CAN MILITANTS BE REHABILITATED? Since the War on Terror, psychiatrists have joined others in this debate. The case of Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr illustrates this point as two prominent psychiatrists have attempted to mold public opinion in opposite directions. The government’s expert witness, forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner, has written on deradicalization programs for Islamist militants in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. He suggests that reinterpreting the concept of jihad, often translated as “holy war,” within a framework of “a peaceful strain of Islam,” along with family integration and vocational training may rehabilitate militants (Welner 2011a). He favors using forensic psychiatry to project a detainee’s risk for future violence: “Assessing future risk of dangerous Jihadist activity necessarily recognizes that an approach may borrow from clinical understandings about criminal and violent recidivism, but has to stay true to context (actual ideological violence or otherwise facilitating violence) in order to gain relevance” (Welner 2011a).
In contrast, child and adolescent psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis, the expert witness for Khadr’s defense team, has questioned using mental health professionals in the War on Terror similar to “the politicization of mental health under the Soviet regime” (Xenakis 2010). He has challenged Welner’s conclusions that Khadr was “at a high risk of dangerousness as a radical jihadist”: “Radical jihadism is not a clinical condition, and diagnosing it is not within the domain of psychiatric experts. Radical jihadism is an ideology—and can be embraced by the psychiatrically sane and insane alike.” Xenakis accused Welner of “put[ting] a scientific sheen on what were lay opinions” with “testimony disguised as expert psychiatric opinion” (Xenakis 2010).
The cultural psychiatry perspective acknowledges how psychiatrists have clashed on the possibilities for psychiatry to provide values, beliefs, and practices to make meanings of militancy. Despite their diametrically opposed legal affiliations, both agree that jihad is not a mental disorder. Nonetheless, their recommendations for mental health in the War on Terror move in opposite directions. Welner encourages the use of forensic psychiatry as a knowledge base to provide risk assessments for militants, but Xenakis discourages the use of forensic psychiatry as a tool of totalitarian states that imprison undesirable populations. On the surface, we can argue over who is right, but there is a deeper point: both psychiatrists have intuited that mental health knowledge and practice have changed with the War on Terror.
The media have publicized programs that harvest mental health concepts to describe deradicalization programs. For example, the Masjid el Noor Mosque in Toronto, Canada, directed by Mohammed Shaikh, has fashioned a twelve-step “Specialized De-Radicalization Intervention Program,” comparing an Islamist’s addiction to extremist interpretations of Islam with an alcoholic’s addiction to alcohol (FoxNews 2009). Separately, the Guantánamo Bay detention facility has been criticized for lacking deradicalization programs that implement “an intensive rehabilitation process incorporating large amounts of religious instruction and discussion” in the fight for “the battlefield of the mind” (Boucek 2008b). The terms “rehabilitation” and “the battlefield of the mind” evince the centrality of mental health in models of deradicalization.
The clearest example of how the War on Terror has systematically transformed mental health knowledge and practice is through government deradicalization programs. A March 2012 report states that of the 599 Guantánamo detainees transferred up to December 2011, 95 (about 16 percent) had been confirmed as reengaging with militants or militant activities, and an additional 72 (12 percent) were suspected of reengagement (Office of the Director of National Intelligence 2012). To prevent reengagement, deradicalization programs are now sponsored by governments such as Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Deradicalization programs have spread throughout the world, but how do they function, and what is the role of mental health professionals in these programs if jihad is not mental pathology? How is deradicalization accomplished within the secular framework of mental health to “treat” the religious ideology of jihad?
Our framework on the forensic functions of the medical system can clarify the types of mental health knowledge and practice in deradicalization programs. Various governments have initiated such programs, furnishing us with official policy texts to observe similarities and differences. We can use government documents and academic publications to trace: (1) the cultural construction of deradicalization as a medicolegal issue for criminal forensic psychiatry, (2) the establishment of mental health standards to support and evaluate deradicalization, (3) the procurement of relevant clinical evidence, (4) the application of clinical reasoning, and (5) the legal outcomes associated with deradicalization based on a clinician’s opinion. Deradicalization programs exemplify the greatest patient-clinician differences in interpreting basic existence; patients are diagnosed with the disease of radicalization even though they may not acknowledge any illness.
The work of philosopher Michel Foucault can help us understand the theoretical bases, rehabilitative practices, and relationships between mental health and national security. The role of religious beliefs in the production of violence has increasingly interested cultural mental health experts, who have sought to create models for intervention (Bhui and Ibrahim 2013; Tousignant and Laliberté 2007). Scholars in cultural mental health have therefore engaged with Foucault to illuminate the cultural values that permeate psychiatry (Aggarwal 2010b; Kirmayer 2007a; Lock 1993; Skultans 1991; Young 2008), and especially psychiatry’s growing links to the criminal justice system. Foucault was interested in how the state erected disciplinary and rehabilitative mechanisms to grapple with the changing nature of crime in France, England, and the United States. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault posited that two social transformations characterized post-eighteenth-century legal reform: the disappearance of public executions and the elimination of bodily pain (Foucault 1995, 11). These changes coincided with changes in legal offenses committed from “a criminality of blood,” such as murders and physical aggression, to a “criminality of fraud,” involving property, such as theft and swindling (75–77). Through penal reform, punishment shifted from the body to the mind (101), requiring expertise from “technicians” such as “warders, doctors, chaplains, psychiatrists, psychologists, [and] educationalists” (11). This “scientific-juridical complex” has diagnosed, prognosticated, classified, and rehabilitated prisoners (19). In the process, knowledge and techniques have formed “power-knowledge relations” for the implementation of power (25–26). “War on Terror” programs have also sought to deradicalize militants through new forms of knowledge and techniques promoting nonviolence. Deradicalization programs have therefore contributed new forms of culture through interpretive frameworks that create meanings, disciplinary practices, and social institutions.
