Dutch Report: Radical Dawa in Transition

By Matthew Levitt

In the latest in an excellent series of reports published by the Dutch General intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), Dutch intelligence reports on the rise of "Radical Dawa in Transition: Islamic Neoradicalism in the Netherlands."

The report warns against "absolutist views" of Islamic radicalism, arguing it is wrong to portray the non-violent activities of such groups as either a passing, benign phase on the one hand or an immediate security threat on the other. At the same time, the report notes that the "radical dawa" activities of such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb al-Tahrir and Tabligh Jamaat serve as "a breeding ground for violent activism" and "can never totally be separated from the violent jihad."

Perhaps the report's most important finding, consistent with AIVD's earlier reports, is that organizaitons and persons affiliated with the radical dawa remain dangerous by virtue of calling for anti-democratic action and rejecting the Western democratic legal order, even if they do so "without resorting to, appealing for, glorifying or supporting violence." In part, this is a result of their "clandestine tactics designed to actively oppose and disrupt the process of the democratic order" and other "clandestine efforts to gain strategic influence over national and local government policy-making and to secretly enter mainstream social organizations."

Week on strategies to counter "Islamic neoradicalism," the conclusion does offer a useful discussion of the democratic paradox whereby radical groups "use democratic institutions to destroy or undermine democracy."

TrackBack