Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Home, Land, Security with Carla Power

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

On today’s episode of Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, journalist Carla Power talks with Sharon about radicalism. Her book, Home, Land, Security, seeks to define and clarify extremism; having radical ideas does not necessarily make a person a resort to political violence. So what, then, does? What are the roads that lead people into committing radically extreme acts, and what are the roads that lead them back out from a state of violence? What does it take to de-radicalize people inside terrorist groups? Special thanks to our guest, Carla Power, for joining us today. You can order Home, Land, Security here. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Guest: Carla Power Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. So happy that you're with me today. My guest is Carla Power, who has written a book called Homeland Security. And she takes an absolutely fascinating journey into what it takes to de-radicalize somebody. And she goes overseas studying the most radical of the radical terrorist groups, but there's a lot to learn about the techniques that can help bring somebody back from the brink. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. I am so excited to be chatting today with Carla Power, who has written a book that I found absolutely fascinating. And so much of your research, I think people are going to be very, very interested to hear from you on. So thank you for doing this. Thanks for being here, Carla. Oh, it's great to be here. So your book, Homeland Security, is about a topic that I think people the world over are curious about and are

also concerned about, which is this sort of topic about radicalization. And first of all, how did you become interested in this topic? I would love to know more about like, where did your desire to study and learn about radicalization and de-radicalization even come from? So I've written as a journalist and an author about Islamic societies for a long time. And my first book was about reading the Quran with a very conservative scholar. And the idea behind it was I really wanted to understand somebody's worldview who was probably going to be very different from my own. And I was on the book tour for that book.

And all this time I'd written about Islam and Islamic societies for about 20 years as a journalist. And this was in after 9-11. And I really felt it was very important to try in places like Newsweek, where I initially started, and then at Time, to really try to broaden mainstream American perceptions of Islam. Obviously, after 9-11, everybody reduced it to terrorism. And so throughout, I would write stories about Muslim punk bands or Muslim halal food or just really trying to broaden the conversation. And then somebody on this book tour said to me, why is it that people who want to write sensitively about Islam sort of leave the field to the extremists on both sides? So the people who are defining it end up being either very, very strident jihadi Muslims or Islamophobes.

She's like, why do you leave the field? And that suddenly occurred to me, oh my goodness, by this kind of unwillingness to look at this phenomenon. I was like the kid who was like, okay, I'm not going to look and there won't be any monsters under the bed. And so the idea was I wanted to humanize. I wanted to think about these are not monsters. Let's go, if possible, and talk to the people who are thinking about being able to change. And I wanted to try to deconstruct that

and look at what are the roads leading people into radical groups? And sometimes what are the roads that lead them out of it? So interesting because, I mean, of course, if there was a magic bullet, if you could just be like, if we use this tactic, this medication, attend this program, do this thing, then the problem will be fixed. If that existed, we wouldn't need to have people studying this and it wouldn't be such a tremendous effort to try to de-radicalize somebody. So the efforts are not simple, clearly. And you write about many of the different efforts that are happening around the world in this pursuit of de-radicalization. But I would love your perspective on this. Is radicalization, not just Islamic

radicalization, but is radicalization of a variety of types, is it on the increase around the world? From your perspective, is it decreasing? Where is the world as we speak today in 2023? I wouldn't want to speak for the world. I can say that the personal impetus for starting to write this book in 2016 was I found myself feeling radicalized. I would wake up and stare at the ceiling in a cold sweat and think, where is my country going sort of thing? Why does polarization seem to be so great? Why do we have fewer and fewer friends from opposite political parties? Why do we live more separately? And I could feel this kind of sense of the poison of intolerance kind of coursing through myself. I think, yes, it is safe to say that we live in a globally polarized time. And there are a number

of authoritarian governments around the world that are stoking this kind of discourse along with all the other factors, whether it's algorithms, whether it's small groups. So I would say, yes, we are living in an increasingly radicalized time. That said, I also think there are a lot of causes for hope at local levels. I would love to know, I mean, this is one of the questions you wrestle with in your book. There is not one simple answer to this, and you even say this in your book. It's not a simple answer, not a thing where we can point to one event, but what are some of the factors that you found that caused someone to become radicalized? And what even is it?

