The Economist on Muslim Students in the West

The Economist had an interesting article last week on Muslim students studying in the West – “the West” being the UK, US and Canada for this article.   The piece is written in the wake of the attempted bombing of a US airliner on Christmas Day by a Nigerian man who had, until recently, attended university in London.   The would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had served as president of the Islamic Society at University College London.  That fact is the jumping off point for the rest of the article as it seeks to take a reading on the experience that Muslim students have while studying in Western universities.

At almost every British university, there is an [Islamic Society] to which practising Muslim students, seeking soulmates, soon gravitate. The societies’ roles include organising prayer rooms and Friday sermons, and securing halal food. Since it was created in 1962, the leadership of FOSIS (Federation of Student Islamic Societies) has often had some ideological overlap with the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat e-Islami, the Pakistani Islamist party. That does not imply sympathy for al-Qaeda’s campaign of global terror, but it does imply adherence to a version of political Islam.

I am surprised that the article does not cite the work of Marc Sageman, psychiatrist and former CIA officer,  whose analysis of terror networks takes a hard look at Muslim (often students) in the West and the dynamics that might explain a turn toward extremism.   Sageman claims that poverty, mental illness, criminal records or brainwashing have little to do with their attraction to a extremism.  Instead, as New Yorker reporter Raffi Khatchadourian notes, Sageman sees a different psychological profile as key:

Perhaps his most unexpected conclusion was that ideology and political grievances played a minimal role during the initial stages of enlistment. “The only significant finding was that the future terrorists felt isolated, lonely, and emotionally alienated,” Sageman told the September 11th Commission in 2003, during a debriefing about his research. These lost men would congregate at mosques and find others like them. Eventually, they would move into apartments near their mosques and build friendships around their faith and its obligations. He has called his model the “halal theory of terrorism”—since bonds were often formed while sharing halal meals—or the “bunch of guys” theory. The bunch of guys constituted a closed society that provided a sense of meaning that did not exist in the larger world.

The Economist article seems to be drawing heavily on the “bunch of guys” theory without citing it specifically.  This is a theory that has been hotly debated in counter-terrorism circles (for example, see Bruce Hoffman’s rebuttal to Sageman here).  But how important – and useful – is it to university officials who are overseeing the experiences of students at their universities, Muslims and others?  Probably not so much unless one is to cherry pick a few notorious cases like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.  But we should reflect on the experiences of Muslim students on our campuses and seek to avoid cases in which students become isolated and cut off from the positive aspects of a university education and experience.

A few thoughts come to mind:

• Young students show up at university and feel homesick and overwhelmed and seek a comfort zone with those who have something in common with them.  Nothing unusual there. In fact, I recently attended an all-day session on diversity and higher education and there was a healthy exchange on what we should think about students self-segregating after they arrive on campus. Sure, a campus might boast impressive diversity numbers (however one might define diversity) but what if the students don’t spend much time with a diversity of students on campus? Is the campus truly diverse? And does the self-segregation exacerbate the perception of differences among groups? Does that make Sageman’s bunch of guys more likely to turn to violence?  I suspect that students from the Middle East studying in Europe have a much different experience than they might in the US.  In the US, students are more likely to live on a campus and have support services to help them acclimate.  In Europe, where many domestic students still live at home, the international students are more likely to be isolated in apartments.  That is different in the UK but still not as much of a campus-community as in the US.  But even on US campuses it is possible to get isolated and live an existence that is bounded by self-segregating.
• The Economist article does not make a distinction between Muslims who are international students and those who are studying domestically and just happen to be Muslim. Any first year student can feel homesick and overwhelmed, but that sense of isolation is even more acute for international students who are managing their way through a new culture and a new university experience at the same time.
• Many Muslims in the West, students and others, are feeling under siege.  Is it any wonder that Muslim students might then seek to build a comfort zone?
• I think we in US higher education need to be careful in assuming that if we can just get international students to study in the US then they will understand and like Americans – that proximity will engender understanding and affection.  That assumption is premised on the notion that people in other countries dislike Americans because of their “way of life” or misconceptions thereof.    That is not always the case. More often than not, those who harbor intensely negative feelings about the US do so because of deep disagreements over specific foreign policy issues that affect their home countries.  One might disagree with them and certainly their tactics if they turn to violence, but it is a mistake to think that they will magically change their opinions on policy by studying in Ann Arbor and eating macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria with Americans.  What we can hope for, and work toward, is having international students from the Muslim world gain a broader understanding of the complexities of American society and nuances of the context in which policies are formulated.  (That is also a good reason, by the way, for American students to study abroad.)

US universities – and others – devote considerable resources to supporting international students and there are people who work night and day doing so.  We have to continue to craft academic and campus life programs that offer as much support as possible.  I have written previously about my concern when American students study abroad and live, study and travel only with other Americans.  It is is a limiting experience and offers little of the value that an international experience can and should offer – i.e., interacting and developing relationships with people from other countries.  The same is true for international students studying in the US (or Canada, Europe, Australia, or others).  It is not a good idea to foster programs that encourage students to hunker down with only other students from their home country, religion, etc. For the reasons I mention above, a certain amount of that will happen with any students, but without programs that seek to have students live and study with a true mix of students then a great opportunity is lost and, in some cases, a few might turn to a “bunch of guys.”