Victimisation-induced isolation and rejection create the vulnerability recruiters exploit

Evidence

Islamophobia has affected Muslims. This is why Muslims are going to Syria. This is why they support ISIS. When people experience Islamophobic abuse, they will be easily radicalised. They feel weak, lonely, isolated and rejected from British society. This is when these hate preachers pick them up and brainwash them. If you are victimised, you are weak. Jihadi John and others who support ISIS were vulnerable. Vulnerability is the number one factor why Muslims go to Syria. These young people are groomed to go to Syria, groomed to become terrorists, groomed to blow themselves up. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 259

Categorization

• QUESTION: Is this a widely held folk theory among British Muslims, or the participant’s own causal argument? Worth checking against the radicalisation literature elsewhere in the book.
• XREF: Directly tracks the Islamophobia-and-the-novel arguments about piety, radicalisation narratives, and how ‘Muslim’ gets read as a collective document rather than individual experience. — connects to: Unmet basic needs like belonging and purpose drive extremist recruitment — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 57