How Islamic State Recruits Women to Its Cause: New Age Islam’s Selection from Indian Press, 17 September 2015
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
17 September 2015
• How Islamic State Recruits Women To Its Cause
By Rudroneel Ghosh
• UN Must Revamp Itself If It Wishes To Remain Relevant
By Sreeram Chaulia
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How Islamic State Recruits Women to Its Cause
By Rudroneel Ghosh
September 16, 2015
The case of Afsha Jabeen, an alleged Islamic State (IS) recruiter, who was recently deported by UAE and subsequently arrested after landing in Hyderabad highlights the role of women in the terrorist organiser. Jabeen has been accused of using social media to indoctrinate Muslim youth and motivate them to join IS. She is not alone in this task. There is ample evidence that many Muslim women from across the world are either working for IS or have shifted to IS-held territory.
This could surprise many people given IS’s puritanical version of Islam and treatment of women captured in battle. It has been verified that IS has established a vast trade in sex slaves whereby non-Muslim girls and women are auctioned off among its jihadi fighters. Add to this the fact that many Muslim women have actually travelled to war zones to provide sexual comfort to IS fighters as part of sexual jihad. The North African nation of Tunisia, in particular, has been grappling with this problem with many women returning pregnant from their tryst with IS.
And like Jabeen IS has other female agents who use social media in a sophisticated way to disseminate the group’s propaganda. One such agent has used her social media account to describe the so-called delights of being a Jihadi bride in IS territory. Another used her online platform to suggest that IS gives Muslim women the opportunity to become entrepreneurs.
The big question is – what motivates these women to join IS? It is my understanding that IS actually has a certain attraction for women coming from conservative Muslim backgrounds. This is especially true for such Muslim women settled in Western countries. The reason being conservative Muslim women in westernised societies face a double whammy. On the one hand, their conservative background prevents them from enjoying the same privileges as men in their families. On the other hand, they are treated as eyesores in a liberal atmosphere where their conservative dressing, sense of modesty and aversion to social practices such as drinking are judged by others.
In many cases Muslim men in western societies lead double lives – they adopt a western lifestyle outside but try to remain pious at home. However, Muslim women simply don’t have that luxury. And it’s such conservative women that IS targets. In fact, IS has clear guidelines about how women can contribute towards strengthening its Islamic Caliphate and further the cause of jihad. This gives conservative Muslim women a sense of purpose without having to give up their deeply religious identity. They actually see themselves as working for a higher cause that is doubly sanctioned by their faith.
How does one counter this? The only solution is to truly empower Muslim women. Make them feel that they can become productive members of society. Ensure their education and fight for their right to work. True, much of the resistance to Muslim women exercising their free will comes from their conservative families. This resistance needs to be fought through innovative ways.
For example, in the North African nation of Morocco a programme to train female religious preachers, who in turn counter radicalism by promoting moderate Islamic values, has been in place for some time now. Such a programme also strengthens the position of women in Islamic societies and enhances perception of gender equality within the context of Islam itself. Such an approach sends out a clear message that you can be religious, treat yourself equal to men (as every woman should) and become a productive member of society without the Muslim community judging you.
One thing is for sure, to prevent Muslim women from joining Jihadi groups such as IS society needs to empower them educationally, politically and socially.
blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/talkingturkey/afsha-jabeen-case-how-islamic-state-recruits-women-to-its-cause/
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UN must revamp itself if it wishes to remain relevant
By Sreeram Chaulia
Sep 17, 2015
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Its survival as the apex international body across three eras - the Cold War period, the post-Cold War age, and the current 'post-post-Cold War' epoch - is a testament to the unique blend of power and morality which underpinned the UN's creation.
Unlike the League of Nations, the UN has successfully retained membership of the nations that mattered in might and capabilities. The design of the UN Security Council in 1945 enshrined higher status for the most powerful countries of that time so that none of them stayed outside the fold and became a systemic threat. Whatever foul play the big powers would commit was thus constrained by virtue of their presence within the UN's confines.
Dismissing the UN as a handmaiden of major powers is an oversimplification. The General Assembly has been a democratic arena where poor and aggressed countries found a voice and a platform to espouse their causes. Once Asia and Africa decolonised by the 1960s, their blocs and coalitions in the UN such as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the G-77 kept naked power games under some check.
Over time, the UN has expanded its core mandate beyond maintaining international peace and justice with a litany of additional purposes like promoting economic development, human rights and environmental protection, all of which mitigate international power hierarchies.
The UN has been a useful tool as well as a stymieing hurdle to the haves. It has been in parts frustrating and uplifting for the have-nots. At 70 though, it is not enough to simply celebrate the UN's continuous existence as an overarching supplier of global public goods. Is this institution, hailed by Columbia University's Jeffrey Sachs as "the most important political innovation of the twentieth century", fit for the challenges of the 21st century?
The answer is a resounding 'No' unless there are reforms in the UN's structure and modalities. The UN Security Council (UNSC) has been redesigned slightly only once, in 1965, and its much-sought overhaul has been stuck in a political and bureaucratic maze with several false starts and setbacks.
The latest development in the UN General Assembly, where a negotiating text has been adopted as the basis for UNSC reforms, is a welcome move that will boost chances of deserving candidates like India finally entering the elite precincts as a permanent member.
However, myriad other lacunae haunt the UN and cry out for urgent attention. A civil society movement labelled '1 for 7 billion' is demanding less opaque and more bottom-up election methods for picking the next UN secretary general.
A campaign for a directly elected 'UN Parliament' through worldwide voting is trying to redress the State-centric bias of the UN. Critics also want a rollback of over-bureaucratisation and desensitisation of UN employees and peacekeepers, who are rarely accountable to victims of their malfeasances.
Keeping its dialectic of power and morality intact, the UN has to undertake revamping and external attitude alternation. The agency for transforming it lies not just with responsible rising powers but also in the hands of the more conscious and engaged people of the world in whose name the UN was founded.
Sreeram Chaulia is professor and dean, Jindal School of International Affairs.
Source: hindustantimes.com/analysis/the-un-must-revamp-itself-if-it-wishes-to-remain-relevant/article1-1390860.aspx
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/how-islamic-state-recruits-women/d/104608