Before proceeding, I should offer several disclaimers. Deradicalization programs may improve upon extrajudicial counterterrorism alternatives such as indefinite detention, targeted killings, rendition, and torture. Nonetheless, high rates of recidivism among Guantánamo detainees prompt questions about whether models of deradicalization are valid, just as Foucault inquired whether imprisonment was an effective deterrent for crime. In addition, militant Islamists also construct discipline and power-knowledge relations by subjugating and killing others. For example, anthropologists have noted how Islamists discipline and control women’s bodies (Brenner 1996; Mahmoud 2005), but this entire discussion goes beyond the scope of this chapter. Finally, the texts reviewed here use the words “militant,” “Islamist,” and “extremist” interchangeably; I prefer “militant” to denote individuals whose ideologies justify political violence.
THE FORENSIC FUNCTIONS OF MENTAL HEALTH IN DERADICALIZATION PROGRAMS
These texts on deradicalization come from literature reviews for terrorism scholars and policy experts (Morris et al. 2010; Price 2010). I have included all English-language articles, books, editorials, commentaries, and policy statements. The preceding two chapters restricted examinations of discourse to peer-reviewed articles, the standards governing academic knowledge production; however, knowledge on deradicalization programs disperses through academic scholarship as well as government documents and monographs, necessitating a new search strategy. Two assumptions guided the inclusion of texts: (1) publications had to explicitly address the War on Terror1 and (2) publications had to focus on deradicalization rather than radicalization. I reviewed all titles and abstracts of articles for eligibility. I also reviewed articles that did not have abstracts and those whose abstracts ambiguously mentioned deradicalization or the War on Terror.
The Cultural Construction of Deradicalization as a Medicolegal Issue
Foucault (1995) criticizes psychiatrists and psychologists for conspiring with the state against undesirable populations. He portrays the psychiatrist as “not an expert in responsibility, but an adviser in punishment; it is up to him to say whether the subject is ‘dangerous,’ in what way one should be protected from him, how one should intervene to alter him, whether it would be better to try to force him or to treat him” (22). Foucault places the psychiatrist and suspect in an adversarial relationship since the psychiatrist makes “judgments of normality, attributions of causality, assessments of possible changes, anticipations as to the offender’s future” (1995, 20). He traces the origins of psychiatry and psychology to the emergence of social science, which measures humans and their actions, leading to a “technology of power” (193). The knowledge of mental health permits a shift in the application of power from the body to the mind as the French government turned away from torture (18–19, 99–102). Foucault decries the role of social scientists and mental health professionals in producing knowledge about the mind and character of the offender for governmental use.
War on Terror deradicalization programs exhibit similar trends. Some believe that psychiatry can offer a knowledge base to better understand Islamist militancy (Stern 2010; Welner 2011b). Theoretical texts provide a starting point to investigate deradicalization models. Omar Ashour (2009a, 2009b) has examined the deradicalization of Islamist groups in Egypt and Algeria. Ashour defines deradicalization as a “process of relative change within Islamist movements, one in which a radical group reverses its ideology and de-legitimises the use of violent methods to achieve political goals, while also moving towards an acceptance of gradual social, political and economic changes within a pluralist context” (2009b, 5). Ashour categorizes deradicalization as “ideological,” “behavioral,” and “organizational”; “ideological” and “behavioral” occur at the individual level, and “organizational” occurs at the group level:
Deradicalisation is primarily concerned with changing the attitudes of armed Islamist movements towards violence, rather than toward democracy. Many de-radicalised groups still uphold misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, and anti-democratic views. Separate from the ideological level, de-radicalisation can occur only on the behavioural level. On that level, de-radicalisation means practically abandoning the use of violence to achieve political goals without a concurrent process of ideological delegitimisation of violence. De-radicalisation can occur in only one of the two levels.
(2009b, 5)
In Ashour’s framework, the judgment of normality is based on the abandonment of violence to achieve political goals, not on the requirement for militants to believe in democracy. Militants can still hold “misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, and anti-democratic views” provided that they abandon violence. Knowledge about deradicalization draws upon psychological concepts and vocabularies such as “ideological” and “behavioral,” analogous to the model of cognitive behavioral therapy.2 Ashour notes that “analysing the causes and dynamics of de-radicalisation is crucial for both academics and policy-makers” (2009b, 30). Knowledge on deradicalization must effectuate political change through policy relevance.
In a related fashion, John Horgan’s (2009) study of former militants in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia separately defines deradicalization as
the social and psychological process whereby an individual’s commitment to, and involvement in, violent radicalization is reduced to the extent that they are no longer at risk of involvement and engagement in violent activity. De-radicalization may also refer to any initiative that tries to achieve a reduction of risk of re-offending through addressing the specific and relevant disengagement issues.
(153)
Horgan (2009) differentiates deradicalization from disengagement, since deradicalization leads to “cognitive” and “behavioral” changes, whereas disengagement is only a “behavioral” change. He builds on earlier work (2008) finding that terrorists can disengage from violent behaviors without relinquishing radical views, and he classifies disengagement into two categories, psychological and physical. Physical disengagement is “externally verifiable,” but psychological disengagement encompasses “emotional issues” leading to the cessation of terrorism. Psychological disengagement includes:
1. The development of negative sentiments as a result of experiencing negative qualities associated with sustained, focused membership (e.g. pressure, anxiety, the gradual dismantling of the fantasy or illusion that served to lure the recruit in the first place etc.) and as a result;
2. A change in priorities (e.g. the longing for a social/psychological state which (real or imaginary) to regain something that the member feels is lacking, or existed before membership, often a result of self-questioning, but mostly following prolonged social/psychological investment as a member from which little return appears evident);
3. A sense of growing disillusionment with the avenues being pursued, or some quality of them (e.g. with the political aims or with operational tactics and the attitudes underpinning them).
