Effect of Religious Extremism on Society
Religious Extremism
Extremism in the name of religion has become the predominant model for political violence in the modern world. This is not to suggest that it is the only model because nationalism and ideology remain as potent catalysts for extremist behavior. However, religious extremism has become a central issue for the global community.
religious extremismIn the modern era, religious extremism has increased in its frequency, scale of violence, and global reach. At the same time, a relative decline has occurred in secular terrorism. The old ideologies of class conflict, anticolonial liberation, and secular nationalism have been challenged by a new and vigorous infusion of sectarian ideologies. Grassroots extremist support for religious violence has been most widespread among populations living in repressive societies that do not permit demands for reform or other expressions of dissent.
Religious extremism is a type of political violence motivated by an absolute belief that an otherworldly power has sanctioned, and commanded terrorist violence for the greater glory of the faith. Acts committed in the name of the faith will be forgiven by the otherworldly power and perhaps rewarded in an afterlife. In essence, one’s religious faith legitimizes violence as long as such violence is an expression of the will of one’s deity.
Kundnani (2012) has reconstructed the recent history of the concept and its role in the current debate. In brief, he claims that generally the source of extremism is traditionally seen in psychopathology and fundamentalism rather than in political reasons. To him, this pathway (reassuring but very misleading) has affected the security policies with heavy consequences both on the effectiveness of their efforts and on citizens’ private life. Effects on society as depicted by Merton’s theory.
1. The relationship between, extremism, and religion
After the 9/11 attacks, this framework was globally applied, and hatred in the name of Islamic religious fanaticism was the reason attributed to the terrorists. In this way, the search for the underpinning political causes was simply canceled because attributing some sort of reasonableness to terrorists seemed like an attempt to justify them (Neumann, 2008). Extremism became an evil ideology that did not require further analysis (Kundnani, 2012, 4).
According to Roy, (2004) books written by beginners claimed to explain Islam. “What is Islam?”, “What is Muslim?”, “What is the faith?”, “How to live Islam to objectively define what Islam is”. The knowledge produced by Ulamas no longer provided a point of reference and has become useless enough for believers; they do not offer the answers sought by the “new” believers. [These pamphlets] are not generally written by Islamist scholars, but by people who are completely secular and who reflect on Islam as self-taught (Roy, 2007). The so-called born-again Muslims phenomenon must be read within this framework characterized by taking distance from the moderate faith typical of the family of origin (ethnic Islam), by returning to integral Islam without the Ulamas mediation, and by a self-indoctrination via peer group, pamphlet or Web, in a sort of protestant nation of Islam (Solo, 2015, 16).
2. Policymaking
In the following years, a new debate to better guide the extremism effort was opened and emerged as a vehicle for policymakers to explore the process by which a terrorist was made and to provide an analytical grounding of preventative strategies. Consequently, the concept of radicalization was not used to understand the terrorism roots but just as a tool for counter-terrorism policymakers.
3. Homegrown extremism
The term became much more popular after the 2005 London bombings that changed the public perception of Islamic terrorism. The revelation that the perpetrators of the London bombing were British residents. It raised the specter of a new kind of threat, that of “homegrown extremism”, and the notion that residents of peaceful Western nations could become terrorists through exposure to radical ideas. (Bennet, 2019, 48; emphasis added), as if it was a sort of virus.
It became crucial to find the main indicators, the signs, and the markers of individual radicalization to construct an early warning system to prevent the phenomenon. Rather than providing governments with a causal analysis of homegrown terrorism. Think tanks and terrorism studies departments began to model the process by which an individual can become a supporter of extremist ideology (2012, 6).
4. Counter-terrorism policy
Counter-terrorism policy emerged as an independent field and dictated its needs to the research world. Then, studies on individual radicalization factors were heavily funded, influencing the conceptual framework used to make sense of the data. The result was that attacks did not happen because of political reasons, but for radical religious commandments (Laqueur, 2004). Following this pathway, scholars provided answers in terms of an individual cultural-psychological or/and theological disposition rather than political, making available lists of potentially dangerous attitudes as markers of risk.
In this way, it shaped the counter-terrorism policy that became not only a military action but also a global ideological campaign with heavy civil liberties consequences. In fact, since the mid-2000s, several northern European countries have developed counter-radicalization strategies involving security agencies but also Muslim communities, local authorities, health workers, teachers, and so on, to identify individuals vulnerable to radicalization based on indicators provided by scholars (Vidino and Brandon, 2012; Ranstorp, 2010; Mellis, 2007). The problem is that, as in a vicious circle, scientific prosecutors have often driven governments to implement surveillance strategies that disproportionately invaded the citizens’ private life.
