ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shows why the concept of jihad, as he defines elsewhere, is ‘beyond Islam’, and becomes even more attractive than during the period immediately after 9/11and the ensuing conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq. The drones, the Hellfire missiles and the ‘collateral damage’, which often involves women and children, become the iconic symbols of such asymmetric values. Some respondents during years of research have expressed such passive resistance to maintain ‘traditions, culture, beliefs, practices, attitudes & behaviour’ as jihad. In a majority of cases, this jihad is psychological, performative and based on avoidance rather than violence. Indeed, if general strain theory explains how emotions and the feeling of injustice may help some descend into deviance, the question remains why some people do not take such a path despite being in a similar environment. J. Stone and J. Cooper have expanded and refined Festinger’s theory and developed the self standard model of cognitive dissonance.
