Maajid Nawaz: A global culture to fight extremism

Have you ever wondered

why extremism seems to have been on the rise in Muslim-majority countries

over the course of the last decade?

Have you ever wondered

how such a situation can be turned around?

Have you ever looked at the Arab uprisings

and thought, "How could we have predicted that?"

or "How could we have better prepared for that?"

Well my personal story, my personal journey,

what brings me to the TED stage here today,

is a demonstration of exactly what's been happening

in Muslim-majority countries

over the course of the last decades, at least, and beyond.

I want to share some of that story with you,

but also some of my ideas around change

and the role of social movements in creating change

in Muslim-majority societies.

So let me begin

by first of all giving a very, very brief history of time,

if I may indulge.

In medieval societies there were defined allegiances.

An identity was defined

primarily by religion.

And then we moved on into an era in the 19th century

with the rise of a European nation-state

where identities and allegiances were defined

by ethnicity.

So identity was primarily defined by ethnicity,

and the nation-state reflected that.

In the age of globalization, we moved on.

I call it the era of citizenship --

where people could be from multi-racial, multi-ethnic backgrounds,

but all be equal as citizens

in a state.

You could be American-Italian; you could be American-Irish;

you could be British-Pakistani.

But I believe now

that we're moving into a new age,

and that age The New York Times dubbed recently

as "the age of behavior."

How I define the age of behavior

is a period of transnational allegiances,

where identity is defined more so

by ideas and narratives.

And these ideas and narratives that bump people across borders

are increasingly beginning to affect

the way in which people behave.

Now this is not all necessarily good news,

because it's also my belief

that hatred has gone global

just as much as love.

But actually it's my belief

that the people who've been truly capitalizing on this age of behavior,

up until now, up until recent times,

up until the last six months,

the people who have been capitalizing most

on the age of behavior

and the transnational allegiances,

using digital activism

and other sorts of borderless technologies,

those who've been benefiting from this

have been extremists.

And that's something which I'd like to elaborate on.

If we look at Islamists,

if we look at the phenomenon

of far-right fascists,

one thing they've been very good at,

one thing that they've actually been exceeding in,

is communicating across borders,

using technologies to organize themselves,

to propagate their message

and to create truly global phenomena.

Now I should know,

because for 13 years of my life,

I was involved in an extreme Islamist organization.

And I was actually a potent force

in spreading ideas across borders,

and I witnessed the rise of Islamist extremism

as distinct from Islam the faith,

and the way in which it influenced my co-religionists

across the world.

And my story, my personal story,

is truly evidence for the age of behavior

that I'm attempting to elaborate upon here.

I was, by the way -- I'm an Essex lad,

born and raised in Essex in the U.K.

Anyone who's from England

knows the reputation we have from Essex.

But having been born in Essex,

at the age of 16,

I joined an organization.

At the age of 17, I was recruiting people from Cambridge University

to this organization.

At the age of 19,

I was on the national leadership of this organization in the U.K.

At the age of 21, I was co-founding this organization in Pakistan.

At the age of 22,

I was co-founding this organization in Denmark.

By the age of 24,

I found myself convicted in prison in Egypt,

being blacklisted from three countries in the world

for attempting to overthrow their governments,

being subjected to torture

in Egyptian jails

and sentenced to five years as a prisoner of conscience.

Now that journey,

and what took me from Essex all the way across the world --

by the way, we were laughing at democratic activists.

We felt they were from the age of yesteryear.

We felt that they were out of date.

I learned how to use email

from the extremist organization that I used.

I learned how to effectively communicate across borders

without being detected.

Eventually I was detected, of course, in Egypt.

But the way in which I learned

to use technology to my advantage

was because I was within an extremist organization

that was forced to think beyond

the confines of the nation-state.

The age of behavior: where ideas and narratives

were increasingly defining behavior

and identity and allegiances.

So as I said, we looked to the status quo

and ridiculed it.

And it's not just Islamist extremists that did this.

But even if you look across

the mood music in Europe of late,

far-right fascism is also on the rise.

A form of anti-Islam rhetoric

is also on the rise

and it's transnational.

And the consequences that this is having

is that it's affecting the political climate

across Europe.

What's actually happening

is that what were previously localized parochialisms,

individual or groupings of extremists

who were isolated from one another,

have become interconnected in a globalized way

and have thus become, or are becoming, mainstream.

Because the Internet and connection technologies

are connecting them across the world.

If you look at the rise of far-right fascism across Europe of late,

you will see some things that are happening

that are influencing domestic politics,

yet the phenomenon is transnational.

In certain countries, mosque minarets are being banned.