Despite the differences, all research branches agree on one point: extremism is a process. It is not necessarily linear, can mix endogenous and exogenous factors, can lead to the use of violence,e and is potentially reversible. In the literature, the main factors are generally divided into the pull and push factors; structural or psychological factors; subjective or objective factors.
5. Political instability
The most cited push factor is the relative deprivation of a social group, from time to time defined as injustice, inequality, marginalization, grievance, social exclusion, frustration, victimization, stigmatization, and unemployment6. «In the case of global jihadist radicalization [relative deprivation] derives from the aggressive foreign policies of Western states in Muslim majority countries, and more in general from the perception of Western dominance in world politics. From a global perspective, the concept is specified keeping in the foreground different roots from those considered relevant in the European context, as we will see later.
The most cited pull factors are the consumption of extremist propaganda, peer pressure and identification with the group, material (mostly in literature focusing on Afr,ica), and emotional incentives like the desire for adventure and excitement for violence (Roy called it «Islamization of radicalism»; 2015). In particular, the consumption of extremist propaganda is examined per se but also in terms of culture, myths, beliefs, and views aimed to justify violence. This, together with a simplified version of Islam, is the main pull factor for the simple reason that, without it, no other personal or structural factors could have turned disadvantaged young Muslims into potential mujahidin.
6. Mental Health
The personal factors found by the review often deal with mental health (sometimes even using a medicalized approach; Paulussen et al., 2017): i.e., mental illness, psychological disorders, disturbance (especially referred to as lone wolves), personal traits, and cognitive structures (nihilism, narcissistic personality, low tolerance, impulsiveness, black-and-white type of thinking). Other factors take into account demographic characteristics such as being young and male, and previous experiences such as criminal behavior, substance abuse, military experience, and jail detention (Vergani et al., 2018, 11). Of course, some biographical features as identity weakness, dysfunctional families, low schooling, and so on, are included as well.
7. Economic deprivation
Religious extremism has its deep roots in economic deprivation. The immigrants to western countries reach their host countries in the pursuit of a better life that they are deprived of in their home country.
8. Immigrant’s Socio-economic Indicators
At this aim, some socio-economic indicators on migrants’ life conditions will be examined knowing that in our country they draw on average a landscape of poverty and deprivation, linguistic and cultural as well. These (worrying) data are well known, so it is not necessary to show them. Rather, they represent a necessary starting point to face another issue: to compare natives’ and migrants’ socioeconomic indicators to bring out any relative deprivation relationships due to immigrants’ spatial and temporal marginalization (Tunis, 2014).
9. Attitudes and expectations of different migrant generations
Returning to Merton’s theory and summarizing the previous observations, we can state that although most migrants share the typical goals of Western societies in which they live permanently (especially consumption habits), they generally don’t possess the means necessary to achieve them. Their goals are placed in the present (and perhaps achievable in the future) but their means are located in the past and consequently they are inadequate and/or insufficient to get aims. Understandably enough, this produces marginalization and frustration, especially for second-generation migrants who differ greatly from their predecessors, particularly in terms of expectations.
The first-generation migrants generally comply with the marginal social role assigned by the hosting hegemonic culture because of their linguistic, economic, legal, and cultural weaknesses. They will know the reasons that brought them far from home and they don’t want to put their project at risk. All these factors drive their compliant attitudes and low expectations.
The second and third generation shows a more composite profile. They generally are young people born or grew up in the host countries, have advanced linguistic skills, attend school, wear fashionable clothes, have native friends, and so on. Most of them are completely culturally assimilated, especially into the consumer society, and have adopted the Western society’s value system, including expectations (Ambrosini, 2009a; Queirolo Palmas, 2006; Wihtol de Wenden, 2004).
Hirschman’s theory deals with expectations. we accept inequality, and that is the point, just because we believe that sooner or later but if the other lane keeps moving and we are still stopped, we will begin to get impatient and maybe want to change lanes. So, the more we perceive that there is something wrong, the more we rebel
Second and third-generation migrants do not intend to stay neatly lined up as their parents did. This should not be surprising because, to quote Merton, those who perennially suffer defeat may, understandably enough, work for a change in the rules of the game (Merton, 1949, 188). In this regard, Hirschman (1970) conceived a typology of individual reactions toward a perceived malfunctioning system: exit, voice, and loyalty.
