French jihadists: the “inner enemy”, brain-washed teenagers or fighters for democracy in Syria?

My interest in French jihadists started from a short story about two young guys (picture above) of French origin (22 and 30 years old) from Toulouse who had converted into Islam and left their families - without telling anyone - to go to fight in Syria in the ranks of jihadists. They both died in the attacks. The reporter also said that it was not a first time when young French people (not even from immigrant families) became jihadists and went to Syria to fight against Bashar al-Assad. Moreover, just recently Francois Holland admitted that since the war started, about 700 French (including jihadists’ families) went to Syria and about 250 newly-converted French Muslims took an active part in military operations of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and other radical Islamic groups.  

There was nothing super shocking about that story: I mean, in a lot of European countries, there live radicals and extremists. What struck me was the fact that among jihadists who went to Syria there were teenagers or very young people from pureblooded-French families without any family connections to Islam or Middle East. Why would a teenager from a middle-class French family leave his well-to-do European country to go to die in Syria (whose language he doesn’t even speak)? And how would the government deal with this ambiguous situation where its citizens fight again the “dictator” that the French government wants to see overthrown but are supposed to be considered as terrorists when come back to France? So I started a research.

First of all, this problem with a growing interest in radical Islam and jihadism is urgent not only for France. According to different resources, the “French brigade” is a part of the “International Battalion” that is based in the north of Syria, in Azaz, not far from the Turkish border. This battalion also includes other nationalities such as the Belgians, the British, the Germans, etc., but the main part of it are the French. This battalion is known for being one of the cruelest unit of the Free Syrian Army: they cut off the heads of the “infidels” and expose them at the public squares, they make fun of the corpses and make videos of their “fun” (those videos can be easily found in the Internet), etc. As Guillaume Lhotellier notices, Syria became an “amusement park” for young, newly-converted French jihadists who go there to “play war”. Another interesting fact about these international “volunteers” is that most of them don’t know neither Arabic, nor geography or history of the Syrian war and therefore feel marginalized at their arriving to Syria. Moreover, there are proofs that Syrians themselves (even those who fight in the Free Syrian Army) don’t really like these “strangers”.

Let’s come back to the beginning: what makes these young people become jihadists and go die for a freedom of the completely foreign for them country? Most of them are very young (from 15 to 30) and they come from middle/low-class families. They pretty often have problems at school or in their families so they start looking for some other principles and rules to base their life on. For example, Nicolas’s parents (one of the guys from the TV-news story) said he had issues with drugs and police but after converting to Islam all that stopped almost overnight. They become fierce Muslims and jihadists neither after sermons of radical imams in the mosques nor because of the Muslim friends or members of the family. The main resource of the information for these young people is the Internet, social networks such as YouTube (where they can find incredibly convincing and bright promotion videos from Syrian and French jihadists who recruit new people for the “International Battalion”), Facebook and Cheikh Google. Thus, it becomes useless to work with imams in mosques or city communities in order to prevent this “recruitment” and “brain-washing”.

Another important question is what are the aims of those “new” jihadists with French passports? They don’t claim that they fight “against the oppression and dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad” (as the European Union names the objective of the Free Syrian Army's actions). More often they say that war in Syria is the unique opportunity to build the “State of Islam” on the Earth, at the territory that was originated to be the homeland of Islam. Theoretically, they go on a mission of French government to take down Bashar al-Assad government that prevents the development of democracy in Syria. Practically, it’s doubtful that they are going to bring the democracy… On the other side, jihadists sometimes come back to their own country. And that’s how France gets people like Mohamed Mera in Toulouse, people who can’t stop fighting for the sake of the “State of Islam”. Why not to try to build it in France where the government works at the American commands? Why not to try to punish Israel and spoiled West?

Talking more globally, is it true that Islam is getting more and more popular in Europe or it’s just another “canard” that the media created to avoid talking about economic and social problems? There are different opinions. On one hand, there is a stable 9-10% of Muslims (which is not that much) in France and most of them are immigrants from African or Middle Eastern countries. Though, this statistics is from 2011 so probably there is a need for new researches in this field. On the other hand, in any well-to-do society there will be a demand for more strict rules and principles, in the world of huge freedoms (political, social and especially moral) there will be a lot of people feeling lost without seeing certain, solid limits, having certain directions how to behave and what to do. You can smoke, you can drink, you can even take drugs, you can have sex whenever you want, you can actually steal and lie (if you are smart enough to hide it), etc. You have everything and you don't know what exactly you want, you get bored and feel lost. It’s especially urgent topic for young people with embodied personalities who seek for guidelines. Of all big wordl religions, Islam is one of the best ones in giving these strict, solid directions, limits and borders. You don’t just stop smoking and drinking for nothing, you do it because you ARE FORBIDDEN to do it and you get a high score for a good behavior (the only difference with school is that you get it from someone YOU CHOSE YOURSELF). And you are proud of yourself, plus you have principiles you can base you life on.

There is also another side of the question – a deliberate stigmatization of Islam in Europe. The more this religion and culture will be stigmatizes, the more romantic and attractive it will become. A religion of the rebels, of the revolutionists. Everyone says that Islam is bad, and I’ll become Muslim just as a pure protest against the whole world. Typical teenage psychological position – "against the whole world". Thanks to the modern tendency in American and European cinema and literature, we know very well that superheroes fight against the whole world which is evil and spoiled. And here we already start having Muslim Kamala Khan from Marvel and Disney and Burka Avenger from Geo Tez. Why are they worse than Spiderman or Batman? The same idea, the same concept. That’s what these French young jihadists do in Syria: they fight against the “infidel”, spoiled world for the principles of the new, pure, “true” world… Who can judge them for that?