WHEN JIHAD'S COME MARCHING 'HOME'
The self-described Islamic state/Daesh is on the retreat,
though far from finished the tide is turning and they will, eventually, be
defeated.* As they taste defeat and the
army of foreign volunteers begin to experience the corrosion of morale and
spirit in the face of the squalid reality of daily slaughter and the constant
presence of violent death, thoughts will turn to desertion, escape back to a
world of clean clothes and bed linen, were the bombs and shells no longer fall.
Extricating oneself from Daesh is not however an easy
process and requests to leave are met with the threat of execution.
Though reports of numbers vary it seems have made good on this threat,
executing up to 200
individuals. Even if this ‘obstacle’ can be overcome there is still the
little matter of finding ones way back home. If they achieve this on arrival
back in the UK they then, at least theoretically, face arrest and charge with
terrorist related offences. I say theoretically since it seems that 'Fewer than one in five' returning British jihadis have thus far
been charged.
The rest it seems are destined to live among us, they once
again become ‘our’ problem. So what is to be done with them?[1]
Since the civil conflict in Northern Ireland British troops
have been engaged in serious combat on a number of occasions, most recently in
Iraq and Afghanistan. The death toll and physical damage done to the bodies of
young men is clear, what remains hidden is the psychological damage.
All professional soldiers know that war is the very negation
of civilised life, it is barbarism made manifest, dirty degrading and to be
avoided if possible. Violent combat changes all who engage in it. It can
heighten the sense of being alive, of love and solidarity for your comrades and
is capable of producing amazing adrenaline rushes that can produce acts of
extraordinary courage. It can also coarsen and brutalize, leading to lack of
compassion and empathy. At its worst it can produce sadism of the darkest kind.[2]
And of course it can traumatize.
Whilst all soldiers are changed by combat the degree to
which an individual is affected varies enormously, influenced by factors such
as the severity of combat, the psychological stability of the individual, and
the cohesion of fighting units and support of comrades. A major factor however
is the severity and duration of combat, the longer a soldier is under sustained
fire, facing a constant existential threat, seeing comrades killed, the greater
the risk of trauma.
All the same factors are at play when terrorist Jihadis are
in combat. However several additional factors come into play. Terrorist groups
like IS do not have the same levels of unit cohesion, command and control and duty
of care to fighters. The cult of martyrdom and suicide death distorts natural
instincts of self-preservation and creates an environment in which life is
cheap. Finally the pervasive culture of brutality and atrocity will have
psychological implications for all who participate either actively or
passively. As even Heinrich Himmler recognised, tender soul that he was, daily
exposure and participation in mass executions takes its toll. We can say with
certainty that the slaughter of Christians,
Yazidi’s and Shia, the regular
beheadings and casual murder of prisoners and other daily acts of barbarity
will have psychological consequences all IS combatants.
Which brings us back to the returning IS fighters. The
fighting force that most closely resembles IS are the Waffen SS. The analogy
is, as are all analogies, imperfect, however the parallels are close in two key
areas, IS Jihadi’s are fanatically ideologically committed, and the use of
extreme violence, terror of the most barbaric kind, is intrinsic to this ideology.[3]
At the heart of this violence there is an unwavering hatred of the non-Muslim
other, the Kuffars, the apostates, the Christians and of course Jews. In the
world the IS Jihadi those who refused to convert or accept the role of 3rd
class citizen must be slaughtered. As on recent ISIS Jihadi posted "kill
all the non-Muslims wherever they are. Even their pregnant women and their
babies"
Aside from a relatively small group who went to Syria in the
early period of the civil war, to fight against Assad, all those young British
men and women knew the kind of outfit they were joining and all are complicit,
either actively or passively in war crimes and crimes against humanity. These
then are the individuals who will be re-entering our society as neighbors and
members of the local community.
In the 1990’s the UK began to receive a steady flow of
refugees from the Western Balkans in general and Bosnia in particular, as the
full horror of that hideous term ‘ethnic cleansing’ was revealed. At the time I
was working as the senior counsellor at the Drug and Alcohol Foundation. The
Foundation had developed a strong reputation for dealing with clients who had
experienced trauma, particularly childhood sexual abuse. Consequently we began
to receive a small number of referrals from refugee agencies of traumatized
clients who had turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism. Amongst some of the
more difficult cases I began seeing two young men whose role in the
dismemberment of the Yugoslav state had been more active, indeed they had
participated, albeit peripherally, in war crimes.