The first is the most secularized: religious norms are observed only for rites of passage (circumcision, marriage, funeral) or important festivities. The second type, liberal Muslims, conceives Islam as a simple private source of values and meanings; consequently, they do not want strong and visible links with their religious community. The last type (re-Islamization) is the expression of orthodox Islam tendencies and involves completely the believers in a communitarian dimension. It is based on an identity rediscovery and a re-appropriation of a purer Islam thanks to a direct relationship with the sacred books.
Moreover, at that time, was already clear that young Muslim’s living conditions in the European context were able to shape their religious affiliation modes. Pacini stated that «recent [around 2008] studies show that the more difficult is integration, the more widespread are neo-traditionalist or radical orthodox. The lack of professional, economic, and social integration pushes young people of immigrant origin to re-Islamization, seen as a possibility to affirm their identity against exclusion and marginalization» (2008).
Using Merton’s words, radicalized European Muslims are generally individuals who tried to achieve goals proposed by their Western host society but soon realized that there were no adequate means for them to do it. They compared their life chances with those of their native peers and concluded that they are victims of injustice and marginalization. This unleashed their dissatisfaction and protest, but also a sense of growing otherness and reporting to the surrounding environment. IS offers them a life project and a redemption opportunity. Someone steps forward, rejecting Western values (so-called Westoxication) and replacing them with others. Radical religious beliefs seem very capable of filling the personal void and giving meaning to existence.
Although phenomenologically there are different radicalization degrees, all radicalized believers refuse to identify themselves with the host society’s values and institutions. Some of them decide to bring jihad to Europe and attack their home country now considered the most dangerous enemy. This has placed the phenomenon on the international agenda as one of the most pressing transnational security issues of our time (Reed et al., 2015).
10. Hatred against the democratic system
The last is self-evident. It should be just added that excessive loyalty is dysfunctional for democratic systems that, on the contrary, need dissent to function at their best. The system is perceived as an enemy and the individual reaction is to leave it. It can simply mean becoming apathetic and disinterested (retreatism; Merton, 1949), but also planning a real escape. The latter is an extremely expensive and hardly applicable option. This was the case of East Germans who fled during the Cold War years or, to come to our days, of migrants fleeing to Western countries, but also of foreign fighters who leave their countries to join the jihad.
Voice is political action par excellence (1970, 16). Voice is here defined as any attempt at all to change, rather than to escape from, an objectionable state of affairs, whether through individual or collective petition to the management directly in charge, through appeal to a higher authority to force a change, or through various types of actions and protests, including those that are meant to mobilize public opinion. Therefore, voice is a “messy concept that can fluctuate from a weak grumbling to a violent protest. In its peaceful version, it can imply highlighting a dysfunction, articulating an interest, exercising the so-called protest vote, and publicly demonstrating some ideas, but it can grow to become a violent rebellion.
A crucial aspect of Hirschman’s thought is the function of dissent within democratic systems. The democratic vitality is safeguarded by providing adequate channels for expressing protest. In this way, according to the author, democratic systems will be able to maintain internal cohesion; differently, they will shatter. It is the same for Appadurai (2004), especially when he claims that hegemonic political systems are obliged to create the conditions for marginal and/or minority groups to develop their own «capacity to aspire». That is, to develop a cultural ability to organize political action to pursue realistically achievable aims. According to Appadurai, economic and cultural means are not equally distributed, as well as the availability of «navigational maps» (namely, the capacity to turn needs into actions). In fact, «navigational capacity» is more widespread among affluent groups that possess more power, material resources, and dignity.
Political systems are required to guarantee the necessary conditions because the social classes with less navigational capacity (materially and symbolically deprived) can grow their capacity to aspire and «democracy must now measure its success not only against tyranny but also against misery» (Appadurai, 2007, 34). Otherwise, sooner or later the temporal and socio-economic distance built by the blind exercise of hegemonic power could generate rebellion, as happened in 2005 in France when French citizens of migrant origin heavily protested for their inclusion and against their social, economic, and urban marginalization in the banlieues (Revel, 2006; 2008; Wievorka, 2005; 2007).
11. Identity crisis
The first school of thought, “French sociology,” centers primarily on identity formation and the effect of modernity and globalization on identity formation /reformation and the radicalization process. “Modernity” here implies secularism and the values and norms inherent to secular states. Thus, when studies talk about the inability of Muslims to handle modernity, they mainly refer to a potential clash between worldviews predicated on differing value systems.
