site banner

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 29, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'd expect most of the organic ones being in Arabic, and if there's something in English it's probably run by some Iranian IRGC officer.

Isn't Britain a big source of jihadis? There must be some English literature.

British jihadis are Sunni. Hezbollah is Shia. They hate each other more than they hate the west, but not as much as they hate Israel.

I'd assume the ones in Britain are predominantly relatively recent arrivals, so they still communicate in their native tongues.

You're mistaken, many jihadis are native born citizens.

I couldn't find any official stats, but here's a laundry list: https://www.aei.org/articles/what-to-do-about-second-generation-terrorists/

There's also native born women who join isis as jihadist's wives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethnal_Green_trio

The second part are solitary cases, which do exist, but if we're talking about wide communities, these are probably not typical. Nutcases like that can be found around pretty much every anti-civilization cause, from ecoterrorism to jihad. But I don't think they are the core of Hezbollah's support.

The typical situation is that immigrants come to the west because they want to be (on the margin) in a more western society. Obviously they don't fully assimilate, but they make some effort. Their kids face an identity crisis and become even more doctrinaire than their parents as a means of constructing a personality. Then they go off to Syria.