(Horgan 2008)
Horgan and Ashour both advocate secular psychological models of deradicalization. A classification of dangerousness appears through risk assessments. Perspectives on intervention and measures of change differentiate disengagement from deradicalization. As with Ashour, Horgan (2008) argues for government policy: “It is useful not only to help identify policy-relevant lessons for the development of counterterrorism initiatives of this kind in regions where there are none, but more immediately would lead to greater clarity around the basic social and behavioral processes involved, that have, it would seem, escaped scrutiny in many cases to date.” Despite terminological differences, Horgan and Ashour seem to agree that sustained deradicalization requires a reformation of thoughts (“psychological” for Horgan, “ideological” for Ashour) and behaviors that are observable for external verification.
This secular model of deradicalization contrasts with models in which militants must demonstrate reformed religious beliefs. Foucault presents us with a contrast from post-Enlightenment, Western Europe, where the social role of religion has weakened: “Many crimes have ceased to be so because they were bound up with a certain exercise of religious authority” (1995, 17). To prove that science supplants religion, he points to the hospital hierarchy in the eighteenth century: “In the internal hierarchy, the physician, hitherto an external element, begins to gain over the religious staff and to relegate them to a clearly specified, but subordinate role in the technique of the examination” (186). The assessment capabilities of mental health catalyze these changes: “But the supervision of normality was firmly encased in a medicine or a psychiatry that provided it with a sort of ‘scientificity’; it was supported by a judicial apparatus which, directly or indirectly, gave it legal justification” (296). Foucault asserts that the science of mental health replaces religion as the paramount authority for discipline and punishment.
Certain authors on deradicalization hold the exact opposite viewpoint and demand the involvement of religious leaders. For example, Gunaratna (2009) acknowledges that deradicalization entails four types of rehabilitation—religious, psychological, social, and vocational. The Islamist militant’s crime mandates a counter-response from religious authorities: “A learned Islamic scholar and a cleric have the understanding, knowledge and authority to correct the Islamic misconceptions a terrorist believes to be true” (150). Religious rehabilitation is supreme: “While psychological, vocational, and social and family rehabilitation can change one’s heart and mind, the most powerful is religious rehabilitation. Religious rehabilitation has the power to unlock the mind of a detainee or an inmate” (150). Here, mental health yields to the authority of religion. A classification scheme for militants is proposed that requires involving religious scholars, since “different levels of extremism require different levels of response” among terrorist leaders, operatives, and sympathizers who are high, medium, and low risk, respectively (158). Those who measure and assess Islamists would not only be psychiatrists or psychologists: “Counter terrorism practitioners, Islamic scholars, and academic specialists should work together to develop a program and a syllabus that can tailor to every category from extremists that advocate and support to the terrorists that kill, maim and injure” (150–151). The militant becomes an object of secular and religious study: “After a process of assessment, the right cleric or psychologist is assigned to counsel the detainee. The detainee is continuously assessed. It is essential to identify the problem with the detainee” (159).
Gunaratna’s argument rests on multiple assumptions. He differentiates among “learned Islamic scholars” and clerics on the one side and terrorists on the other side, but what if terrorists have engaged in deep religious study and learning? Who judges the nature of “Islamic misconceptions”? What solutions are needed during differences of opinion? Who decides on “the right cleric or psychologist” to counsel the detainee?
Stern (2010) also prioritizes religious reprogramming during deradicalization. Militant Islamists enter terrorism for a variety of reasons: “market conditions, social networks, education, [and] individual preferences” (98). However, faulty religious interpretations are ultimately responsible: “The most dangerous and seductive bad idea spreading around the globe today is a distorted interpretation of Islam, which asserts that killing innocents is a way to worship God. Part of the solution must come from within Islam and from Islamic scholars, who can refute this interpretation with arguments based in theology” (108).
Like Gunaratna, Stern wants clerics to draw upon their religious authority to counter Islamist ideologies. A “distorted interpretation of Islam” is defined by the belief that “killing innocents is a way to worship God,” even though we saw in chapter 5 that al-Qaeda’s authors dismiss the very premise of innocents in the War on Terror. Stern calls for “Islamic scholars” to “refute this interpretation with arguments based in theology,” assigning responsibility to religious leaders over criminologists or law enforcement officials. An unacknowledged assumption has been that religious authorities and mental health professionals will agree about the goals and processes of deradicalization: no situation is entertained in which religious authorities can approve of a militant’s religious interpretations that could place them at odds with psychiatrists or psychologists.
Consequently, deradicalization becomes culturally constructed based on competing secular psychological and religious rehabilitation models. The secular psychological model presumes that radicalization and deradicalization exist at the levels of thoughts and behaviors with success measured by eliminating violence. The religious rehabilitation model purposely includes Muslim religious leaders, with success measured through corrective theological reform. The secular psychological model targets public actions, and the religious rehabilitation model targets private beliefs, the former approving new ways of behaving and the latter approving new ways of being. In separate ways, deradicalization mandates new identities for militants. Those of us opposed to political violence could agree that a new identity rejecting violence may not be a bad thing, but it also bears asking: a new identity comprising what and approved by whom?
Foucault (1995) identifies mental health professionals as “subsidiary authorities” (21) within “small-scale legal systems” as punishment shifts from the body to the mind. Although he does not explicitly state it, he assumes that these authorities operate in the confines of the state:
If it is still necessary for the law to reach and manipulate the body of the convict, it will be at a distance, in the proper way, according to strict rules, and with a much “higher” aim. As a result of this new restraint, a whole army of technicians took over from the executioner, the immediate anatomist of pain: warders, doctors, chaplains, psychiatrists, psychologists, educationalists; by their very presence near the prisoner, they sing the praises that the law needs: they reassure it that the body and pain are not the ultimate objects of its punitive actions.