12. Effect on globalization
Globalization, through the spread of global media, social networking tools, and technology, ensures an almost uninterrupted flow of information that raises cultural and religious awareness of a diaspora by connecting them to events back home.
The first view in this school suggests that extremism partially results from the inability of Muslims to handle modernity and globalization, particularly within the religious realm, in Western environments. Given the strict separation of church and state in Western democracies.
Muslims are conscious of the fact that public displays of religiosity go against mainstream views that perceive religion to be a primarily private affair. The subsequent feeling of exclusion from mainstream society, which is at times strengthened by actual discrimination, leads certain individuals to fall back even further on religion as a means of reaffirming what they perceive to be a ‘threatened self-identity.
The second view builds on the first and suggests that second and third-generation Muslims face difficulties in balancing their religious and national identities. On the one hand, unlike their first-generation predecessors who follow traditional folk Islam, second and third-generation immigrants are found to have a more “intellectual” approach toward Islam.
This approach is premised on an individual preference to adopt certain cultural and religious elements and is undoubtedly the influence of secular attitudes towards religious identity and expression as experienced in Western societies. On the one hand, the individualization of religious identity creation is stressful as Muslim youth are nevertheless subjected to their parents’ views at home, which brings into conflict their own, “secularized” religious identities and those of their families; all the while stressing a disconnect between the two and further alienating individuals from their families. On the other, society exerts its pressures on the identity formation process.
Here, a combination of socioeconomic, and structural factors such as unemployment, and a low social standing relative to the societal average, may ferment feelings of disaffection towards the host country, making it difficult for the individual to fully identify as a national. The result is a ‘double sense of nonbelonging’ that triggers a search for identity.
There are two recurrent themes on the topic of identity search. The first understands the search for identity as a response to a personal crisis, of which a double sense of non-belonging could be one. The second is a result of feelings of guilt, compassion, or empathy triggered by media portrayals of the suffering of co-religionists and/or fellow country of descent compatriots (i.e., the effects of globalization).
Various actors often further portray this suffering as the intended outcome of foreign policies of the immigrant’s host countries as a means to suppress Muslims and defeat Islam. A search for meaning ensues whereby the individual attempts to reconcile national and religious identity attributes in answering the question, “Who am I?” in an individual test of loyalty. This view is often used to suggest why seemingly well-integrated, non-religious individuals may become radicalized.
It is in this time of doubt when the individual is searching for deeper meaning and distinctive identity that a window of opportunity opens up for extremists. Utilizing complex framing processes that draw on geopolitics and religion, extremists cease this confusion and offer up their ideologies as alternative value systems on which individuals can build a more definitive identity. This identity is eventually incorporated into a larger, imagined community of resistance, whose main antagonist is Western countries depicted as waging a war against Islam.
13. Extremism and Socialization
There is a significant grey area that exists between drivers for extremism at the individual level, and those at the organizational level, where the individual has already joined a violent extremist organization. The second category in Dielgaard-Nielsen, “Social Movement Theory and Network Theory,” summarizes scholarly attempts in bridging this gap by suggesting transactions at the group and community level that foster an environment conducive to adopting violent extremist ideas and behaviors.
Of particular importance are the works of Sageman, Wiktorowicz, Neumann and Rogers, and McCauley on the social processes that drive radicalization. Sageman uses network theory to demonstrate the importance of kinship, personal relations, and social circles in reinforcing extremist ideology. The latter draws more on social movement theories and group dynamics to examine how individuals and communities are mobilized by altering meaning construction through the application of select framing techniques.
These constructivist approaches to understanding radicalization are useful as they help build on our understanding of how identities can be manipulated to mobilize individuals in serving the purpose of ideologies. If the “French Sociology” school sets identity as one of the core driving factors of radicalization, this school follows by suggesting the next step in the process.
Namely, it looks at how both extremist and non-extremist elements work to reformulate the identities of Muslim youth through the creation of social circles that help cement select identities. In his study of al-Muhajiroun, Wiktorowicz finds that an individual particularly vulnerable to radicalization efforts is one that has recently experienced a crisis of sorts and is open to considering varying ideologies. Similarly, Sageman finds that a sense of “moral outrage” is derived from radicals witnessing global events against co-religionists. Ironically critical thinking, a value heavily praised in Western societies, becomes a useful tool for extremists when it provides the sort of existential, confused cognitive opening on which ideologues can play.
