> [!note] New - 2026-03-20 ![[assets/covers/radicalisation-and-geopolitical-grievance.jpg]] Radicalisation is rarely a sudden conversion to violence. It is the accumulated weight of perceived injustice, political exclusion, and cultural threat reaching a point where militant action appears more honest than moderation. For many Muslims shaped by post-9/11 geopolitics, the question is not why some turned to extremism but why anyone trusted peaceful channels at all. ## The asymmetry of the terrorist label The most destabilising observation in Ahmad’s worldview is not about religion but about perception. An American Jew who joins the Israeli army and kills Palestinians is not called a terrorist; a Palestinian-American who dies resisting occupation is. The same act, filtered through different political sympathies, carries opposite moral weight. The Samson comparison is the sharpest edge of this argument: when Samson used his body as a weapon against his oppressors, Western readers call him a hero. The logic of the suicide bomber, on that reading, is the same logic Western readers have already endorsed in a different context. That structural asymmetry, not theology, is where radicalisation takes root.[^jabbour-crescent-p40] ## Political powerlessness and violence as voice Egyptians could not vote in American elections, and yet the US administration decided Egypt’s destiny on every major issue.[^jabbour-crescent-p50] The political exclusion is total: no representation, no leverage, no mechanism for dissent that the powerful are obliged to hear. In that context, political violence is not irrational. It is the only instrument that makes a ‘vote’ count, the only signal that opinions exist and matter to those who would otherwise never hear them.[^jabbour-crescent-p51] This is a structural explanation for why people who feel entirely without voice reach for the one tool that cannot be ignored. ## The drift from moderation Radicalisation rarely begins with ideology; it begins with a father watching the news. Ahmad describes his father’s gradual shift: once firmly opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, now admiring its courage. Not because the ideology changed, but because American power after 9/11 appeared to operate without restraint, without accountability, without limit.[^jabbour-crescent-p48] Moderation requires some faith that measured engagement will eventually be heard. When that faith erodes, admiration migrates toward those who at least refuse to be ignored. The cultural dimension compounds this: Western freedoms, experienced from the outside, look less like liberty and more like the unlimited export of pornography, atheism, and moral dissolution into societies that never consented to receive them.[^jabbour-crescent-p50b] ## Selected passages > [!quote] > ‘If an American Jewish young man leaves this country, goes to Israel and upon his arrival obtains the Israeli citizenship. He volunteers to serve with the Israeli army, and with his machine gun kills Palestinians as he occupies their land, you do not perceive him as a terrorist... If, on the other hand, a Palestinian young man who is an American citizen, leaves this country and goes to the West Bank in Palestine and uses his only available weapon, his body, to defend his occupied territory, you perceive him as a terrorist. When you read in your Bible how Samson died, do you perceive him as a terrorist?’ > > *The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross*, p. 40 > ‘No wonder people in the Middle East are attracted to political terrorism, using violence to attract the attention of the world to their grievances. This was the only way they can made their “vote” count and let the world know that their opinions matter.’ > > *The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross*, p. 51 ## Appearances - [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross (2012)|*The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross*]], Jabbour, Nabeel T. (None) (2012) - Ch. 3 ‘Ahmad’s Worldview’, pp. 40, 48, 50, 51 ## Related [[Islamic Theology and Belief]] . [[Interfaith Understanding and Christian-Muslim Dialogue]] [^jabbour-crescent-p40]: [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross (2012)]], p. 40 . ‘If an American Jewish young man leaves this country, goes to Israel and upon his arrival obtains the Israeli citizenship. He volunteers to serve with the Israeli army, and with his machine gun kills Palestinians as he occupies their land, you do not perceive him as a terrorist. No doubt this is because you see Israel as a democracy. I, on the other hand, see Israel as a racist state similar to the Apartheid regime of South Africa. If, on the other hand, a Palestinian young man who is an American citizen, leaves this country and goes to the West Bank in Palestine and uses his only available weapon, his body, to defend his occupied territory, you perceive him as a terrorist. When you read in your Bible how Samson died, do you perceive him as a terrorist? Do you blame Samson for using his only available weapon, his body, in killing innocent civilians?’ [^jabbour-crescent-p48]: [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross (2012)]], p. 48 . ‘I have seen in him a growing frustration and an alarming change in his thinking. In the past he used to be very much against Islamic fundamentalism, but now he is more sympathetic with those views and he admires their courage. He pointed out that since the collapse of the Soviet Union and especially since 9/11 and during the years of the Bush administration after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America’s use of power seems to my father to have no restraints.’ [^jabbour-crescent-p50]: [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross (2012)]], p. 50 . ‘As an Egyptian he could not vote for who should be president of the United States, and yet the U.S. administration decided his destiny and the destiny of our country when it came to major issues.’ [^jabbour-crescent-p50b]: [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross (2012)]], p. 50 . ‘He understood that freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of the press was a high value in the West, but if there were no restraints, there would be no limit to how far pornography, homosexuality, cults, atheism and even Satan worship could spread among our people.’ [^jabbour-crescent-p51]: [[The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross (2012)]], p. 51 . ‘No wonder people in the Middle East are attracted to political terrorism, using violence to attract the attention of the world to their grievances. This was the only way they can made their “vote” count and let the world know that their opinions matter.’