(1995, 11)
Foucault’s analysis rests on conceptions of power, sovereignty, and law within the traditional boundaries of the nation-state in the nineteenth century. However, deradicalization programs complicate this assumption. First, Foucault observes that countries such as France, England, and the United States enacted reforms over different decades in the nineteenth century (1995, 7–8). In contrast, deradicalization programs have multiplied across the United States, Western Europe, the Middle East, and Asia within the past decade. This trend may reflect the War on Terror’s placing all countries on military alert, according to former American president Bush (2005), suggesting a global urgency and coordination to deradicalization programs. Second, Foucault does not analyze crime, punishment, or reform in the Middle East or Asia, limiting the geographical applicability of his arguments. In contrast, deradicalization programs are a crucial component of extremist deterrence in these areas. Finally, Foucault does not trace the transnational relationships of “technicians” to each other or to nation-states.
Instead, academics of deradicalization constitute a new class of “supersidiary authorities.” Here, I accentuate the vertical sense of this etymology. The term “subsidiary” is an adjective of the word “subside,” whose Latin roots come from sub, “under” or “below,” and sidere, “to sit.” In Foucault’s usage, “subsidiary” connotes a presence secondary to the state. In contrast, academics and intellectuals in the War on Terror act as supersidiary authorities in sitting above individual nation-states by defining deradicalization knowledge and practice. They sit above by scrutinizing deradicalization programs, inducing general conclusions from specific examples, and then encouraging further state action. These supersidiary authorities also sit at a distance, work under strict rules of research, and toward the aim of deradicalization.
Foucault holds that the authoritative nature of subsidiary authorities comes in relation to the law of a single nation-state. An opposite process occurs with supersidiary authorities and deradicalization programs. Supersidiary authority accrues through the transnational exchange of deradicalization knowledge and its international dissemination to influence state behavior. For example, the RAND Corporation has utilized Ashour’s and Horgan’s frameworks extensively in publications for the defense community (Noricks 2009; Rabasa et al. 2010). Saudi Arabia’s program (described below) has been praised as an exemplar that “employs a number of well-designed strategies that should be used by those hoping to rehabilitate Islamic terrorists around the world” (Lankford and Gillespie 2011, 129). The Saudi Arabian program becomes “a de facto model for other countries seeking to implement a counter-radicalisation programme” (Boucek 2008a, 65), acquiring such symbolic value that its success is crucial, with monumental international consequences. Gendron (2010) warns: “The future effectiveness of Saudi security and counter-radicalization efforts will very much depend upon whether real reforms can be achieved with the acceptance, if not the approval, of the conservative religious majority. Lacking that support, the House of Saud will be weakened, and with it, the stability of the country, the region, and the security of the West” (504).
Here, Lankford and Gillespie (2011) infer that the Saudi Arabian model meets the needs “to rehabilitate Islamic terrorists around the world,” essentially treating all causes of radicalization as the same without local variation. Boucek (2008a) affirms this point by wanting to see Saudi Arabia’s program become “a de facto model.” Gendron (2010) warns of the domino effect activated by the failure of deradicalization in Saudi Arabia with dire consequences for the region and “the security of the West.” Saudi Arabia’s deradicalization efforts now intertwine with transnational security interests.
Furthermore, supersidiary authorities promote the international dissemination of their theories and practices. For instance, Kruglanski et al. (2011) exclaim: “It would be desirable if the international community and its institutions became involved in the deradicalization project and provided the resources needed for its proper administration and assessment” (143). Gunaratna (2009) has also supported a “global rehabilitation regime”3 with the following features: “common database,” “exchange of personnel,” “joint research, publication, education, and training,” “transfer of expertise and resources,” “sharing of expertise,” and “an international advisory council.” Gunaratna (2011) describes Singapore’s endeavors to share “best practices” in deradicalization with international experts at government conferences to coordinate counterterrorist responses from individual countries. These authors assume that transnational knowledge transfer around deradicalization is useful or justified despite concerns of recidivism.
This discussion is not meant to imply that transnational knowledge transfer and exchange is undesirable or wrong. It should be encouraged if it reduces the killing of innocent civilians. However, deradicalization programs in the War on Terror generate forms of knowledge that spread rapidly through globalization and information technology that differ from Foucault’s analysis confined to the traditional nation-state. The pressure to adopt counterterrorism practices for immediate action can obscure warnings about limited success. For example, Noricks (2009) first acknowledges that “deradicalization pathways are likely to be affected by the political-economic and sociocultural context in which the individual and group are nested,” but then qualifies that “common themes with potential implications for counterterrorism stand out in the existing literature” (311). Rabasa and colleagues (2010) admit that “knowledge of deradicalization programs remains limited and that there are reasons to remain skeptical about the programs’ claims of success,” and yet RAND’s “analysis is portrayed as having a number of policy implications” (xvi). Given the diversity in political-economic systems and sociocultural contexts of countries in the War on Terror, how do potential implications translate into tangible recommendations? Given consternations over the accomplishments of deradicalization programs, why rush to policy?
Against the backdrop of recidivism, it is reasonable to ask whether knowledge and practices originating in one society can be transferred to other societies for effective outcomes. This question represents a research agenda at the crossroads of anthropology and psychiatry (Bibeau 1997; Kirmayer 2006; Kirmayer and Minas 2000; Kleinman 1988). If deradicalization programs currently range from 10 to 50 percent of recidivism, is this an acceptably low rate and should these programs be implemented elsewhere?
