I agree with your assessment. "Cultural" choice may present, but cannot be the deep cause of social strife, which is driven by hopeless poverty.

I think what you're referring to as the current polisci wisdom is more like a backlash in policy circles to the sociological/Marxian "alienated poor youth newly arrived to the city" approach to Islamism that was dominant through the 80s and 90s. It's very well established today that social movements are likely to be led by more educated and less desperately poor people while drawing on dissatisfaction and relative deprivation, with lots of political opportunity structure and ideological variables in between, not to mention that there's middle-class Islamism and popular Islamism and all sorts of variants. But of course the sound-byte explanation seekers among policy types will keep busy going back and forth between "it's the poverty" and "no, it's the ideology" till kingdom come.

Ah, yes, well my fault for basing my op on the blog world in The Great Provincial Empire.

My observation, which is a prelude to my long-overdue and incomplete post on Maghreb spillover and drivers for the problem is the Poli Sci 'wisdom' re poverty and economic frustration not being drivers for Islamist neo-Salafi terror is bollocks. Some portion of course is purely ideological and would exist without any economic-situ driven radicalisation, but it is clear to me up close that a significant and important portion is driven by economic factors, and socio-economic frustration. That some radicals, espeically leaders come from more wealthy backgrounds says nothing about causation, any more than the presence of wealthy Left radicals in the 19th and early 20th centuries disproved a general observation of radicalisation being driven by economic issues in that period, in Europe, etc.

Agree completely with this (at least if SP's observation is included). It annoys me to no end when people point to bin Ladin's wealth etc as arguments for Islamism being "only ideological". That would be a first of world history, if it was true. But I do think that since the "active" Islamists tend to be middle class (as they should, since illiterate and tradition-bound peasants will rarely become modern political activists), social immobility may be the number factor to look for in Arab economies. Smart people who are cut off from their roots, more educated than their parents, but still can't get the power and respect they feel they deserve, tend to go radical -- even if, or especially if, they're past daily starvation and can spare some time for politics. It's what happened in Europe c. 1968 too.

By the way, since the research into "what drives suicide-bombers" seems to score such different results (from wealthy Muh. Atta types to this guy), I'm surprised no one is interested in looking at the phenomenon regionally or country-wise. All studies seem to focus on what drives extremists "in general" all over the Islamic world, which perhaps helps tackle the question about extremism's relation to Islam, but says little to nothing about actual on-the-ground recruitment factors.

Of course suicide bombers and other radicals will be drafted from other social classes in a country like Iraq, than they will in, say, Qatar. And Morocco, Algeria etc may be another affair still. One can always generalize, but if people do nothing but generalize, they'll never notice the details.

Dear alle,

Muhammad Atta wasn't wealthy at all. He comes from a middle- to lower-middle-class family.

He actually is a prime example for the "engineers & doctors" thesis - i.e. that Islamist movements are overwhelmingly led & staffed by technically educated professionals who therefore also have a very "mechanistic" worldview.

Atta, in a story reminiscent of Sayyid Qutb's time in the U.S., went to Germany for studies and there experienced a kind of culture shock that made him revile "the West". And the rest, of course, is history ...

--MSK

As salaam alaikum.

I surfed in to remind you about jumah prayer today. If you can't make it to your local masjid come by my blog for my 2 pence in a khutbah series:

http://nuhgondek.blogspot.com/

Be well.

Wa salaama,

nuh ibn

Nuh Ibn,

Spam is haram. Do you know what's in that stuff?

Well, that's an interesting point to make. Of course, the poorest areas in Morocco provide no recruits to the jihadi gangs - these areas are namely rural. The terrorists who committed the May 16 bombings in Casablanca were of poor peripheral areas of Casablanca - in fact, the very same district where the cybercafé bombing took place, Sidi Moumen. Those living in this area, much of which is a shantytown, are better off than those living in most of Morocco's rural areas (50% of the population lives there). However, inhabitants of Sidi Moumen are among the poorest of all inhabitants of the greater Casablanca area, and the relative prosperity of their neighbours is at show every day of the week, and every week of the year, which makes thir own situation so difficult to accept. Sidi Moumen, where the last kamikaze comes from, is also one of the most under-equipped areas of Casablanca, and very little has changed since May 16, 2003.

I would therefore agree that in the Moroccan context, poverty is one determining factor of fundamentalist violence (I believe the same could be said of Algeria). This context should be distinguished from that of Saudi Arabia - the main provider of Sep. 11 bombers - and Iraq, where the fight against the American military presence/occupation makes the make-up of terrorist organisations in these countries resemble that of resistance movements, much more varied and with a greater presence of intellectuals, professionals and of the middle class generally speaking.

