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How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

npr.org

11–20 of 96 posts

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#11
post #2

Fascinating, and worrisome. This paragraph jumped out at me because of the numbers involved: "Starting in 2012, 34 people went from Aarhus to Syria. As far as the police know, six were killed and 10 are still over there. Of the 18 who came back home, all showed up in Aarslev and Link's office, as did hundreds of other potential radicals in Aarhus — about 330 in total." If a small town like Aarhus harboured 34 people…

What is your solution to this?

Not being sarcastic downvoter! I really want to know.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#12
post #5
post #2

Fascinating, and worrisome. This paragraph jumped out at me because of the numbers involved: "Starting in 2012, 34 people went from Aarhus to Syria. As far as the police know, six were killed and 10 are still over there. Of the 18 who came back home, all showed up in Aarslev and Link's office, as did hundreds of other potential radicals in Aarhus — about 330 in total." If a small town like Aarhus harboured 34 people…

Going to Syria isn't necessarily joining ISIS. There are many rebel groups, some directly fighting against ISIS.

I keep hearing this and it does not comfort me much.

Remember how the West had a problem with...

The Taliban... then Al-Qaeda...... then ISIS.......... then ??

The names are changing but something else remains constant or is getting worse.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#13

A fascinating story, and a great initiative by the town police. The world needs more role models for non aggressive activism - we lack a Ghandi or MLK of our generation...

You mean someone that would argue against economic injustice, racism, violence, and had a decades old track record of doing so? (even to the point of marching with MLK himself)

Yes, if only our generation had someone like that running for president in the US.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#14
post #2

Fascinating, and worrisome. This paragraph jumped out at me because of the numbers involved: "Starting in 2012, 34 people went from Aarhus to Syria. As far as the police know, six were killed and 10 are still over there. Of the 18 who came back home, all showed up in Aarslev and Link's office, as did hundreds of other potential radicals in Aarhus — about 330 in total." If a small town like Aarhus harboured 34 people…

What is your solution to this? Not being sarcastic downvoter! I really want to know.

You're not going to like it, and it's not much of a solution anyway. Time. Many generations and quite possibly civil war or outright war between nation states.

Humanity does not have a very good track record when it comes to learning from the past, so we are set to repeat history a couple of more times before we get it right. Let's hope I'm wrong about this, but the rate at which all the stable parts of the world are de-stabilizing is uncanny.

People keep pointing to studies that prove that the world is becoming less violent but I'm reminded of the sailors proverb that a real storm is preceded by a sense of calm.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#15
post #13

A fascinating story, and a great initiative by the town police. The world needs more role models for non aggressive activism - we lack a Ghandi or MLK of our generation...

You mean someone that would argue against economic injustice, racism, violence, and had a decades old track record of doing so? (even to the point of marching with MLK himself) Yes, if only our generation had someone like that running for president in the US.

Instead, we have people like that selling out to corrupt career politicians who can't say two sentences without lying through their teeth.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#16
Hearing a policeman take responsibility for his life getting derailed really moved Jamal. He agreed to come into Link's office.

They are doing good work. This all fits with everything I have ever read about how to undermine extremism, radicalization, etc. Time does not tend to heal such wounds. It tends to make them fester. That doesn't mean they cannot be healed.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#17
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean someone that would argue against economic injustice, racism, violence, and had a decades old track record of doing so? (even to the point of marching with MLK himself) Yes, if only our generation had someone like that running for president in the US.

Instead, we have people like that selling out to corrupt career politicians who can't say two sentences without lying through their teeth.

I get the impression that Jeremy Corbyn (in the UK) is much better than Bernie Sanders at helping build grassroots organizations that hopefully persist without him. I heard Bernie Sanders compared with Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, whose energy & commitment faded away after Jackson wasn't elected. Same with Ralph Nader, apparently.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#19
This is a story about Somali Jamal in Denmark, who planned to join ISIS with his friends. But a cop called him, and apologized for uh.., thinking he might be a threat. So Jamal uh, changes his mind, but two of his buddies don't and die in Syria.

So if you hug a terrorist, he might not want to kill you as much, maybe.

You know who doesn't have this terrorist hugging problem?

Japan.

Re: How a Danish Town Helped Young Muslims Turn Away from ISIS

#20
post #5
post #2

Fascinating, and worrisome. This paragraph jumped out at me because of the numbers involved: "Starting in 2012, 34 people went from Aarhus to Syria. As far as the police know, six were killed and 10 are still over there. Of the 18 who came back home, all showed up in Aarslev and Link's office, as did hundreds of other potential radicals in Aarhus — about 330 in total." If a small town like Aarhus harboured 34 people…

Going to Syria isn't necessarily joining ISIS. There are many rebel groups, some directly fighting against ISIS.

You didn't read the article did you? Did you see the part about Jamal talking a lot about Jihad? Maybe they mixed it up with syracuse and were really trying to get to go on Vacation in NY.
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