Campaigners: Sheema Khan, CAIR-CAN founder and occasional Globe and Mail columnist, continues her campaign to persuade gullible infidels that we have nothing to fear from sharia. In today’s piece, she says Canadians should take a page from the Saudis, who have develped a program to "re-educate" violent radicals:
…Established in 2004, the program has been adopted by the U.S. military in Iraq, along with several countries in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. It is not offered to those convicted of terrorism-related murder charges. Thus far, the recidivism rate is about 10 per cent. Since January, however, nine graduates have been rearrested for joining terrorist groups, while one is now an al-Qaeda chief in Yemen. These graduates underwent truncated rehabilitation for only a few months.
A central feature of the program is the recognition that traditional security measures cannot be used alone to fight extremism. The state must also engage in a "war of ideas" to combat the ideological justifications of violence. The Saudi government asserts its interpretation of Islam in which loyalty and obedience to the state are paramount. In the propaganda war, extremists are delegitimized for lacking both religious authority and religious understanding. The prison rehabilitation program includes art therapy and theological debates between scholars and prisoners. Ironically, there is more intellectual freedom inside prison; outside, art is frowned on and theological debate is forbidden.
The Saudi model also adopts the view that prisoners are primarily "victims," "well-intentioned individuals" seeking to do "good works," who have been misled by a deviant ideology due to a lack of religious understanding. Those who graduate from the prison rehabilitation program are helped by the state to obtain an education, employment and even a spouse - as a means to pre-empt extremist recruiters from filling the void. Families of graduates also work with the state to help the individual reintegrate into society.
Given that a number of Canadian Muslims are incarcerated on terrorism-related charges, a Canadian-based model of rehabilitation and reintegration will be required. As with the Saudi model, individuals with sound religious understanding, the ability to deconstruct al-Qaeda ideology, and a semblance of religious authority will be needed to counsel these prisoners away from extremist ideologies.
But what type of Islam should be an alternative? The strict Saudi interpretation cannot, and must not, be presented as the only alternative to extremism in Canada. Prisoners should be engaged in a framework that finds common ground between Islamic and liberal-democratic principles.
The Saudi presumption of prisoners as "victims" is dubious, for this implies a lack of responsibility for one's actions. What is to prevent recidivism if the fault lies with the ideology and not the individual? But one can build on the idea that these are young men who seek change in a misguided way.
While Saudi Arabia offers no political alternative to dissent, liberal democracies offer empowering means to disagree with, and change, government policies. A Canadian rehabilitation program should include education about civics, the justice system, and the Charter of Rights. Individuals, such as Maher Arar, can be called on to share their experiences in striving for change through principled, non-violent means...
Yes, let’s do ask that nice Mr. Arar to help “re-educate” the violent ones—to fuggedabout blowing up major infrastructure and empower themselves in other ways, say by joining the NDP. Meanwhile, I, impudent kafir that I am, intend to keep up my campaign to cut through the multishmulti bafflegab and expose the reality of sharia:
I agree with Sheema Khan that were should look beyond the Saudi effort to deprogram terrorists and seek “a framework that finds common ground between Islamic and liberal-democratic principles.” Unfortunately, that’s going to be a lot easier said than done. Islamic principles are predicated on the primacy of Islam’s universal law—sharia—a law decreed by God that is fixed for all time and imposes inequities of gender and religion. Democratic principles, on the other hand, are man-made and give rise to a law that is subject to change and that insists on the universality of freedom and equality for all.
Finding “common ground” between these two competing and antithetical systems is as problematic—and as pointless—as searching for “common ground” between oil and water.
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