The limit-experience and self-deradicalisation: the example of radical Salafi youth in Tunisia

ABSTRACT

This article gives an example of self-deradicalisation from Tunisia. It addresses the potential of radicalised individuals to de-radicalise themselves from within the Salafi doctrine with no external interventions, in comparison with the state’s religious rehabilitation approaches to tackling radicalism which not only fail but are also counterproductive. Deradicalisation could, of course, involve a more comprehensive rejection of Salafi ideology. This article suggests that an effective type of deradicalisation that is more likely to make the desired change possible is one in which there is a gradual modification of some attitudes and behaviours without abandoning the whole underpinning Salafi ideology. Referring to the personal narratives of 28 individual Tunisian Salafis, the article identifies phases of radicalisation and deradicalisation as the individual voluntarily moves from embracing radical ideology to a more critical understanding and practice reflecting on personal and interpersonal experiences of being radicalised. The research shows that the process of self-deradicalisation is reflective of Salafi youth experience of engagement with radicalism and is more likely to happen in societies that allow political expression and individual freedom that invoke individuals’ critical thinking.

KEYWORDS:

• Tunisia
• Salafi youth
• radical identity
• critique
• limit-experience
• freedom
• self-deradicalisation

Acknowledgment

This research is supported by a grant from the LSE Collaboration Program with Arab Universities funded from the Emirates Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Wahabism is named after an 18th-century Arabian theologian, Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab, belonging to the Ruling Al-Saud family. He called for the “purification” of Islam by returning to the Islam of the Prophet Mohammed and the three successive generations of followers. See more details in Abu Rumman (2014, p. 60).

2. Two weeks after the fall of Ben-Ali, the government released all imprisoned under the 2003 anti-terrorism law. According to an official’s statement, “1,200 Salafis, including 300 who fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Somalia, left prison”. At the same time, many scripturalist and Jihadi Salafi Sheikhs, mostly imams at mosques in Europe, returned to Tunisia. See more in International Crisis Group (ICG) (2013, p. 14).

3. Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST), founded in late April, 2011, was banned in August, 2012, because it was accused as responsible for all the violent actions that happened in Tunisia. See details in Haj-Salem (2014).

4. See Gall (2013).

5. Nidaa Tounis party was founded in April 2012 as a competing party against Ennahda in response to the institutional chaos and insecurity created after the Tunisian Uprising and during the rule of the Islamist Ennahda party. Its most influential members are those who belonged to Ben Ali’s regime. See more details in Wolf (2014).

6. See Al-Jazeera (2015).

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by a grant from the LSE Collaboration Program with Arab Universities funded from the Emirates Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Aitemad Muhanna-Matar

Aitemad Muhanna-Matar is an assistant Professorial Research Fellow in the LSE's Middle East Centre. She is the author of a book Agency and Gender in Gaza by Routledge 2016. She is also the author of an article ‘Women Moral Agency in the Politics of Religion in the Gaza Strip’, published by the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion in 2015.