When we're talking about radicalization, what exactly are we talking about here? Because we might say, you know, like, well, Martin Luther King was a radical. We might talk about, in many ways, this pursuit of nonviolence. That's a radical idea. What exactly are we discussing when we're talking about radicalization? That is such a great question and sadly not one with an easy answer. It goes back to one government's militant is another government's freedom fighter. Right. And there is a constantly shifting notion of what is radical and what isn't.

The notion of what a terrorist is, is very dynamic. I always love to point out that we were supporting Osama bin Laden at the same time that Nelson Mandela was in prison as a terrorist. So it's a very fluid thing. so it's a very fluid thing there's a great quote from a british member of parliament who said sooner or later her majesty's government will have yesterday's terrorist in to have tea at the dorchester hotel so i think there are as many explanations of that and I also think we should remember that radicalism can be a sap for life and change and a pursuit of freedom and justice. Our country was founded on people who thought of themselves as radicals and made no bones about it, trying to get away from the King of England. But I do think that we've got to be very careful about separating the notion of radicalism from the King of England. But I do think that we've got to be very careful about separating the notion

of radicalism from the notion of political violence or militancy. When there's violence involved or breaking of the law, there's also state-sponsored militancy. So it gets very, very complicated and depends on which angle you're looking at. Yeah. If you are a person who lives in Iran right now, and you are a woman who is choosing to go out of her home without hijab, that might be viewed by the government as a radical act and against the law. But if you are coming at it from the opposite perspective, the people who are trying to control your every move, the people who are trying to restrict your freedom so dramatically,

they might be viewed as the radical from your perspective. So I think it's an important point that what defines radical depends on from which angle you are looking. And radical ideas do not necessarily mean violence. And this is one of the points that you make in the book too, that having radical ideas does not mean you will become a violent extremist. Exactly. Not all violent extremists necessarily have radical ideas and not all radicals necessarily indulge in violent extremism. There's a long spectrum. I think one of the impetuses for Homeland Security was to step back. For so many years, we've talked about terrorism and violent extremism in terms of the violence, in terms of the explosion. explosion, obviously after 9-11, it's very understandable that a lot of people, all they could think about was the falling twin towers. What I wanted to do was to sort of telescope that

back and to think about it over a much longer period of time, what brings people into these groups or to do these acts, and then can they change? Will they change? If so, what are the mechanisms that people are using to bring them out of this state of violence? Yeah. You say in the book to write about Nazis, you can't start at the gas chamber door, but you have to start farther back so as to see the paths that lead to it. And you say to avoid evil acts in the future, we need to complicate our understanding of the forces that help drive people to commit them. So I can see exactly the path you're trying to trace in the book. It's not just a, it's not a recounting of like, well, violent extremists did

the following 25 terrible things. That's well-documented. That's the aspect of the story that is already very well told. But what leads people to get to that point, to the proverbial gas chamber door, are the questions that you were trying to wrestle with. And even, I mean, I even wanted to chip away and question the notion of evil, question the notion of people who are at the is it falls into the hands of the terrorists because the news media has a story in the horrific spectacle and the horrific news moment. And what's much, much harder and longer and sometimes duller is to try to chip away

at the notion of a monster and also to see all of our own culpability in producing it, to step back in time, not only for the individual, but in time for, you know, what are the forces, the geopolitical forces that have produced various terrorist acts. So I mean, it's really funny, you asked about what brings people to it. And I always love to think of the the UN counter extremism program came up with a list of push factors that would push someone into violent extremism and a list of pull factors that would pull them in. And the push

factors can be anything from corruption to feeling marginalized, to feeling angry at government, to poverty. There are as many roads into militancy as there are militants often. And that has to make it even more difficult to try to de-radicalize people, because it is not a simple path of if you grow up, and the following two things happen in your life, you know, like if we could just account for those two things, or if we could say all people who are violent extremists have the following things in common, it would be easier to figure out how to combat it. Exactly. I mean, the old saw about all politics being local. I think the same extends to militancy. I mean, I'm old enough to have remembered, you know, I was out in Pakistan in the late 90s. And everybody was like, okay, okay, these kids

are joining jihadi groups, because they're poor. They're all poor, which was true. And then along comes Osama bin Laden, who's a billionaire, who obviously wasn't in it for the money. And then we think, okay, it's all about youthful hijinks. And then we look at the list of folks who are indicted for January 6th, and you've got doctors and lawyers. And so there goes that theory, which is why some of the programs in terms of de-radicalization that I was most impressed with are the ones that are really long, really one-on-one, really expensive. I saw programs where they were willing to sink literally years and years and years and thousands and thousands and thousands and for very different reasons. But there were programs where people were literally given a one-on-one mentor who hung around for

