TAleb al-Abdulmohsen, the alleged perpetrator of the horror attack on the Christmas market in MagdeburgThis is not the case, observed German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, “fits any existing mold“. He had acted “in an incredibly cruel and brutal manner, like an Islamist terrorist, even though he was clearly ideologically hostile to Islam.”
Faeser isn’t the only one wondering how to understand Abdulmohsen.
Born in Saudi Arabia, Abdulmohsen came Germany in 2006 for psychiatric training before seeking asylum. Describing himself as “the most aggressive critic of Islam in history”, he castigated German immigration policy for not being sufficiently wary of Muslim asylum seekers, becoming a defender of the AfD d extreme right. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “open borders policy” was, he said, an attempt to “Islamize Europe.”
How could someone so hostile to Islam commit a murderous act so reminiscent of Islamist terror? For many on the right, especially those accustomed to regurgitating anti-Muslim intolerance, the answer was simple: regardless of the evidence, Abdulmohsen is an Islamist. Many accused him of practicing “taqiyya“, or deception, and the authorities to be “in denial”. Others considered his opinions irrelevant. Being a foreignerand from a predominantly Muslim country, was enough to condemn him as a mortal threat.
Perhaps the best way to begin to make sense of the seemingly inexplicable horror of the attack and the all-too-predictable responses is to compare two developments: the changing character of terrorism and the rise of “anti-politics” – the feeling that everyone in power is lying, corrupt and hostile to the needs of ordinary people. And a good starting point for understanding this intersection is found in the work of French sociologist Olivier Roy.
A leading thinker of contemporary radical Islam, Roy has long been critical conventional theories about youth Western Muslims are becoming radicalized. Abdulmohsen was not a jihadist, whatever the conspiracy theorists say; nevertheless, understanding Western jihadism can help shed light on its actions.
Understanding radical Islaminsists Roy, we do not need a “vertical” but “transversal” apprehension of the question; it must be considered not only in terms of Islamic history or theology, but also in comparison with other forms of contemporary identity movements and political radicalization.
What initially motivates most aspiring jihadists is rarely politics or religion, but the search for something less tangible: identity, meaning, belonging. There is nothing new about the youthful quest for identity and meaning. What is different is that we live in more atomized societies today and in times when many feel particularly disconnected from dominant social institutions.
In the past, social disaffection might have led people to join movements for political change. Today, most of these organizations have disintegrated or appear disconnected. What gives shape to contemporary disaffection are identity politics, which invite individuals to define themselves in increasingly narrow ethnic or cultural terms. A generation ago, “radicalized” Muslims might have had a more secular vision, their radicalism expressing itself through political campaign. Today, many people express their disaffection through an intensely, often murderous, tribal vision of Islam. The key question, Roy suggests, is less about “the radicalization of Islam” and more about “the Islamization of radicalism“.
In the process, an already degenerate ideology degenerated further, with jihadism often transmuting in Europe into “an expansion of inner-city gangs» and leading to the emergence over the last decade of “low-tech” terrorismin which everyday objects such as knives and cars are manipulated with murderous intent. The line between ideological violence and sociopathic rage has been virtually erased.
This brings us to the second significant development: the rise of “anti-politics.”
In his influential 1989 essay, The end of the storyFrancis Fukuyama suggested that the West’s victory in the Cold War brought an end to the ideological struggle. “Idealism,” he wrote, “will be replaced by economic calculation” and the “endless resolution of technical problems.”
Politics in the post-Cold War world has indeed become less about competing ideologies and more about how best to manage the existing political order. It was the era of neoliberalism, underpinned by a consensus that there was no alternative to liberal democracy, the market economy and globalization.
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What Fukuyama underestimated, however, was the importance of politics and collective ideals. “Economic calculation” and the “endless resolution of technical problems” have not and cannot replace the “ideological struggle”. He also overestimated the authorities’ ability to solve technical problems or improve the lives of their citizens.
The financial collapse of 2008 led to a resurgence of political protests and populist challenges to established authority. From Tunisia to Chile, from Brazil to Hong Kong, there have been some, suggests Vincent Bevins in If we burnits history of the 2010s, more people involved in protests around the world than ever before. And yet, little seemed to change. Anger without change has led to a growing sense that politics itself is the problem.
We may never know Abdulmohsen’s motivations, or his state of mind when he unleashed his carnage, but somewhere along his political journey he seems to have transposed his hatred of Islam into a hatred of Germany for its lack of hostility to Islam. His feeling of being ignored by political authorities may have led him into an act of nihilistic violence which, like much similar violence, may be inexplicable in rational terms but is an expression of an anti-political and rooted in the idea of protest as a spectacle, an often terrible, murderous spectacle. “Is there a way to achieve justice in Germany without…indiscriminately massacring German citizens?” he asked in a recent striking message social media post. He “was looking for this peaceful path” but “did not find it.”
The insistence that Abdulmohsen must be an Islamist and that “mass immigration is killing Europe» also emerges from the politics of anti-politics. It is not just Muslims who are socially disengaged and whose disaffection is shaped by a narrow sense of identity. Many people within white working-class communities are also disengaged and angry, and often view their issues through an identity lens, paving the way for far-right advocates to shape anger in bigoted ways. This summer’s riots in England showed how quickly disaffection can twist and turn against Muslims and migrants.
Budding jihadism, racist populism, and individual acts of nihilistic terror may seem like disconnected phenomena, but all are, in very different ways, expressions of disgruntled rage while trapped in the cage of identity in an age of anti-politics.
Kenan Malik is a columnist at the Observer
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