The success of radicals in capitalizing on this opening depends not only on the presence (or lack thereof) of competing influences but also on how high the individual already “ranks” on the supposed contributing factors of radicalization. Thus, if the individual is experiencing high anxiety with matters about religious identity and is disenfranchised due to a perception of unfair treatment, discrimination, and the like, the likelihood of being open to accounts offering explanations for or else confirming these views is higher. This presupposes some level of radicalization “readiness,” and the success of the extremist narrative in mobilization relies on its resonance with already “espoused beliefs, ideas and values” of the target group.
Upon engaging with extremist elements, individuals are then subjected to a lengthy process whereby ideologues set about reconstructing realities by introducing alternative frames through which the individual is made to interpret their grievances. These frames are variations of existing religious, and cultural ones that rework schemata of interpretation to affect the meaning attached to events. For example, the ills and disenfranchisement of the individual are attributed to a larger, conspiratorial campaign launched against Islam and Muslims.
The reason the West has been able to proceed undeterred with this campaign is due to the demise of Islam and the infiltration of Western values, which have corrupted Muslim morals and weakened the unity of the Islamic Ummah. The subsequent reinforcement of a Manichean “us versus them” mentality fostered by increased socialization with like-minded individuals finally brings the individual fully into the extremists’ fold.
Geopolitics is a useful tool that Islamists and their violent Jihadi extensions utilize in tailoring the rhetoric of their ideologies. Argumentation varies depending on the extremity of the organization or group, yet the basic master narrative is that the “war on terror” is a guise under which the West is fighting a war against Islam. The details of the political narratives have been studied in detail elsewhere, but their significance in the radicalization process context lies in their implications. These political narratives work to both create and perpetuate a perception of intentional religious discrimination against Muslims in the European diaspora.
When combined with identity confusion, or else the battle for reconciliation of European national and Islamic identities, it becomes clear that their purpose is to shift that balance in favor of the latter.
14. Social Identity Theory
These two theories are used because they examine the socio-cognitive impact of groups and social categories on the development of personal identities and hence bridge the gap between the individual and the environment.
Radicalization does not occur in a vacuum and so SIT, like social movement theory (SMT), is more useful as a lens through which to view the process. SIT is primarily interested in the socio-cognitive processes underlying group dynamics and how they shape identity. In this respect, it shares a lot with the framing theories in SMT, as SMT also focuses on the way that groups of people construct reality and individual self-conceptions through particular cognitive frameworks.
Social identities are reflections of the social categories, groups, and networks to which individuals belong. Social categories are broad, “large-scale” sources of social identity that often provide the pretext for the formation of community-level social networks and groups. Examples of large-scale categories are religion, gender, and ethnicity. Social categories define imaginary boundaries, which separate members (in-group) from non-members (out-group).
In other words, they are inherently discriminatory though not necessarily negative, so they constitute norms and values that describe membership criteria and consequently set themselves apart from other social categories. Membership criteria not only demarcate the group but also define the systems of meaning and frameworks through which members make sense of their surrounding social environments. They are “thought communities,” where both behavior and perception are restrained by “normative constraints such as rules that specify what ways of thinking are appropriate in a particular social community or situation because the core function of the group to its members is found by SIT theorists to be its utility in boosting self-esteem and ego, internalized stereotypes and norms are developed in such a way that they favor the in-group. This is known as “self-enhancement” and is also an outcome of efforts to elevate the perceived status of the in-group relative to that of the out-group/outgroups. The process of distinguishing the group through stereotype assignment and the allocation of cognitive frameworks is known as the “categorization” process.
15. “self-categorization” theory.
Turner elaborated on the categorization process in groups through his development of the “self-categorization” theory. Self-categorization is the cognitive process whereby individuals strengthen their social identity by emphasizing intra-group similarities and intergroup differences. Such distinctions sharpen group boundaries as well as the meaning systems inherent to the group and set down group standards for behavior. Group standards ultimately become the blueprint for the individual’s identity and subsequent behavior; the individual is “depersonalized.”
Self-categorization theory suggests that the adoption of a collective identity by a group member will trump his/her personal, individual identity, as he/she becomes an extension of the collective whole Individuals typically belong to several social categories. These social categories will often drive the formation of community-level groups and networks as individuals are subconsciously and/or consciously attracted to similar “others” particularly if they are part of the minority or else belong to a lower-status group in society.
An important element of social identities is that they do not necessarily hinge on the continued interaction of group members in closed settings. Individuals act on behalf of the group according to the norms he/she internalize as a result of belonging to that group.