years and years and years and spent endless amounts of time with them. And those, in some cases, were very successful. You're absolutely right. Because there are so many paths into radicalization, the paths out of radicalization have to be personalized. You can't institutionalize these paths out of radicalization by and large. And that's one of the things that I was struck by in your book is how personal the paths have to be and how relationship oriented the paths are. And it seems easier when reading your book, which is so interesting. It seems I can, you know, like at reading it and seeing what a significant investment it requires both from a manpower perspective of like these one-on-one relationships that have to be developed with both from a manpower perspective of like these one on one relationships that have to be developed with people from a cost perspective, etc. I can

see how some people would think, just put them all in Guantanamo Bay. The American perspective for hundreds of years, our perspective has been to imprison people, not just when it comes to political violence, but that the United States, of course, is very well known around the world for its prison population and for our rates of violent crime and things of that nature. So I can absolutely understand the knee-jerk American response is to like, get these guys out of here. Get them out of here. You know, like that is the American perspective of like, once a terrorist, always a terrorist. You're beyond hope. Remove you from society, nothing can be done, goodbye forever. And the other thing, Americans tend to view political extremists, violent extremists,

radicals, so to speak, as other. They're not one of us. They're one of those people. Oh, they're one of those people. Oh, they're one of those people. And we tend to view Nazis or jihadis or other groups around the world as those people. They're not one of us. They're one of those people. Whereas the perspective in places like you're encountering in places like Indonesia, Germany, et cetera, they are one of us. Exactly. And they are one of us who has sort of gotten off the straight and narrow as wandering over here in this field. And we need to get them back on the right path.

And so it is, I can totally see exactly what you're saying, this very different viewpoint on how somebody needs to be reintegrated into society. Americans, by and large, don't want to reintegrate people into society. Yeah, which always strikes me as so bizarre given I think we're so forgiving on so many things. I mean, we are the land of the 12-step program. We are the land of the reboot of the serial franchise of the Hollywood comeback. the serial franchise of the Hollywood comeback. In so many ways, we as a nation, I think,

really invest in people's ability to have a second act and to change and to grow. It strikes me as really interesting that there seems to be this blind spot about rehabilitation of these groups that have been deemed beyond the pale. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends.

And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests, and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments.

So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. You mentioned in the book, and I was like, oh, that is true. I had not thought of that before. And I think maybe this relates to some of what you're saying right now, which is that violent acts that are tied to an ideology, it magnifies the horror of the violence. And you give this example of like a group of guys beats up a woman on the street.

That's a terrible, you know, like that's a horrible thing. But if a group of Proud Boys beat up a woman on the street, it magnifies what happened significantly. quantifies what happened significantly. So when there is an ideological reason for an act of violence, our perception of how bad it is, is dramatically enhanced. Why is that? I'm curious why that is, because I think it's true. I think it's true. I think acts of violence that are politically motivated, they tear at the fabric of our beliefs, as well as causing literal tearing of the fabric of people are inflicting this violence is profoundly, obviously, it's profoundly disturbing. But the thing I would say, and one of the ways that I really felt that this whole idea of the violent extremists got chipped away the further I looked was that at least for the followers, the ideology isn't necessarily that important. I think to almost glamorize or create this corporate notion of these groups,

because there are people who join because their girlfriend broke up with them because they can't find a job. This was very human needs. And that's where recruiters for many of these militant groups of all types, they rush in when they see a vacuum, either on a personal level or sometimes in terms of whole countries or regions on a societal level. Often people go for whatever reason and then discover the ideology and then it gets sort of baked into them. But I really think we overplay this idea of ideology. And it's still, you know, I talked to de-radicalization academics and they throw up their hands and say, we still don't know how important this is. What you're saying is the exact same thing that was happening in the 19-teens, 1920s with the second rise of the KKK. That is exactly what they did, was roll into a community,

Exactly what they did was roll into a community, see where are the deficits? Where are the pain points? What is this community concerned about? How can we address that? And they did things like build children's hospitals and like, oh, these kids don't have any Christmas gifts. Let's dress up and play Santa and give out the gifts. And it's the exact same thing that you were saying, that they recruited millions of Americans during this time period.