The Establishment of Medical Standards to Support and Evaluate Deradicalization
Health professionals use medical knowledge to support and evaluate professional opinions related to medicolegal issues. Deradicalization programs aggregate knowledge and practice recommendations from scholars and government officials to instill nonviolence. Deradicalization programs constitute what Foucault termed “corrective penalties” on the basis of this health knowledge. For Foucault, the nineteenth century heralded a shift in punishment aimed at the mind and soul rather than only the body, leading to a “corrective penalty”: “The point of application of the penalty is not the representation, but the body, time, everyday gestures and activities; the soul, too, but in so far as it is the seat of habits. The body and the soul, as principles of behaviour, form the element that is now proposed for punitive intervention. … This punitive intervention must rest on a studied manipulation of the individual” (1995, 128).
Regular, reformative routines characterize corrective penalty: “Exercises, not signs: compulsory movements, regular activities, solitary meditation, work in common, silence, application, respect, good habits” (128). At stake is the restoration of the “obedient subject” who conforms to the law by training the body “by the traces it leaves, in the form of habits, in behavior” (129–131). Punishment converts the minds and bodies of offenders, and Foucault terms these methods as “disciplines,” defined as “an art of the human body … directed not only at the growth of its skills, nor at the intensification of its subjection, but at the formation of a relation that in the mechanism itself makes it more obedient as it becomes more useful, and conversely” (138). Discipline produces “subjected and practised bodies, ‘docile’ bodies” (138) by sequestering individuals at sites that monitor, classify, and separate offenders to rehabilitate daily life (141–148).
Deradicalization discourse also proposes corrective penalties and practices to reform offenders into obedient subjects by disciplining bodies, minds, and souls to cultivate self-governance. For example, Kruglanski, Gelfand, and Gunaratna (2010) observe that “financial support for children’s education, professional training for wives, and assistance in re-integrating released detainees into society” are part of programs in the Philippines. Indonesian deradicalization programs rely upon similar strategies:
A great deal of the social rehabilitation process is dependent upon financial remuneration to reverse feelings of hatred towards “the system”—this includes everything from paying for family members’ travel when visiting the inmate, paying children’s school fees, giving small business loans, paying relevant fees for getting married in prison to medical care, etc.
(Ranstorp 2009, 19)
Saudi Arabia merits attention for its resource-intense deradicalization program. “Beneficiaries,” as termed by the government, receive classes on “sharia law, psychology, vocational training, sociology, history, Islamic culture, art therapy, and athletics” (Porges 2010). A staggering assortment of services is delivered:
There have been a number of recent media reports highlighting the efforts of the Saudi government to assist the reintegration of persons convicted of civil and criminal offenses. These have included programs to help facilitate marriages (including institutionalized support to help find spouses for women convicted of immorality offenses), to increase the delivery of social services, and schemes to support families of incarcerated breadwinners. Other initiatives such as the “Centennial Fund” have been started to grant loans to released prisoners and soon to be freed prisoners so that they can start their own businesses upon release. Charitable organizations often work together with the government to establish schools and training programs for prisoners in order to help prisoners gain employment, while other NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] frequently help released prisoners and their families with groceries, clothes and toys for Ramadan. Another noteworthy program is the “Best Mother Award,” designed to support women with children whose husbands are serving time in prison.
(Boucek 2009, 214)
The generosity of the government has led to charges that Saudi Arabia rewards past militancy:
The Saudi approach seems to involve a “no-expenses spared” attitude that is arguably over-rewarding their detainees and may be an inefficient use of resources. For those with less comprehensive funding (or who are simply less organised) there is also the danger that failing to provide benefits—especially if promised—will lead to a backlash in militant or criminal activity, whether for ideological or financial reasons.
(Mullins 2010)
In other words, the danger is that militants may return to violence in the absence of financial inducements.
Therefore, deradicalization programs in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia vindicate Foucault’s points about disciplining bodies and minds through everyday gestures, activities, and habits as motivators of behavior. In Indonesia and the Philippines, discipline comes to the soul through steps that situate the offender within a social network by forging stronger bonds with children, families, and new brides. The Saudi Arabian program includes these components and adds classes like vocational training and athletics, which discipline the body through exercises, work, and compulsory movements. Offenders become obedient subjects and productive members of society through subjected, docile bodies enmeshed in social relations. Foucault labels these social bonds as disciplinary “counter-law” for creating a “private link” of constraints fundamentally different from contractual obligations (222). Deradicalization programs foster counter-law by strengthening the private links of released militants with family and friends. These strategies to propagate deradicalization also require ongoing assessment.
The Procurement of Clinical Evidence that Evaluates Deradicalization
Governments have employed health professionals to gather clinical evidence in order to evaluate the merits of deradicalization programs. Foucault also pondered the need for modern penal systems to acquire clinical evidence, warning that corrective regimens are not enough—disciplining practices must be measurable to classify and reconstitute offenders: “All the sciences, analyses or practices employing the root ‘psycho-’” consist of calculation (1995, 193). These calculations manifest through “tests, interviews, interrogations and calculations” (226).
All of the programs reviewed above depend on interviews throughout program interventions. However, the lack of effective assessments and standardized instruments has hampered deradicalization efforts. For example, Horgan and Braddock (2010) note:
Critical areas for exploration include not only clarity around the selection process and screening procedures for admittance to the program, monitoring participants in a meaningful and effective way post-release, and developing meaningful and valid (i.e., empirical) indicators for reduced risk of re-engagement: in sum, there is an urgent need for reliable risk assessment procedures for use with a terrorist population.
