From the beginning, Rep. Peter King's proposal to hold a hearing on domestic radicalization was marred by his own record of broad generalizations at the Muslim community. While today's hearings lack the cast of Islamophobic characters Americans were introduced to during the "ground zero mosque" controversy, King's hearing, titled “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response,” involves a question both easy to answer and still too vague to provide much information of use. Here are three ways to approach a hearing on domestic radicalization King might have taken.
Minnesota and al-Shabaab. The Somalian extremist group al-Shabaab has had uncanny success in recruiting American Muslims to fight in East Africa, with at least 20 young Somali-Americans from Minnesota leaving to fight with the group in recent years. A congressional hearing on why their drive was so successful, and on what law-enforcement agencies learned about engaging with the Muslim community, could yield some insight on how to curtail their recruitment in the future.
The process of radicalization. Many law-enforcement agencies have been reliant on a theory of radicalization that often conflates the danger of radicalism with Muslim religiosity. The Brennan Center's Faiza Patel has written a report, Rethinking Radicalization, provides evidence from social scientists and Britain's MI5 that this understanding of how the radicalization process works is outdated and is hampering the government's effort to identify real security threats.
Radicalization over the Internet. As Patel notes in her report, "Contact with other violent extremists is generally necessary in order for people with radical beliefs to embrace violence." In recent years, such as with alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, who e-mailed with radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, that contact has increasingly occurred over the Internet rather than in person. The Senate addressed the issue in 2008, but given the past two years, it's worth addressing again.
These are just potential topics for a hearing on domestic radicalization. Contrary to National Review's contention that these hearings are "overdue," it's more like they're overdone. As Mother Jones points out, there have been almost a thousand hearings on terrorism in the past year, despite the fact that for Americans, dying in a terrorist attack is a rare occurrence. But if we're going to have hearings on domestic radicalization, they should be focused and specific, not simply an opportunity to hold American Muslims collectively responsible for the actions of "between 0.007 to 0.006 percent" of their population.