Not millions of hardened ideologues. Not millions of people who were like, oh, I just hate all the Catholics. I hate them so much. I just have a fire in my belly. No, ordinary people who saw benefit to joining, who were like, this group is doing positive things in my community. This group has something to offer me. And then, yes, sometimes by becoming involved in the group, they became more hardened ideologues. And it was the people at the top, by and large, who had these horribly radical ideas. But the average people who were in it were just like, I work at a bank. I'm a teacher. I'm a judge. I'm a police officer. They were normal people. And you bring this up in the book too, that normal Nazis were not hardened ideologues. They were average people. And I think that's the other thing.

I mean, it's so funny. I realized even as somebody who's very invested in thinking about the Islamic societies and their complexities, when someone says Hamas, I immediately think violent extremism. But if you go and talk to a Palestinian mother, to her, it might mean a school that she can afford to send her kid to, it might mean a food bank. And exactly what you were saying about the KKK, and they threw picnics, and the Black Panthers had breakfast for kids. I think that when you see the state or society at large, when you see these gaps and people need whatever it is, whether it's brotherhood, a sense of purpose, friends, or a school breakfast, often groups whose militancy is often stressed have all these other wings. And it's really

important to understand that and to break it down. Because otherwise, we're going to be thinking about the militancy if the militancy is indeed there and not about why perfectly ordinary people are joining them. What's in it for them? One of the experts you were talking to in this book talked about how radicalization requires a narrowing worldview based on intolerance and a depluralization of political values and ideals. And I think that is one of the underlying causes of some of the increased polarization that we see around the world. This narrowing worldview based on intolerance and a depluralization and this idea that like we can't coexist, that it's not possible for you to have a good idea and for me to have

a good idea, that it's one or the other of us. It's either your ideas are good or my ideas are good, and we're going to have to duke it out because one of us has to lose. Do you agree with my assessment of that, that that is sort of the underpinning of a lot of the polarization we're seeing in the world today? I do. It was Daniel Kohler, who was a very important de-radicalization expert, a German who had started off working with neo-Nazis and then worked with jihadis. And he talks about this narrowing worldview.

And I think everyone, whether it was COVID, whether it's algorithms, whether it's gated communities and the shrinking of public space where people can mingle and see people who might be different from themselves, falling church attendance. There are all sorts of ways that Americans and other societies grew connective tissues in the past, grew the notion of a society being made up of people unlike ourselves and being willing to listen. I think we've got to look at a 360 notion of how we've all become so atomized.

I love that you said that fear is squelching hope and we have to replace it again. And behind all of this fear is this idea of toxic mutual suspicions. And if we want to have hope, we want to regrow that connective tissue, that fear has to be replaced, right? We can't just be like, oh, fear is bad. Stop being afraid. It needs to be replaced with something, right? If we could just tell people to stop being afraid and to start being nice to people, like be nice to your neighbors and stop being afraid of them. That would be great, but that's not how that works. How do we do that? I know that this is a very complicated topic. How do we begin to replace? It's not a simple task. This is not a quick task, but how do we, just as a normal, ordinary person who's like,

listen, I got kids. I want a better world for them. I want to make sure my kids don't grow up to be radical, violent extremists. I want to form more connective tissue in my own community. How do we begin to replace fear with hope? I mean, I think you look around our country and people are trying to do this, I think, in very local ways. I think investing in local affairs, local networks, I'm thinking like a de-radicalizer now. I mean, one of the things that de-radicalizer is like, you got to break up their social networks. You got to mix.

I think local officials have to think about trying to get people onto some sort of neutral ground, even if it's as silly as a baseball game or a picnic. It's everybody from teachers to local town planners, to people just trying to find ways to get off their computers and start talking to each other in less heated spaces. But as you can see, that answer sounded so kumbaya, I recognize. But I do think it has to be a whole society approach and it's going to take a lot of time and patience. It is a hard question. And of course, this is what makes this such a

challenging topic, but I love the point that you're making that it takes all of us. We cannot sit around waiting for someone else to do it. There isn't somebody who is waiting in the wings with the cavalry of white horses to swoop in and fix it. If we're waiting for that group, they're not ever coming. They're not ever coming. And they're not ever coming, particularly in the United States, where we value freedom of speech, freedom of religion. It's a lot easier. You know, I mean, other cultures can mandate certain mixing.