I wanted to call attention to this.

"Al Massaa newspaper quoted high school pupil Mohamed Youbi Benabed, who was in the Internet Cafe when the two suspected bombers were there consulting a Jihadist Web site, as saying:

'The two men begged the Internet cafe owner to let them go but he refused and shut the door to prevent them leaving and began dialing the police number. Suddenly one of the two men blew himself and the door open." Benabed was unharmed.'"

Wow. I assume his name isn't being mentioned to protect him from retaliation by militants.

That's a shame. This cafe owner is a genuine hero. Here's the face of the pious middle Collounsbury likes to talk about. I imagine he was one of the people injured in the blast. Somebody should start a fund for this guy. I'd gladly donate.

Mate, they showed him on TV. Don't bloody assume. Not mentioning his fucking name in English reporting means fuck all, man, fuck all.

Don't be so bloody provincial.

Atta, in a story reminiscent of Sayyid Qutb's time in the U.S., went to Germany for studies and there experienced a kind of culture shock that made him revile "the West".

A theory making the rounds is that radicals come from precisely those who really have tried to fit into the Western ideal, and who have still been rejected by Western society in spite of this.

eh, I dunno. There's got to be some qualified research on this. Holland started a research centre not too long ago that was to look into extremism of all kind, and what fuels it, including jihadists, neonazis, the RAF people, etc.

MSK - Muhammad Atta wasn't wealthy at all. He comes from a middle- to lower-middle-class family.

OK, my bad. Thanks for the correction, but main point stands.

ibn kafka - About rural Morocco not providing many extremists, there's another element to that too, isn't there? Rural Morocco being so heavily Berber.

In Algeria at least, I know the Berberist movements are all very strongly anti-Islamist and anti-rebel. And this goes both ways, because the Islamic movement (in general) has historically been very hot on Arabization, which it views as a component of the Islamic programme. Still, that doesn't prevent Kabylie from being the main stronghold of GSPC, even if most of the actual fighters may be Arab-identified outsiders. This would of course be because Kabylie is so poor and neglected, so mountainous, and because Berber protest (after Black Spring, 2001) have prevented the gendarmerie from deploying effectively.

What's the status on this in Morocco -- is there a "Berber attitude" to Islamism, and how do the Islamic and Islamist militant movements get along with the minority issue? Or majority issue, as the case may be there.

Sorry, I wasn't expecting such shite reporting from Reuters. I assumed they must have a reason, especially since they mentioned the bloody high-school student's name twice.

The fact remains that this guy has balls the size of Gibraltar and deserves real recognition. Is he getting any? How badly was he hurt?

And what is his name, anyway?

Anonymous: the cybercafé owner is named Mohamed Faïz, has received a widely publicised telegram from the King, has been named in about every Moroccan newspaper and is indeed a hero - he probably saved many peoples' lives.

alle: the ethnic element you mention is almost non-existent in the Moroccan case. Not only because many rural areas are arabophone, but also because Berbers, however you define that term, do not fit neatly in the misconceived categories so popular during colonisation (fanatical Arabs and superficially islamised Berbers), and so widespread in some Western media and academic circles. The leader of the illegal islamist group Al adl wal ihsan, Abdeslam Yassine, is a Berber. The chariman of the PJD, Saadeddine Othmani, is a Berber, as is the chairman of the PJD's parliamentary group, Lahcen Daoudi. Berbers from the Rif and the Souss are widely perceived as being very pious, more so than for example arabophones from Fès (long considered the ruling political, administrative and economic élite in Morocco, and still very much present at the top). I am not sure there is a substantial variation in religiosity along ethnic lines - the key factors in that respect would instead be educational and socio-economic.

But this doesn't mean that there is no Berber specificity regarding islamism: many Berber militants (by this I mean Berbers who militate for the legal recognition of the Berber languages and of a distinct Berber cultural and political identity) have a detached or even negative view on religion. These militants are active and run quite a few NGOs and papers - their influence in society at large is however very limited at the moment. With the creation of the Parti démocrate amazigh, which hopes to compete in September's general election, we will probably be in a better position to assess their real political weight - I'd be surprised if that party's candidates would reach the electoral threshhold of 6% of the votes in any electoral district, even those where Berberophones prevail. Allah alem...

To complete the picture, it should be stressed that those with a detached view on religion are also present on the arabophone side, especially among the french-speaking élite. Ethnicity doesn't provide the key factor here.

Thanks very much, Ibn Kafka.