The role of the counsellor is akin to that of the priest,
particularly when it comes to confidentiality. The only deciding factors as to
whether to break the protective integument of the counselling room is current
risk to the safety of the client or the safety of others, particularly children
in the care of the client. In neither case did these exceptions apply, though
both clients did exhibit some risk factors associated with suicide.
In dealing with such cases you are presented with very
similar features as when working with sex offenders, with whom I have also worked.
The client protects himself from facing up to his responsibility with denial,
justification and minimization. Finally there is what social psychologists call
situationism: “the idea that people’s behavior is determined largely by what’s
happening around them. This is the
theory that if you put anyone in certain situations, they’re more likely to
behave badly, even barbarically. [4]
Progress is made by
slowly breaking down these barriers to enable the client to fully come to terms
with their actions and the consequences of taking responsibility for their
actions, so that they may fully experience the normal human reactions of guilt
and remorse.
Work of this kind is hard and demanding. It requires that
you assist the clients to explore motivations and actions that may appal you,
at the same time not allowing your judgements to impair the therapeutic
process.[5] As I say the work I did was with individual’s
peripheral to horrific events. Neither took part in actual murder and in one
case had been subjected to heavy coercion. How I might have managed the cases
had it been otherwise I can but speculate. I do know that working with sex
offenders, and their victims combined with working with those complicit in war
crimes and their victims was taking its toll and led to my taking a sabbatical
in summer 2002.
This post was inspired by a Twitter exchange I had recently
respecting a young man who, having returned from fighting with ISIS, was
experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, [PTSD] and his mother was
demanding that he receive
treatment.
Now such treatment requires an expertise that is in short
supply, there is a waiting list for talking therapies and mental health services
within the NHS are under acute strain. As I have tried to illustrate above the work is difficult, progress slow.This young man chose to go and fight
with a terrorist group responsible for multiple atrocities now he wanted the rest
of us to invest heavily in his recovery from the self inflicted trauma he experienced.
Anyone who does not feel outrage at this when thinking of
the atrocities, mass rapes and enslavement, beheadings, stoning’s, throwing men
of high buildings, that the organisation he fought for carried out, is surely
somewhat morally deficient.
Yet this young man will
not be the last and untreated will be a risk to himself, too bad perhaps, or
much worse a risk to others. So we had better decide on what to do. Here is my
formula.
Before all else a War Crimes Commission [WCC] needs to be established and
all violations of international law investigated and anyone found guilty of
rape and enslavement, the killing of prisoners, ethnic and religious cleansing,
beheadings, stoning’s and the countless other atrocities carried out by ISIS
and related groups should be prosecuted. The commission could be funded from
the seizure of assets from terrorist organisations and drug smugglers. A tribunal along Nuremberg lines, either using
existing international courts in The Hague or a newly established body would be
established. All returnees would be subject to vetting both by the security
services and WCC to investigate complicity in specific crimes. No British citizen complicit in such crimes should escape justice.
Then we will require a sophisticated de-radicalization and rehabilitation programme established specifically
to facilitate those wishing to return to ‘normal’ life. Expertise on PTSD and
working with violent offenders will need to be built into the programme. This
will need to be government funded. This will be difficult to swallow, the alternative of potentially violent and disturbed individuals loose in our communities however is even more unacceptable.
[1]
The subject of this piece is not those who return intending to do us harm, this
is indeed a serious problem that is going to require considerable activity from
the security services. No, I am interested in what happens to those who, whatever their previous ideological stance, wish to return to ‘normal life’ in this country.
[2]
This is different from the attractions of war/jihad for psychopathic
individuals like so called ‘Jihadi John.’ Such disturbed individuals will
always exist, war will naturally attract them as it did in the Former
Yugoslavia and is almost certainly doing in Eastern Ukraine at present.
[3]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/08/isis-islamic-state-ideology-sharia-syria-iraq-jordan-pilot
[4]
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking-one-of-psychologys-most-infamous-experiments/384913/“They’re
not psychopaths, and they’re not hostile, and they’re not aggressive or
deranged. They’re just people, like you and me,” Miller said. “If you put us in
certain situations, we’re more likely to be racist or sexist, or we may lie, or
we may cheat. There are studies that show this, thousands and thousands of
studies that document the many unsavoury aspects of most people.”
[5]
The Person centred notion of being non-judgemental has always struck me as not
only impossible but absurd. Indeed show me a counsellor/therapist who
disconnects from moral judgements and I will show you a therapist who is less
than useless.
