Illuminating Dark Places: Terrorist Radicalisation Narratives

Most literary and cinematic works on terrorism have focused on the victims of violence, or perhaps on their rescuers, but works have begun appearing from the perspective of terrorist perpetrators. They belong to categories such as suicide bomber narratives, hostage-taking narratives, and most significantly, radicalization narratives. These works allow us to “light dark places” (Hany Abu Assad), compel us to look at terrorists from a different perspective, and throw into question the opposition between “we” (never terrorists) and “they” (always terrorists) (Edward Said). This exposé of radicalization processes counters the post-colonial, counter-terrorist attempt to undercut the framework of space and time. In “The Essential Terrorist” Edward Said wrote about counter-terrorist ideology that it attempts “to obliterate history, and indeed temporality itself. For the main thing is to isolate your enemy from time, from causality, from prior action, and thereby to portray him or her as ontologically and gratuitously interested in wreaking havoc for its own sake” (154). But the radicalization narratives supply just those elements: a temporal (historical) framework, an explanation of causality, and a spatial context. Examples represent different genres: prose, films, graphic novels, and they explore socio-political tensions in different countries: Troubled Souls (N. Ireland, graphic novel); My son the Fanatic (Pakistani-British, novel/film); The Hamburg Cell (UK, prequel to 9/11, film); Hey Ram (India, film), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Pakistani-American, novel/film); and Paradise Now (Palestine-Israel, film), and Four Lions (UK, film). Some works pursue the fate of terrorists who renounce terrorism, such as Why I left Jihad (Walid Shoebat); The Islamist: Why I joined radical Islam in Britain (Ed Husain); and Radical: My Journey from Islamist Extremism (Maajid Nawaz). I also hope to be able to discuss the 2012 Algerian film The Repentant (El taaib) as an example of this phenomenon.