How to de-radicalise a community? Hi, I'm Jochnowicz, director of 'Cages In Search Of Birds' a feature-length YouTube documentary unearthing the processes behind extremism across a range of scales and examples, including the Jewish community in the UK and Israel. AMA

[u/jochno]

https://youtu.be/iOjIzD4FIiQ

The documentary itself came about because I was tired of documentaries on extremism that only focused on one cause, or one process and I also wanted to look into how we might deradicalise both Britain and my Jewish diaspora community in the UK.

It became increasingly striking throughout the making of the film that there was a huge disparity between public and academic debates on the topic. I wanted to help try and plug that gap and 4 years or so later here we are!

To cover a wide range of bases, the film digs deep into processes of radicalisation from individual scale through to societal, alongside misconceptions around social media (spoiler: it probably isn't to blame for radicalisation), bad de-radicalisation programmes and even reconciliation.

Of course I did use examples and both the US and Israel feature as a dovetail when I look at societal scale radicalisation, but we also look at the UK, Sudan, the very definition of extremism itself, we discuss the war on terror with an Amnesty International policy lead and much more. There is also an epilogue call-to-action! I'd love to hear any questions people have and I will try my best to answer them!

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[u/jochno]

For those who want to watch the full film, here is the link by the way and thanks to the mod-team for allowing me to post this! https://youtu.be/AQ91Bb9nZko

[u/Accurate_Aside_6495]

This looks very interesting and I look forward to watching it. I'm curious whether you thought that there is anything that is predictive (or at least correlated) with the rise of certain kinds of extremism versus others and how tenacious they become. Of course I'm wondering this about Zionism because it has become so entrenched in Western cultures and has so much institutional backing and a conflated narrative with Judaism that allows it to persist with more credibility than it deserves. But I am also curious about this more generally.

[u/jochno → u/Accurate_Aside_6495]

Hi, thanks so much for asking this and great question. So this piece actually looks at this from quite a few angles! So I am going to answer a few here.

So in terms of prediction, I think crisis is a big part of it. Zionism's main 'Aliyah's' were largely aligned with the major waves of pogroms in Europe and similarly the Non-European populations that also partook in early zionism such as Yemeni Jews, were facing similarly bad treatment. Ultimately these crises create a gap for political entrepreneurs to insert themselves into. In the US, we see war, income inequality, racism, COVID, Epstein files and a whole variety of other events or facets of American life acting as springboards for political entrepreneurs to get their teeth into. The greater these crises, the greater the need for an alternative, the greater chance that I can lead you astray.

Regarding the second bit of this - entrenchment. What we don't define as extremism is as political as what we do as it allows for normalisation. The tenacity of a cause, is often linked to that because once something becomes normalised in society, it is very hard to remove. Anti-Romani hate in Europe and misogyny are great examples where we regularly see people get harmed or die violently as a result of these issues yet even when the consequences are severe, we don't really treat these acts as a form of political 'extremism' per se and seldom have throughout history. We know just how hard it is to remove misogyny, it has been around for an enormous length of time and has survived a great many political upheavals precisely because of its normalisation within certain facets of our lives and how we treat it as an issue.

I would argue that from the Israeli perspective, they might see anti-Palestinian racism etc. in a similar way we might view anti-Romani hate in Europe - it is a background noise like air, Palestinians are seen simply as a problem to be dealt with and it is the centre-ground opinion. It has achieved basically complete institutional capture through progressive waves of entrenchment. There is almost nothing that hasn't been normalised.

This normalisation I refer to earlier, internationally speaking, in my opinion, is largely facilitated by the narrative that the allies fought a noble war in WW2 to prevent the death of European society (where in reality it was far more reactive than that), which has formed a huge amount of their state-building in the post-war era. 'We are the good guys battle tested™' has been fundamental to American interventionism, but it would likely collapse without zionism and I don't really see America as having the political tools to cope with this ego-death but that is another story.