There is, apparently, a grand total of one english language website that mentions this, and that's map.ma which appears to be an official organ of the Moroccan government. In fact, this site just quotes the telegram you mentioned.

This is completely outrageous. This story deserves massive traction. How is it remotely journalistically possible that everyone know the terrorists' names but nobody know Mohamed Faïz's?

This guy ought to be a poster boy right around the world. How can Wafa Sultan, everyone's favorite (lapsed) Muslim, get named as one of the hundred most influential people in the world and this guy not even get a mention in the press?

I've complained in the past about Muslims being silent in the face of terror in their own communities. In fairness, then, I must give all honour to Mohamed Faïz.

It is my superficial understanding that Moroccans, being next door to Algeria, are not very keen to repeat their past experience, and so are dead set against jihadist violence. Someone correct me, please.

Kabyles aside (which make less than half of Algeria's Berbers), the situation in Algeria re Berbers vs Arabs is not that different from the one described by Ibn Kafka in Morocco. A good deal of the arabizers/generals/leaders/islamists are actually from Berber (mostly Shawia) extraction.

Also, one of the reasons Algeria went into that spiral of violence was that it had a movement that was significant enough to win elections, and in the days which followed the elections, was litteraly persecuted by the army, leaving many Islamists no other choice than to go into hiding and fight (not that Algerian Islamists are innocent victims, but one doesn't need to be a genius to know that when you persecute a very structured movement that has the support of half the population you're chosing the way of a civil war).

ibn kafka - Thanks! But just to clarify:

...many Berber militants (by this I mean Berbers who militate for the legal recognition of the Berber languages and of a distinct Berber cultural and political identity) have a detached or even negative view on religion.

This is what I was talking about -- the activism, Berberism, nationalism, or whatever one wants to call it, not being Berber in general. I'm aware of the colonial-era stereotype of Berbers as "turnable" Muslims, and that is not what I was referring to. Regular, non-politicized poor peasants will be very religious whether they're Berber or Arab or somewhere in between. Though they're also likely to be religious in a less Salafi/fundamentalist way -- not more "liberal", rather to the contrary, but less political and with less of a national and global activist perspective. But again, that has nothing to do with language or ethnicity.

shaheen - I know there's always been a strong Shawiyya element in the army. Are you saying the same goes for Islamists? Not at all unlikely, I just haven't heard it before.

klaus - Everybody except the Jihadists themselves are dead set against Jihadist violence, in Algeria too. But of course the Algerian collapse has alerted decision-makers and elites in Morocco (and, as important, in Europe and the US) to the worst-case consequences of a confrontation between governments and Islamists, and I guess that tends to sharpen strategy a bit.

The Algerian case I still think was very special. It was basically a war of choice for the hard core on both sides, generals and Islamist militants, but with neither truly representing their constituency. Parts of the military dragged the rest of the military, and then the state, into open warfare, just as parts of the radical religious opposition dragged the rest of the movement into guerrilla action, at which point things spun completely fucking out of control. So it was not really a conscious decision, by either state or opposition, to allow the kind of war that in the end did take place. And of course people in general were consulted by no one, they just served as cannon-fodder once the course to war had been set.

Should Morocco ever go down a similar path, God forbid, I'm sure it will happen much the same way, so how your average Moroccan feels about Jihadists might not make all that much of a difference. In those situations, the lunatic fringes rule.

alle,

When I mentionned specifically the Shawia I was thinking about the army and the political/nationalist leadership indeed. Islamists were more or less at the image of Algeria, many of the FIS' "middle-managers" were definitely Berbers, some even Kabyles.

Right, there certainly were, and are, a lot of Berber Islamists. Only they then identify first as Muslim, not as Berber, and so by definition won't belong to the Berberist-activist movement.

I also think the established ethnicity-based organizations in Kabylie (FFS, RCD, Arouch etc) tend to crowd out Islamist groups. It's a bit similar to how the Kurds should normally be fertile soil for Islamist organizing -- they're poor, they're oppressed by secular governments, they're tribal & religious, etc -- but it never really seems to take off. The PUK, KDP, PKK etc are simply too dominant for anyone else to squeeze in, even if they've been losing ground (and to some extent adapting their message) in later years. Sometimes that works on a psychological or political level, sometimes very concretely. Like how the Kurdistan Islamic Party's headquarters all mysteriously caught fire in the runup to the latest Iraqi elections...

Outside Kabylie, and as Ibn K describes above, in Morocco, it's different. Not the same level of national(-ist) consciousness, not the same level of organization, thus no big difference with Arab areas in respect to Islamist penetration.