In others, headscarves are being banned.

In others, kosher and halal meat are being banned,

as we speak.

And on the flip side,

we have transnational Islamist extremists

doing the same thing across their own societies.

And so they are pockets of parochialism that are being connected

in a way that makes them feel like they are mainstream.

Now that never would have been possible before.

They would have felt isolated,

until these sorts of technologies came around

and connected them in a way

that made them feel part of a larger phenomenon.

Where does that leave democracy aspirants?

Well I believe they're getting left far behind.

And I'll give you an example here at this stage.

If any of you remembers the Christmas Day bomb plot:

there's a man called Anwar al-Awlaki.

As an American citizen, ethnically a Yemeni,

in hiding currently in Yemen,

who inspired a Nigerian,

son of the head of Nigeria's national bank.

This Nigerian student studied in London, trained in Yemen,

boarded a flight in Amsterdam to attack America.

In the meanwhile,

the Old mentality with a capital O,

was represented by his father, the head of the Nigerian bank,

warning the CIA that his own son was about to attack,

and this warning fell on deaf ears.

The Old mentality with a capital O,

as represented by the nation-state,

not yet fully into the age of behavior,

not recognizing the power of transnational social movements,

got left behind.

And the Christmas Day bomber almost succeeded

in attacking the United States of America.

Again with the example of the far right:

that we find, ironically,

xenophobic nationalists

are utilizing the benefits of globalization.

So why are they succeeding?

And why are democracy aspirants falling behind?

Well we need to understand the power of the social movements who understand this.

And a social movement is comprised, in my view,

it's comprised of four main characteristics.

It's comprised of ideas and narratives

and symbols and leaders.

I'll talk you through one example,

and that's the example that everyone here will be aware of,

and that's the example of Al-Qaeda.

If I asked you to think of the ideas of Al-Qaeda,

that's something that comes to your mind immediately.

If I ask you to think of their narratives --

the West being at war with Islam, the need to defend Islam against the West --

these narratives, they come to your mind immediately.

Incidentally, the difference between ideas and narratives:

the idea is the cause that one believes in;

and the narrative is the way to sell that cause --

the propaganda, if you like, of the cause.

So the ideas and the narratives of Al-Qaeda come to your mind immediately.

If I ask you to think of their symbols and their leaders,

they come to your mind immediately.

One of their leaders was killed in Pakistan recently.

So these symbols and these leaders

come to your mind immediately.

And that's the power of social movements.

They're transnational, and they bond around these ideas and narratives

and these symbols and these leaders.

However,

if I ask your minds to focus currently on Pakistan,

and I ask you to think

of the symbols and the leaders for democracy

in Pakistan today,

you'll be hard pressed

to think beyond perhaps

the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Which means, by definition,

that particular leader no longer exists.

One of the problems we're facing is, in my view,

that there are no globalized,

youth-led, grassroots social movements

advocating for democratic culture

across Muslim-majority societies.

There is no equivalent of the Al-Qaeda, without the terrorism,

for democracy across Muslim-majority societies.

There are no ideas and narratives and leaders and symbols

advocating the democratic culture on the ground.

So that begs the next question.

Why is it that extremist organizations,

whether of the far-right or of the Islamist extremism --

Islamism meaning those who wish to impose

one version of Islam over the rest of society --

why is it that they are succeeding

in organizing in a globalized way,

whereas those who aspire to democratic culture

are falling behind?

And I believe that's for four reasons.

I believe, number one, it's complacency.

Because those who aspire to democratic culture

are in power,

or have societies

that are leading globalized, powerful societies,

powerful countries.

And that level of complacency means

they don't feel the need to advocate for that culture.

The second, I believe,

is political correctness.

That we have a hesitation

in espousing the universality of democratic culture

because we are associating that --

we associate believing in the universality of our values --

with extremists.

Yet actually, whenever we talk about human rights,

we do say that human rights are universal.

But actually going out to propagate that view

is associated with either neoconservativism

or with Islamist extremism.

To go around saying that I believe

democratic culture is the best that we've arrived at

as a form of political organizing

is associated with extremism.

And the third,

democratic choice in Muslim-majority societies

has been relegated to a political choice,

meaning political parties

in many of these societies

ask people to vote for them

as the democratic party,

but then the other parties ask them to vote for them

as the military party --

wanting to rule by military dictatorship.

And then you have a third party saying,

"Vote for us; we'll establish a theocracy."

So democracy has become merely one political choice

among many other forms

of political choices available in those societies.

And what happens as a result of this

is, when those parties are elected,

and inevitably they fail,

or inevitably they make political mistakes,

democracy takes the blame

for their political mistakes.