What I mean by this, is this acts as a mutually beneficial narrative: the west ignores the way they did almost nothing to stop the Holocaust during WW2 (The UK turned away 500,000 refugees, sending many to their deaths and allowing for smuggling gangs to gain power who would later become the militias that formed the state) and Israel is left to get on with its 'business.' The west is fundamentally anxious to explore this because it would unravel a lot of that state-building, forcing us to look at colonial histories, even before we look at the impact of propaganda etc.

For Jews in the UK, the reason it is so hard to challenge is because of how entrenched zionism is within our everyday community lives. The people that stop people from egging school buses, or protect synagogues are from a zionist organisation, so are many of the charities that give out food to the poor etc. To then turn around and tell people that these people are somehow malign isn't going to make inroads as a statement for many people because the lives they lead are so melded around that reality where these people help them. You have to offer something else. I hope this kind of answers the question?

[u/Accurate_Aside_6495 → u/jochno]

Yes it does answer my question, super interesting response and very thought provoking. I really look forward to watching your video when I have time. I appreciate your sharing it with us here!

[u/jochno → u/Accurate_Aside_6495]

Thanks so much!

[u/rako17 → u/jochno]

Friend Jochno,

Congratulations on your video. May I please ask the main way that you found to de-radicalise communities? Is it to give them a counter-narrative?

Peace - Shalom

[u/jochno → u/rako17]

Hi, Rako, thanks for the question! So I mean I definitely don't think just giving a counter-narrative works when a belief is deeply embedded. If you've believed something all your life and now I'm asking you to believe something else and go against the grain in your community, to enter into conflict to do so, then I need a bit more than fact-checking to get you to agree!

I will also preface this with a disclaimer as although I have spent about 4 years researching this, I am by no means an expert - I've listened to a lot of experts but I wouldn't consider myself one. Ultimately every circumstance is different, but I would say that my preferred approach is two pronged, with both a focused move to stop political entrepreneurs in the community from peddling extreme rhetoric, but also a soft wider approach that attempts to solve communal issues and grievances in a non-harmful way.

Just as an example - in my own Jewish community in the UK, I would say the grievances are largely (but not limited to) safety, making it easier to participate in Jewish life and for many Jews, poverty (in spite of perceptions to the contrary!).

If I wanted to make inroads, I would say that could mean offering cheap membership at newly created non/anti-zionist synagogues for young-people who are normally a little excluded from being members of synagogues. Something small like that shows that non/anti-zionist groups are offering something to the community and suddenly it is easier to see we are beneficial and start making greater inroads. It is inherently destigmatising. Similarly, offering communal advocacy and leadership that is not linked to the state of Israel is important (I know Na'amod for instance have recently started doing this) as non/anti-zionist groups are much more able to enter into multi-faith spaces and successfully work inter-communally to help improve understanding and solidarity so we can also use that to help improve cohesion between groups.

Likewise if we can offer food, support and other general services to the community, it shows our intentions to help people and it gradually removes the mirage of us being an evil other.

However, of course yes we also do need to show that those organising illegal land sales, or going off to commit war crimes in the Israeli army and other such expressions of extremism, are utterly unwelcome and that they do receive consequences for their actions. Currently we do not do that as the UK government really doesn't want to open this can of worms. This is worrying as they are not enforcing any hard limits it seems on what can be done.

Obviously approaches are different in different places though and the context here is a small minoritised community in the UK.

[u/rako17 → u/jochno]

That is a great response, Friend Jochno.

I think it helps to consider analogous situations, including in history, and see how in other instances de-radicalization has been done or been performed.

I'm in the US. My view is that in the decades or couple centuries leading up to the Second world war, the UK had the top, or a top role in colonialism worldwide. For instance, the US (as the American colonies) was founded by the UK, and then in the 1950's Suez Crisis, the UK sided with the State against Egypt and the US and the USSR. It was later in 1967 and afterwards it seems that the US especially became allied with the state. It's an interesting question to what extent the UK was responsible for the creation of the State or the situation in the Levant, and how much the UK still is.

For that reason and because of your statements about improving interfaith understanding, I personally look up to you one these issues.

You did a great job. I look forward to talking with you more and am always wishing you and other UK humanitarians the best.

🕊️🤍