks in their home countries meant introducing a new type of attack – lone wolf attacks. In the past we saw terror attacks carried out by groups who were affiliated with some higher group such as al Qaeda, but now people are encouraged to act alone from their homes. In the past we had intelligent and coordinated attacks such as 9/11 and 7/7, but now we see more rash and indiscriminate attacks where, for example, individuals use cars to drive into pedestrians.
In a 2010 issue of al Qaeda’s Inspire, they pushed for the use of vehicles in attacks because of the ease and accessibility, referring to the vehicles as ‘ultimate mowing machines’. The 2010s saw one attack after another where vehicles were used, peaking in the latter half of the decade.
Think of the film Four Lions (if you haven’t seen it, it’s a comedy about a group of four men who want to become ‘martyrs’ so they leave the UK to go and carry out jihadi training with the aim of returning to carry out an attack in the UK – it’s quite a serious theme but it is funny, I promise) we don’t have that anymore. Individuals or groups of individuals don’t leave their home countries to train in an al Qaeda camp and then return to attack (though they couldn’t return anyway). I’m not saying this doesn’t ever happen, it did happen for the devastating November 2015 Paris attacks where Salah Abdeslam and others had trained with IS and returned to carry out that attack. The general pattern however is that individuals act alone and from their home countries.
Groups such as IS remind Western countries often that the threat isn’t in some far away country with individuals planning how to attack – the threat is in your home country, walking your streets. With the use of the internet, extremist groups are able to reach a larger number of people and have great influence on people’s lives without having to meet them. The group and social element of radicalisation is no more because extremist groups have found a better way of reaching vulnerable people, which is quicker and more efficient.
The digital age of radicalisation is well and truly upon us.
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