And then people say, "We've tried democracy. It doesn't really work.

Let's bring the military back again."

And the fourth reason, I believe,

is what I've labeled here on the slide as the ideology of resistance.

What I mean by that is,

if the world superpower today was a communist,

it would be much easier for democracy activists

to use democracy activism

as a form of resistance against colonialism,

than it is today with the world superpower being America,

occupying certain lands

and also espousing democratic ideals.

So roughly these four reasons

make it a lot more difficult for democratic culture to spread

as a civilizational choice,

not merely as a political choice.

When talking about those reasons,

let's break down certain preconceptions.

Is it just about grievances?

Is it just about a lack of education?

Well statistically,

the majority of those who join extremist organizations are highly educated.

Statistically, they are educated, on average,

above the education levels

of Western society.

Anecdotally, we can demonstrate

that if poverty was the only factor,

well Bin Laden is from one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia.

His deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a pediatrician --

not an ill-educated man.

International aid and development has been going on for years,

but extremism in those societies, in many of those societies,

has been on the rise.

And what I believe is missing

is genuine grassroots activism

on the ground,

in addition to international aid,

in addition to education, in addition to health.

Not exclusive to these things, but in addition to them,

is propagating a genuine demand for democracy on the ground.

And this is where I believe

neoconservatism had it upside-down.

Neoconservatism had the philosophy

that you go in with a supply-led approach

to impose democratic values from the top down.

Whereas Islamists and far-right organizations, for decades,

have been building demand for their ideology on the grassroots.

They've been building civilizational demand for their values

on the grassroots,

and we've been seeing those societies slowly transition

to societies that are increasingly asking for

a form of Islamism.

Mass movements in Pakistan

have been represented after the Arab uprisings

mainly by organizations

claiming for some form of theocracy,

rather than for a democratic uprising.

Because since pre-partition,

they've been building demand for their ideology on the ground.

And what's needed is a genuine transnational

youth-led movement

that works to actively advocate

for the democratic culture --

which is necessarily more

than just elections.

But without freedom of speech, you can't have free and fair elections.

Without human rights, you don't have the protection granted to you to campaign.

Without freedom of belief,

you don't have the right to join organizations.

So what's needed is those organizations on the ground

advocating for the democratic culture itself

to create the demand on the ground for this culture.

What that will do

is avoid the problem I was talking about earlier,

where currently we have political parties presenting democracy

as merely a political choice in those societies

alongside other choices

such as military rule and theocracy.

Whereas if we start building this demand on the ground on a civilizational level,

rather than merely on a political level,

a level above politics --

movements that are not political parties,

but are rather creating this civilizational demand

for this democratic culture.

What we'll have in the end

is this ideal that you see on the slide here --

the ideal that people should vote in an existing democracy,

not for a democracy.

But to get to that stage,

where democracy builds the fabric of society

and the political choices within that fabric,

but are certainly not theocratic and military dictatorship --

i.e. you're voting in a democracy,

in an existing democracy,

and that democracy is not merely one of the choices at the ballot box.

To get to that stage,

we genuinely need to start building demand

in those societies on the ground.

Now to conclude, how does that happen?

Well, Egypt is a good starting point.

The Arab uprisings have demonstrated that this is already beginning.

But what happened in the Arab uprisings and what happened in Egypt

was particularly cathartic for me.

What happened there was a political coalition

gathered together for a political goal,

and that was to remove the leader.

We need to move one step beyond that now.

We need to see how we can help those societies

move from political coalitions,

loosely based political coalitions,

to civilizational coalitions

that are working for the ideals and narratives

of the democratic culture on the ground.

Because it's not enough to remove a leader

or ruler or dictator.

That doesn't guarantee that what comes next

will be a society built on democratic values.

But generally, the trends that start in Egypt

have historically spread across the MENA region,

the Middle East and North Africa region.

So when Arab socialism started in Egypt, it spread across the region.

In the '80s and '90s when Islamism started in the region,

it spread across the MENA region as a whole.

And the aspiration that we have at the moment --

as young Arabs are proving today

and instantly rebranding themselves

as being prepared to die for more than just terrorism --

is that there is a chance

that democratic culture can start in the region

and spread across to the rest of the countries that are surrounding that.

But that will require

helping these societies transition

from having merely political coalitions

to building genuinely grassroots-based social movements

that advocate for the democratic culture.

And we've made a start for that in Pakistan

with a movement called Khudi,

where we are working on the ground to encourage the youth

to create genuine buy-in for the democratic culture.

And it's with that thought that I'll end.

And my time is up, and thank you for your time.

(Applause)