(281)
The Saudi government has also lacked valid and reliable deradicalization measures:
Perhaps the most critical development regards Saudi efforts to assess the progress of each beneficiary throughout the program, one of the central weaknesses of deradicalization efforts underway worldwide. Saudi officials previously relied heavily on trust to overcome this problem—trust in the detainee being rehabilitated, trust in the family taking responsibility for his actions, and trust in the country’s security apparatus to monitor his activities after release. The Saudis have recently tried to address inherent weaknesses of this approach through a system that aims to continuously evaluate every detainee in a rigorous, multi-dimensional fashion. This includes monitoring in and out of the center, ongoing documented evaluations, and regular assessments by staff members. Though still imperfect, subjective, and reliant on post-release security efforts, these processes suggest potential new tools to evaluate the threat posed by terrorists in custody.
(Porges 2010)
Horgan, Braddock, and Porges call for pre- and post-program evaluations, with Porges commenting on the role of family members as counter-law to provide clinical evidence through interviews. In this regard, Kruglanski, Gelfand, and Gunaratna (2010) describe a notable attempt to classify and quantify deradicalization in the Philippines with a control and experimental group of detainees through the development of a quantitative assessment scale:
Our battery of tests is a multidimensional instrument designed to include both cognitive (corresponding to the “minds”) and affective/motivational (corresponding to the “hearts”) components of the process. Sub-scales comprising the cognitive component include attitudes toward numerous Islamic notions, including Jihad (struggle), Takfir (blasphemy), Hakimiyyah (sovereignty of God’s rule on earth), and Shahada (martyrdom), concepts that have a very different, non-violent, meaning for the vast majority of practicing Muslims than their interpretation by extremists. The cognitive component will also assess condonement of the extremists’ ends, such as establishment of the Islamic State or revival of the Caliphate.
(2010, 2)
This assessment exemplifies major components of deradicalization programs in the War on Terror. The political rhetoric of the War on Terror (“hearts and minds”) suffuses the creation of a scientific measure. Researchers have generated theories about crime and criminality of the offender through a blend of secular psychological and religious/theological concepts. A corrective intervention can be delivered to the soul and measured through “cognitive” and “affective” subscales. However, the cultural psychiatrist who reads this scale’s description raises questions about its conceptual validity. The ethnographic record indicates that an embrace of Islamism does not necessarily correspond to an inclination toward political violence. For example, the Muslim Brotherhood as an Islamist movement has consistently supported democracy in Jordan (Robinson 1997). In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood has championed central tenets of liberal government such as limiting state power, demanding governmental accountability, and protecting certain civil rights (Rutherford 2006). In Saudi Arabia, a coalition of Islamists, liberals, Sunnis, and Shiites has struggled to advance democracy within an Islamic framework by reinterpreting state-sanctioned Wahhabi doctrines (Lacroix 2004). The ruling Justice and Development Party in Turkey openly espouses Islamic beliefs within a democratic framework and has labeled itself a conservative democratic movement (Sambur 2009). These examples prove that belief in Islamist concepts such as jihad and hakimmiyah can create a space for liberal political agendas.
The Application of Clinical Reasoning to Evaluate Deradicalization
After conducting clinical interviews and psychological assessments, health professionals display cultural forms of rationality in drawing conclusions on deradicalization from clinical evidence. Deradicalization programs tend to invest religious professionals with this function under the supervision of health professionals. Corrective discipline emerges by framing deradicalization as the acceptance of nonviolent interpretations of Islam administered by religious authorities. For example, the government of Yemen created the Committee for Dialogue in 2002 to counter Islamists who returned home after the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan (Taarnby 2005). Islamists have been preventively detained for a peaceful exchange of views with religious scholars based on the Quran and Hadith and are not released until they exhibit peaceful theological interpretations in “dialogues” with religious experts (Boucek, Beg, and Horgan 2009; Taarnby 2005). The type of clinical reasoning pertains entirely to religious beliefs:
One issue that has been invoked time and again by Al-Hittar [the head of the committee] is the fact that the Quran contains 124 verses that specifies that non-Muslims must be treated with charity and dignity—but only one verse that urges Muslims to fight nonbelievers. In this context, the militants are invited to use the Holy Scriptures to legitimise attacks on civilians, which they cannot. Two issues have been central in the discussions. The notion that non-Muslims are legitimate targets in the name of jihad and that Yemen’s political system is un-Islamic.
(Taarnby 2005, 133)
Yemen’s Committee for Dialogue exhibits specific forms of clinical reasoning. The principle of “abrogation” from the Quranic commentarial tradition is mobilized to disqualify the “one verse that urges Muslims to fight nonbelievers.” Abrogation refers to “the exegetical conviction that some verses of the Qu’ran restrict, modify, or even nullify other verses” (McAuliffe 2006, 187).4 Whereas attacks on non-Muslims may find scriptural precedents, Yemen’s political system is a modern phenomenon not mentioned in the Quran. Therefore, Yemen has mixed allegiance to the state with the propagation of a peaceful strain of Islam, a unique cultural understanding of the nexus between religion and politics.
Saudi Arabia also upholds active religious rehabilitation. Those eligible for deradicalization have been terrorist sympathizers or those caught with militant propaganda, not those actually conducting violence (Boucek 2009). The Ministry of the Interior has convened four committees, with the largest being the Religious Committee, consisting of 150 independent scholars selected for their communication skills (Boucek 2008a). The government has relied heavily on the text Document for Guiding Jihad in Egypt and in the World from former Islamist Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (Noricks 2009). The text permits jihad only after certain prior goals have been met: adequate sanctuary and financial resources, non-involvement of civilians, clearly identifying an enemy, approval from parents, providing for families, and permission from religious scholars (Wright 2008). Theological discussions, not one-sided lectures, provide the format for classes lasting six weeks, and “regular psychological and sociological testing and other evaluation methods, helps reduce the number of opportunistic or insincere revisions” (Boucek 2008a, 61). Testing in consultation with psychologists follows a predetermined syllabus:
The Advisory Committee runs two programmes. The first are short sessions, which typically run about two hours. While some prisoners recant their beliefs after a single session, typically a prisoner would go through several of these. These sessions are most commonly used with individuals who are looking for a way out, and their success should be considered atypical. The others are called “Long Study Sessions.” These are six-week courses for up to twenty students led by two clerics and a social scientist. Ten subjects are covered over the six weeks, including instruction in such topics as takfir, walaah (loyalty) and bayat (allegiance), terrorism, the legal rules for jihad and psychological courses on self-esteem. Instruction is also given on the concepts of “faith, leadership, and community,” as well as guidance on how to “avoid misleading, delusional books.” … At the end of the course, an exam is given; those that pass the exam move to the next stage of the process (including possible release), those that do not pass, repeat the course.
