THE recent announcement [1] of two radicalised youths being caught under the Internal Security Act (ISA) should raise new concerns.

 

Firstly, this is the first case of a female youth being radicalised. She wanted to marry an ISIS fighter and was willing to fight in Syria. While we know this phenomenon exists elsewhere due to ISIS propaganda, it has finally appeared on our shores. 

 

Secondly, while the case of the 17-year-old far right extremist is not the first in Singapore, the plot the boy hatched was too chilling – attempting to procure a gun, targeting 5 mosques, and with a goal to kill at least 100 Muslims. This is the fourth case of far right extremism driven by racial supremacist ideas and anti-Muslim sentiments.

 

We already know that youth radicalisation is a growing concern. Since 2015, 17 youths aged 20 and below have been dealt under the Internal Security Act, the youngest being 14 years old.

 

We also have a greater awareness of the nature of the radicalisation process that primarily took place online.

 

What we need to be concerned now is the existence of “reciprocal radicalisation” [2] where extremist groups fuel each other’s rhetoric and actions, leading to violent escalation.

 

For example, we saw how extremist rhetoric among Islamists often mirrors that of extremist rhetoric among Islamophobes, and vice-versa. 

 

At its core, both are supremacist in outlook, segregationist in practice, and have a binary worldview rooted in an “us versus them” mental frame. 

 

Often, their rhetoric comes with a siege mentality and a conspiratorial outlook. 

 

Like the extreme ends of a horse shoes which come close but do not touch, Islamists and Islamophobes come close to resembling each other in attitudes and behaviours even though their underlying ideologies are at the opposing end of the spectrum. In other words, their ideologies oppose each other but their actions resemble the other. Observably, both are purveyors of hate, predisposed to violence and are resolutely anti-dialogue. 

 

In the latest case of the 17-year-old boy issued with Detention Order (DO), he had “pre-existing racist views against Malays”, which “led him to develop an aversion towards Islam and Malays/Muslims”, said the Ministry of Home Affairs [3].

 

These two aspects should concern us because racism is a reality [4] in Singapore and the acute problem of extremism in troubled Muslim societies elsewhere may reinforce stereotypical views of Malay Muslims here. For example, we have heard comments that typecast Malays/Muslims as “troublemakers”, are a “problematic community” and more recently, equating the many Malays who are sympathetic to Palestine with Singapore having a “mass radicalisation problem”.

 

Rhetoric that typecast a community is the beginning of polarisation. It puts the community on the defensive, and in response, will typecast the other in a similar fashion: “they” are always out to get “us”. The insecurity will fuel the need to shore up one’s identity in an oppositional manner – “we” must defend ourselves from “them”. Such polarisation can eventually lead to violence.

 

Understanding reciprocal radicalisation is critical now. Our society must not be torn apart by polarisation. It’s a vicious cycle: Islamophobia strengthens Islamist extremism which in turn fuels more Islamophobic ideas.

 

That is why dialogue across racial and religious differences are important. Ultimately, we must not allow racist stereotypes to persist and we must not typecast a community in negative terms. 

 

We hope the announcements of Restriction Orders and Detention Orders do not lead to us to viewing one or the other community as a problem.

 

Rather, we should see this as a common concern across the racial and religious communities and develop intervention strategies together than can help our youths make better sense of the world and be a positive force for our collective future.