Trajectory of religious radicalization

Abstract

 The article discusses the stages of radicalism in Kazakhstan, the external and internal factors that led to terroristic activities within the country’s territory and to the departure of individuals - sometimes entire families - to the combat zones in the Middle East. The author suggests that the universality of contemporarily neo-fundamentalism may be successfully conceptualized in terms of “deterritorialisation” and “deculturation” coined by a French political scientist Olivier Roy. The article also attempts to precise the key problems related to the concept of “radicalization”. Being wildly used in scholarly literature, here it is an umbrella term to describe various means to turn the worldview of an individual or a community to make it extreme, militant and violent. The author argues that there cannot be a single depiction of a radical nor a universal path of radicalization. The trajectory of radicalization is constantly evolving. It is crucial to bear in mind that radicalization is not a process independent of person’s worldview, on the contrary, it is all about socialization of an individual, his/her deliberate drawing into a new worldview. Moreover, the empirical data contained in the article show that the ideas of violence are not propagated. The ideologues of radical organizations preach the values of different nature such as religious education, aid to the coreligionists, building of the brotherhood, idealized life in an ideal society.

Key words: radicalization, neofundamentalism, jihadism, the Islamicisation of radicalism