Findings on what causes one social identity to dominate or else exert considerable influence on behavior are not well-developed. Oakes suggests that salience is not in response to social stimuli as much as it is the “psychological significance of group membership. An important definition of commitment is found in identity theory, a neighbouring theory that shares similarities with Social Identity Crisis and finds identity salience is high depending on the density and significance of the social network in which individuals are embedded. The suitability of the social identity, in terms of how appropriate its cognitive frameworks are in fulfilling the goals and tasks that a situation presents, is another factor predicting salience.
Other determinants of social identity salience may include Intergroup Status Relations. The status of a group is mostly a perceptual construct but is also built on cues and stimuli from the surrounding social context that positions a group on a hierarchy of social identities. Because groups are defined in contradistinction to out-groups, status is measured as a function of perceived relations between the group and the out-groups to which it compares itself.
Groups may perceive themselves to possess a lower status relative to others or vice versa. Behavior based on perceived status relies on the “stability and legitimacy” of these groups as well as the evaluative consequences of a group membership. Intergroup conflict will arise if group members are dissatisfied with their lower status (i.e., perceive it to be illegitimate), are unable to adopt different social identities or “pass into them,” and believe that this can only be changed by changing social order.
On the other hand, individuals belonging to lower-status groups that are perceived by their members to be legitimate and more stable are less likely to compete or conflict with higher-status groups. These individuals will nevertheless seek membership into higher-status groups if the option to do so is perceived to be available.
16. Positive Evaluative Self-Conception
Social identities are evoked insofar as they provide useful references with which the individual can make meaning of his/her surroundings. More importantly, social identities set the stage for self-evaluation by furnishing standards against which self-image and self-conceptions are measured.
Essentially, group members must be able to make sense of the world around them within the cognitive framework of the social identity and emerge from the process feeling positive and satisfied. If a particular identity is unable to provide the level of meaning and accompanying positive evaluative consequences, individuals can alternatively call on other social identities or categories they belong to, or else seek membership in other groups.
17. Social Identities and Threat
An underlying assumption in terrorism studies is that a perception of a threat to Islam is one of the main triggers of identity crises in Muslim youth. This assertion is so central to the discussion on radicalization, this paper integrates basic findings from social psychology on the anticipated perceptual, affective, and behavioural outcomes of group-directed threats.
A taxonomy developed by Ellemers studies the effects of differing levels of threat on self and group membership based on levels of commitment. Perceptually, individuals explain away negative feedback from the surrounding environment by attributing it to the group and group values and not themselves personally.
Low levels of group commitment lead to a weak collective sense of self, and so the group member is not entirely “depersonalized” and likewise not part of a cohesive whole threatened by relevant out-groups. Individuals also distance themselves by emphasizing the heterogeneity of group members as a means of showing that the negative attributes attached to the group do not apply to them.
18. Discrimination
Discrimination either real or perceived can become a source of frustration for Muslim youth, who are rejected for belonging to a social category that they may not fully identify with. It is a common factor in both views and may trigger identity crises when combined with other factors such as personal crises or religious identity dynamics.
In the case where commitment to religious identities is weak, European Muslims lack the opportunity to join groups in the mainstream yet have few or no strong alternative social identities to resort to. The commitment-threat level taxonomy suggests that the inability to “pass” into other groups and the lack of alternatives may lead to the development of perceptual alternatives to cope or else the “internalization of inferiority.”88 In the case where commitment to religious identities is strong, immigrants will fall back further onto religion and become further alienated from mainstream society as has been discussed elsewhere here. In both cases.
Discrimination may trigger an identity search that leaves the individual cognitively vulnerable and receptive to extremist ideologies as a source of identity. Essentially, it is alternatives existing outside the mainstream and the familial realms that seem to be the most attractive to the individual that is unable to identify with either. The outcome ultimately depends on which alternative will reach the individual first. The second assumption in View 2 may be valid when explaining attitudes and behaviors among individuals whose commitment to religion is high.
Indeed, there is a consensus on the finding that the more devout Muslim immigrants are, the less likely they are to join other groups or identify with other social categories. However, it does not account for Muslims who already hold group memberships in society and are better integrated.
It is unrealistic to expect that European Muslims, who have forged meaningful relationships in groups and networks in mainstream society, are then targeted by the same groups and networks. Even if the individual does come under scrutiny by some group members due to his/her affiliation to a stigmatized or ‘suspect’ social category.
Identity Crisis
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