Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online Volume 1, Issue 1 | Page 52

2/2/2016

Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online

Brixton in the UK to provide a positive analysis of engagement. He argues that “paradoxically, one of the most effective groups from the small list
of Muslim Londoners identified [by the police] as having a track record of confronting al-Qaeda propagandists were themselves as vilified
dangerous extremists” (p. 88). He identifies work with young Salafi men in helping to wean people from terrorist propaganda. The police injected
money and resources in supporting football, boxing and encouraging Salafi outreach. The author seems to think that the Salafi movement is often
derided as a Wahhabi extremist movement, whereas it is similar to mainstream Catholicism. “A correct Salafi interpretation that exposes the paucity
of religious understanding in al-Qaeda’s propaganda” (p. 101). The solution that Lambert proposes in engaging extremists is to employ members of
local Muslim communities “with the needed street skills to counter al-Qaida” (p. 100). This is an interesting theory, but it ignores one problem. One
way that Salafis were able to “counter” al-Qaida was by outflanking radical preachers on the right, by showing that one could be extreme and also
peaceful. However Salafism embraces numerous ideologies that are antithetical to the progressive liberal state. When a state works with a
movement that preaches peace but also discrimination and anti-liberal values, then it becomes problematic. It needlessly entangles the state in
supporting “a correct interpretation” of religion, which is a problem in a secular system.
In Chapter 5, Stacie Pettyjohn proposes a theory for understanding when the U.S. will engage with nationalist terrorist organizations. She argues
that the U.S. was able to work with the Irish Sinn Fein and the African National Congress because America was not deeply opposed to the groups,
and therefore did not force the groups to modify their goals. However the U.S. “stipulated that the PLO and Hamas must limit their aims before it
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