Islamist terrorism is distinguished by how it integrates performance art; propaganda videos act in part to intimidate the target, and in part to impress the group’s recruitment constituency. Edited tapes made by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from al-Qaeda are well known examples of coupling terrorism with the edited message, broadly distributed over Arab television, to enhance recruitment and to define the direction of Islam. Hamas is notorious for staging videotaped deaths, dragging children’s bodies to be filmed next to those of obliterated terrorists, and recycling carnage from Syria in order stage victimhood and to fan sentiments across the Arab-world and among viscerally anti-Semitic constituencies in Europe. A British jihadist beheaded a soldier, Lee Rigby, in London in broad daylight and walked about brandishing their blood soaked hands with great pride. The barbarity of Islamist terror is more distinctive for perpetrators’ coupling it with hyper-exposed display.
Last week ISIS introduced the filmed beheading of journalist James Foley, staged with his reading from a prepared anti-American diatribe, into widely disseminated social media. This week, we learned that the masked executioner in the video is likely none other than a UK rap musician. Is this surprising? It should not be.
A rapper is not only a practiced and aspiring performer, but one who yearns for street credibility or is otherwise relegated to being one who sings as a wannabee. This rapper in particular sang of his anger and bitterness over the arrest of his father, a jihadist, in Britain. Considering that Britain is heavily monitored by surveillance technology and teeming with jihadists, those who are arrested have impressed authorities as particularly alarming. The rapper implicated in Foley’s execution penned lyrics of how much he desired to kill in the spirit of his father’s way.
Ultimately, the biggest enemy of Islamists is America. Our freedoms threaten every backward objective they wish to institute, our pluralism and free thinking the threat to their submission to the Quran and interpretation by Imams. Beheading an American for young males impressed by violence and those who can defeat America, makes one a veritable rock star. This rapper’s legacy of trying to extend a father’s bonafides with his own is familiar to Dr. Welner’s experiences examining the matter of Omar Khadr. The father’s legacy is a powerful lure to the son, especially if notoriety and esteem compel the son in a patriarchal culture to choose the path of his father.
Read More:
CBC article
National Post
The Forensic Panel Press Release