(Boucek 2008a, 62–63)
Similar to Yemen’s dialogue on religion, Saudi Arabia’s deradicalization program displays culturally specific forms of clinical reasoning. Political subjects on “loyalty,” “allegiance,” and “terrorism” are taught alongside Islamic jurisprudence on jihad and a type of Islamic self-help focused on “self-esteem” and “leadership.” Two clerics and a social scientist, typically a psychologist, run the course in a symbolic act that seeks to transform individuals throughout religious and secular dimensions of existence.
Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia have subsequently initiated religious rehabilitation modeled on Yemen’s program to confront Islamists from Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which is committed to converting Southeast Asia into an Islamic state. Only the programs of Indonesia and Singapore will be reviewed, since the Malaysian program operates in extreme secrecy (Abuza 2009). From what is known, Indonesia’s program has used reformed JI leaders in dialogues with Islamists, but despite government claims of deradicalization, the lack of a parole system hampers verifiable accounts of recidivism (Abuza 2009). Singapore has used forty religious leaders in conjunction with psychologists to counsel detained Islamists and their wives, but the government acknowledges that the detainees mostly played logistical and support roles and did not engage in violence (Abuza 2009). A key work in both countries has been Unlicensed to Kill: Countering Imam Samudra’s Justification for the Bali Bombing (Hassan 2007). Through ample quotations from the Quran and Quranic scholars, the book refutes arguments for engaging in jihad through violence, warfare with non-Muslims, Islamist conspiracy theories about Western countries, killing civilians, and suicide operations (Hassan 2006).5
The syllabi in Indonesia and Singapore do not seem to be public, though the Singapore government has set up a website (www.rrg.sg) on the activities of its Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG). In the link under “Our Message,” the RRG explains its counterterrorist mission: “Our main concern, and specific to the RRG’s role, is in the area of ideological response. This is due to the use of misunderstood Islamic concepts by the terrorists to promote their cause. This is an uphill task, but we believe ideological response is a necessary strategy” (Religious Rehabilitation Group 2012a). A point-by-point refutation of major JI interpretation then follows. Under a rhetorical question “Is jihad a holy war?” the website responds: “There is no concept of Holy War in Islam. Linguistically, HOLY WAR translated means HARB MUQADDASAH which is neither found in the Quran and the Sunnah. War is never considered holy in Islam, it is described as instinctively hated by man [original emphases]” (Religious Rehabilitation Group 2012a). Instead, a counter-definition of “jihad” “concerned with our time and space today” is offered in distinct categories: “against the inner self,” “against the Devil,” “towards economic development,” “towards educational development,” “towards family development,” and “correct Islamic propagation” (Religious Rehabilitation Group 2012a). Elsewhere, the RRG insists that terrorism violates “two fundamental prohibitions”: (1) “Firstly, violence is not a legitimate means of solving political disputes particularly when the actors are non-state actors,” and (2) “The second norm essential to delegitimize the strategy of terrorism is the belief that non-combatants are entitled to immunity and should not be subject to attack” (Religious Rehabilitation Group 2012b). Here, the RRG insists that states alone should possess the authority to wield violence and that noncombatants should be protected from violence.
In all four programs, we observe common dynamics. Deradicalization programs detain militants not only to deprive them of liberty, but to also inculcate corrective reform. Rehabilitation programs take place in institutions sequestered from society through constant and absolute observation from prison officials, religious clergy, mental health professionals, and other personnel. This technical transformation of individuals attempts to instill discipline and self-governance to render citizens obedient to the state. In each program, religious reform prevails over secular psychological rehabilitation. This religious reform model supplies psychological and legal rationalities to understand jihad and reverse deradicalization.
The Legal Outcomes Associated with Deradicalization
The legal system utilizes the opinions from health professionals to render an ultimate decision for a suspect in question. In the case of deradicalization programs, legal outcomes are associated with high rates of recidivism. The governments of Afghanistan (Sieff 2011), Indonesia (Antara News 2009), and Saudi Arabia (Manthorpe 2010) have acknowledged obstacles to deradicalization. Estimates of recidivism range from 10 percent to 20 percent in Saudi Arabia (Porges 2010), to 40 percent in Singapore (Abuza 2009) and over 50 percent in Yemen (Noricks 2009). Analysts (Abuza 2009; Boucek 2009; Boucek, Beg, and Horgan 2009; Taarnby 2005) have conceded that the totalitarian nature of deradicalization programs has created a paradox for governments: militants know that governments will not release them without a demonstration of reformed beliefs, so many can answer falsely. Therein lies a moral hazard.
Here, a theoretical engagement with Foucault may help us understand why recidivism happens in some contexts and not in others. Foucault writes that prisons were “the great failure of penal justice” whose errors “are today repeated almost unchanged” from their origins in the nineteenth century (1995, 264–265). He specifies the following reasons (264–268): (1) detention causes recidivism; (2) detention imposes an existence of isolation and useless work on inmates, which renders them unable to find meaningful employment; (3) prisons encourage the assembly of delinquents loyal to one another who commit future criminal acts together; (4) freed inmates are compelled toward recidivism since they cannot find work and they lead vagabond lives; and (5) prisons encourage delinquency by placing the family of inmates in destitution.
