Global Jihad: temi, piste di diffusione e il fenomeno del reducismo ...

experienced under various Arab regimes, which created a camp of Islamist refugees
who could no longer act in their homelands. In one sense, then, they were forced to
pursue the new route of global terrorism. When they lost Afghanistan in December
2001, they moved to Iraq in 2003, and started the intensive indoctrination through the
Internet since then, in the rest of the Arab and Muslim world.
This global phenomenon has been exacerbated by a relatively old process, one that
actually accelerates in the coming years: the radicalization of Muslim, primarily Arab
immigrants in the West. This process is largely a consequence of the alienation that
many second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants feel within Western
societies, whether due to irreconcilable values, quashed expectations, or other
factors. One result of this process has been the rapid development of an Islamic
activist infrastructure within Western democracies, such that any number of
organizations in Europe and the United States could serve as the logistical and
financial backbone of Islamist terrorist groups.
This problem of social alienation among younger Muslims merits a study of its own.
In short, though, any solution will require a better understanding in the West of the
roots of Islamist violence as part of the culture of global jihad. The antiterrorism steps
currently being taken by the United States and other Western countries—such as new
legislation, better cooperation in the intelligence field, encouragement of
counterterrorism efforts by Arab and Muslim states, and extradition of arrested
terrorists—are all important. Yet, these measures do not address the fundamental
causes of the problem, and may even enhance the notion that the Islamist struggle is
an ideological global clash between civilizations.
The September 11 attacks and the war against Islamist terrorism pave the way for
new ideological interpretations among Jihadi scholars, clerics, and groups, and
produce new methods of dealing with the facts in light of Islamic constants. Islamist
groups and Muslim intellectuals that determine this new vision publish fresh studies
and dissertations. Formerly, the general vision and intellectual dissertations by
Islamist groups were limited in scope to their regional problems. For example, the
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