ABSTRACT

The conversion of American self-radicalizing terrorists appears a thought- provoking test case for analyzing how ‘emotional’ or at least non-rational factors come into play in the movement from radical thought to radical action. This chapter employs Clarke McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko’s pathways to radicalization, along with the concept of ‘jihadi cool/chic’ to study how American self-radicalizing terrorists, such as Colleen LaRose (‘America’s First Female Self-Radicalizing Terrorist’), the Tsarnaev Brothers (‘the Boston Marathon Bombers’), and Omar Mateen (‘the Orlando Night Club Killer’) self- radicalized. Briefly summarized, McCauley and Moskalenko in Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us, sketched twelve diverse pathways to radicalization into terrorist activity, echoing contemporary academic findings that there is no single monolithic pathway towards radicalization. Of particular significance to this chapter are a number of pathways, which could lead to violent radical action, characterized as ‘emotional’ or at least, ‘non-rational’, because they are responses neither to ideology nor to political exigencies. Instead, these pathways are responses to combinations of sometimes subtle social factors such as group dynamics, boundary hardening, and even love. Additionally, the chapter also analyzes the romantic appeal of ‘jihadi cool/chic’ whose rhetorical power lies in its ability to tap into the fantasies of the young, which are also gendered in a conservative manner: for young men, for example, the glory of being a warrior and the thrill of adventures on the battlefield, and the promise of unyielding brotherhood are compelling or young women, on the other hand, the romance of being married to a mujahid (and bearing his children), of faithful sisterhood and camaraderie in an ideal state, a Muslim Utopia, appear to be irresistible. Another aspect of jihadi cool’s/chic’s power lies in its mastery of Hollywood-style shots and editing, using cutting edge ‘GoPro cameras’ and drones for dramatic aerial shots, alternating with shots from other cameras capturing different angles, resulting in slick, high resolution productions that could be an hour-long or edited down, much like ‘teasers’ or commercials for full length cinematic films. Thus jihadi cool/chic’s allure lies less in an appeal to reason than to emotions and non-rational factors. Ultimately, the chapter also shows that the rhetoric of ‘jihadi cool’ or ‘jihadi chic’ – a principally emotional or at least non-rational form of persuasion – is a reactive miming of Monstrous discourse. ‘Monster talk’, etymologically traced, is a form of public preachment that warns against (monere) or points to (monstrare) that which stands beyond the gates of the city state, which the ‘Good Citizen’, the monster’s counterpart, guards. The rhetoric of ‘jihadi cool/chic’ is strategically targeted towards disenfranchised young men and women, who seek to create a name for themselves, and who are drawn to the romantic construction of the ‘badass’ and of being countercultural. The chapter concludes that in the case of Colleen LaRose, it was probably mechanism four: love, or the search for it, and in a gender-bending way, mechanism five: risk and status, which were the crucial factors. Comparatively, in the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, it was probably mechanism one: personal grievance, conflated with mechanism two: group grievance, as well as mechanism five: risk and status, which were the prime moving elements. Similarly, in the case of Jahar Tsarnaev, it was probably mechanism five: risk and status, along with mechanism six: unfreezing, which were of crucial import. In Mateen’s case, probably factors one (1), personal grievance, and six (6), risk and status, were crucial to his movement from radical thought into radical action. In all four cases, the chapter also tracks the powerful emotional and imaginative appeal of ‘jihadi cool/chic’.