These assertions do not match the conditions of deradicalization programs. Studies routinely show that most Islamist militants come from middle-class backgrounds (Jackson 2007). While detentions may cause recidivism by aggregating like-minded individuals who have not renounced violence, Foucault’s other points do not apply. For instance, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia provide detainees with vocational training to help them garner employment, not to keep them unemployed. This explicitly occupational emphasis is meant to counter problems in finding work. In addition, all programs strive to establish social links with detainees so that they do not lead vagabond lives: the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines encourage family involvement through visits from relatives, Singaporean officials counsel wives of Islamists, and the Saudi Arabian government has tried marital matchmaking. Finally, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia lavish financial resources on families of militants in order to counter delinquency.
Instead, other factors may explain recidivism. I believe that the major emphasis on religious rehabilitation may obfuscate the state’s true aim of deterring political violence. Government officials, media commentators, and academics in the War on Terror may overstate the importance of religious beliefs among militant Islamists. Experts in the War on Terror who posit a liberal, peace-loving West under attack from violent Muslims do not account for the political and economic motives of violence and explain it through religious terms, further perpetuating stereotypes (Mamdani 2005). Violent rhetoric justified through religion is not unimportant, but may be secondary in a larger strategic goal to engage in violence for well-defined political ends (Jackson 2007). For example, Islamist groups in the Middle East—Hamas, Hezbollah, or al-Qaeda—profit from using religious vocabularies, but their leaders are often secular professionals fighting to end the foreign occupation of homelands or the political corruption of government officials (Gunning and Jackson 2011). A close analysis of jihadist publications shows a greater concern with establishing the conditions for asymmetrical warfare against governments rather than reminding others of theological rewards (Sedgwick 2004).
These critical clarifications on the relationship between religion and violence can help us question forms of knowledge and practice in deradicalization programs. All of the deradicalization programs reviewed include religious rehabilitation as a central practice. However, targeting religious beliefs may only serve as a proxy for more precisely targeting violent thoughts and behaviors. Lengthy descriptions abound about the type, format, and content of religious rehabilitation sessions, and Yemen and Saudi Arabia are praised for open dialogues with militants. And yet lectures on law and government appear to reinforce loyalty to the state and dissuade sedition. The lack of a mechanism in which militant militants can freely discuss motivations for violence such as disagreements with domestic or foreign policies may account for the limited success of deradicalization programs. Yemeni and Saudi Arabian programs seem willing to let militants draw their own conclusions about religious violence after debates with clerics, but less willing to entertain dissidence in policy and political matters. To initiate such a process could require more transparency and liberty than many governments with deradicalization programs currently permit.
Furthermore, the actual processes of deradicalization programs can be productively questioned. For example, the programs appear to target different populations. Yemen has detained suspected militants who traveled abroad but did not commit domestic crimes. Saudi Arabia and Singapore have detained militant sympathizers in support or logistics roles domestically, but not those who have actually conducted violence. Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia have modeled their programs on Yemeni programs despite clear differences in the enrolled populations. Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia have begun deradicalization programs to counter actual threats, whereas Yemen’s program has been primarily preventive. Supersidiary authorities sponsor the dissemination and implementation of deradicalization “best practices” without demonstrations of actual efficacy, so recidivism can be predicted. In contrast, meticulous research is needed to distinguish effective core components of deradicalization programs. Specifically, greater precision is required to ascertain whether programs should be preventive for those who have not yet committed crimes or curative for known offenders.
Second, more direct measurements of violence are required to lower recidivism. Procedures that distinguish among thoughts and actions leading to violence could provide more accurate assessments than programming that assumes a high correlation among religious beliefs and risk of violence. Longitudinal research can then clarify correlations throughout the process of change as well as post-program follow-up periods. Religious rehabilitation may be insufficient to stem recidivism, since more-primary political and economic concerns have not been foundationally addressed. What does success mean when programs are administered to people who hold Islamist beliefs but who have not actually committed any violent acts? How can success be measured if assessments that test religious beliefs can be manipulated for release? Deradicalization assessments may become more accurate by focusing on violent thoughts and actions. Definitions of success and failure cannot be generalized if initial indications and end outcomes of deradicalization programs differ across countries. Perhaps the role of forensic mental health lies in a position between Welner and Xenakis: mental health can proffer a knowledge base to understand deradicalization as a criminological process, but should not be used for political purposes.
Finally, a critical stance from cultural psychiatry and psychiatric anthropology can pose new questions for research. Which components of deradicalization programs embody local knowledge and practice and which components can be applied across cultures? How do such programs reflect implicit, unspoken norms about politics, religion, and society, as with state allegiance programs for Yemen and Saudi Arabia enveloped within religious instruction? How do these programs create new ways of being, feeling, and experiencing in the world for militants, their families, and supervising government officials? How do these programs produce new cultural materials such as pedagogical texts and policy documents, as well as novel institutions that reconfigure kinship, community, and social relations? Ethnographic accounts could supplement this discourses analysis by describing the daily lives of militants, government officials, academics, and other actors to understand their diverse modes of being and meaning making. Additional analyses could review texts produced in the languages of countries hosting deradicalization programs—such as Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Indonesian, and Malay—to trace the extent to which these ideas travel and are influenced by developments in the United States and Western Europe. Critical analyses of deradicalization symbolize the possibilities of engaged criticism by destabilizing the assumptions, institutions, knowledge, practices, and outcomes entrenched throughout the global War on Terror to scrutinize their local contexts.