I mean, we value forms of individualism and that makes it really, really hard. I mean, it's one of the reasons that in the early days after 9-11, that there couldn't be de-radicalization programs because we believe in freedom of religion. And so the idea of a government mandated program where they teach people the right way to be citizens really rankles and that's not our constitution. So it will take everybody, it really will. And oddly, I don't know why I'm hopeful, but I am. But it's because it takes all of us.

It speaks to these larger themes that you see throughout the book, that we need that connective tissue. We need to value pluralism. We cannot allow ourselves to be engaged in a narrowing worldview based on intolerance. And we cannot otherize people to the point of exclusion because that is one of the fertile grounds in which radicalism grows. Taking ownership or responsibility or unfolding somebody into a community and being like, this one's ours, that makes a difference. When they get pushed out of society is often when things start to go awry.

And so this idea that we need this connective tissue with each other and that de-radicalization happens when there are relationships that are built and maintained over long periods of time. And our current notion of just cut everybody out of your life or imprison all of those people, that those viewpoints of lock them all up, cut them all out, pretend they don't exist, live in an echo chamber, only hear information you would like to hear, that is actually contributing to this problem. Well said. And if we want the problem to go away, we need to do the opposite of that. Exactly. Exactly. I think of stories from like Homer's Odyssey to Hollywood movies, where the story ends when the guy comes home. That's the end. And then the credits roll and says the end. And to me, the way we have to think about it is that's not the end. And then the credits roll and it says the end. And to me, the way we have to think

about it is that's not the end. Say your local violent extremist has been imprisoned and then comes home. The real work starts and the really successful de-radicalization programs know that they have to work as hard with the community that the former extremist is coming home to, that it's a two-way street. The community has to go on a journey of learning and acceptance and monitoring sometimes, but that it really is, it's not just about the person who has temporarily been called the other, but it's about people being thoughtful about building communities and about welcoming in former strangers

or former offenders in this case. I saw a doctor recently talk about how we now know so much about how much our relationships impact our health and how at a doctor's office, they'll ask you about like, how often do you drink? How do you smoke? How much are you exercising? What kind of food do you eat?

They ask you all of these things that are intended to gauge your overall healthy lifestyle. And he was saying, we need to be asking people, in addition to those questions, how often are you socializing? How often are you meeting your friends? How often are you getting out of the house and making a new friend? How often are you attending a community event? How often are you attending a house of worship if you have a faith background or a play or a poetry reading or whatever it is that that is just as important to your personal health? And I would argue just as important to our communities as how much are you smoking or how many vegetables are you eating? I could not agree more.

more. And it's so funny you say that because one of the first mothers I interviewed whose son had gone over to Syria and died there. And I was like, if you were queen of the world, how would you design to prevent other mothers grieving the same way you are to prevent other sons from joining this horrible militant group? And she said, we need more youth centers. We need more Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. We're cutting away at all these places for people to mix and mingle and do things and form relationships. And I remember thinking, that's it? That's like, I've heard the same- The Boy Scouts? Exactly. The Boy Scouts? Exactly. The Boy Scouts?

I mean, or, you know, I'm just like, I've heard this from like people who talking about drugs policy. And I'm like, really? That's how we're going to fight terrorism? And a couple of years later, I was like, she's not wrong. She's not wrong. And we all have to be part of the solution to just underscore this idea of like, there is no them. There is only us. Well said. And we cannot wait for somebody else to fix it. We have to

model those types of behaviors for our own children. We have to model what it looks like to have friends and socialize and go out and do things, be part of the community and do important work in the community, not just within your own family. To model what that looks like. We can't just tell our kids, you need to go to Boy Scouts. If that worked, then great. But they have to see us doing those things. And that's how they grow to value those things. And that is how we form that connective tissue in society. That's so important. Carla, thank you. It was such a pleasure. It was such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. I love chatting with you. I feel like we could talk about this issue for a long time. I really

enjoyed reading Homeland Security, and it gave me new ways of thinking about this topic. Just so much of your research broadened my horizons in thinking about this topic of radicalization. I'm really grateful both for your work and also for your time today. Thank you for having me. It's been a delight. And you put the main themes of the book so beautifully. So I really appreciate it. Thanks, Carla. Thank you. You can buy Carla Powers' book, Homeland Security, wherever you buy your books. This show is researched and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon.

Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And if you enjoyed this episode, would you consider leaving us a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform? That helps us so much. And we always love to see your shares and tags on social media. We'll see you again soon.