On a side note, I remember reading that Harkis, sons of Harkis and other wartime anti-FLN groups were overrepresented in the FIS. Would be interesting to have that confirmed, but I guess it could also just be nationalist urban legend.

Re Mohammed Faïz and Silence:

I've complained in the past about Muslims being silent in the face of terror in their own communities. In fairness, then, I must give all honour to Mohamed Faïz

Well, this example should suggest to you depending on Reuters and MEMRI to give you an idea of "silence" or not, and who is doing what is a piss-poor idea.

As for the Berber-Arab angle, that's really an Algerian thing. Some Berberist activist types bang on in Morocco, but I see no sign at all of any traction.

The Kurdish exmaple is about tribalism, frankly. The parties are less parties than family-tribal politics with a veneer of modern politics.

On the Algerian versus Moroccan example, it strikes me on one hand the Moroccan secular elite is a less closed and less-opaque game than Algeria, and better positioned and structured to respond to challenges (which is not to say all is fine and dandy), and on the other side, the Islamist movements have seen the hell of Algeria and have little desire to go that way.

I'd also note the very different political traditions.

Morocco has largely been at peace since independence, and gained its independence largely peacefully - in stark contrast with the violent history of Algeria.

BTW, I'd add better than publicicity for Mohammed, money to redo his blown-to-fuck internet cafe would be appreciated.

Anonymous: well, I think we all know why the Western mainstream media are not too interested in Mohamed Faïz - he's an average Moroccan, probably doesn't speak either French nor English, probably has a moustache instead of a cleavage, cares not the slightest about politics (his father, who witnessed the bombing and owns the site where it took place, looks like your average salafi), and simply wanted to prevent a customer from hammering away too violently on the keyboard of one of his computers. He is therefore unlikely to indulge in the histrionics of Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (assuming that this is her real name) or Irshad Manji. Mediatically speaking, he's not sexy enough, and could probably not be instrumentalised in the ideological drive against "islamo-fascism". Bit I hope to be corrected on this!

Klaus: you're right, the Algerian experience has been sobering, for Morocco's islamists and secularists alike. Of course, you have djihadists and so-called "éradicateurs" who act and talk as if the Algerian civil war never happened, but they are marginal. The PJD and Al adl wal ihsan, the two most popular islamist movements in Morocco, are at a loss for words to stress how different they are from the FIS. Even a stalwart radical like Abdelkrim Mouti'i, leader of the clandestine and formerly (?) terrorist Harakat al chabiba al islamiya, is desperate to mend fences with the authorities and to return from exile, disavowing political violence in the Moroccan context. What is even more intresting is that the chiuokh imprisoned, often on very lengthy prison terms, after May 16, 2003 (the Casablanca bombings) have publicly disavowed the recent bombing What distinguishes the Moroccan situation from the Algerian (in 1991) is that the most popular islamists, even radical ones such as Al adl wal ihsan, clearly disavow violence.

Shaheen: I completely agree with you. Incidently, it has transpired that the King turned down the advice of some of his generals (Hmidou Laanigri, formerly head of the DST) in 2003, who advocated a clampdown on the PJD, on account of the fears in some Western capitals that it would trigger a civil war, Algerian style.

alle: Yes, I know you referred to Berber militants, but I just wanted to show that they are marginal in society at large (even more so than radical djihadists), which doesn't mean that they have no inluence on public discourse or the course of events - you don't have to command a majority of the votes in order to shape those. And maybe I'm prejudiced, but I cannot see Morocco going the same way as Algeria - unlike the Arméé nationale populaire, the monarchy has been around for over three hundred years, and is accepted as being in the natural order of things, espacially now that Islam as ideology has had a revival. Which of course doesn' mean that there won't be bloody acts of violence in the years to come.

Lounsbury: you're right in that the élite in Morocco is not as extreme as that of Algeria - the "éradicateurs" are exceedingly rare - apart from a few Berber militants, I only know of youth and sports minister Mohamed El Gahs and the journalist Jamal Berraoui as fully-fledged crusaders against "islamo-fascism".

As to the Arab/Berber angle, one might add that the fact that the monarchy is ethnically ambivalent (Hassan II's mother was Berber, and Mohammed VI is sympathetic to the Berber cause) contributes to defuse the issue, as does the fact that Morocco's Berber and Arab populations are inseparably mixed in geographic terms (the capital of arabity, Fès, probably has a majority Berber population, and is surrounded by Berber areas, whereas the Rif for example has to contend with Tetouan and the Jbala region as very strong arabophone enclaves), not to mention in personal terms (I'm a Fassi francophone Arab and my wife is a Soussi arabophone Berber...).

a moustache instead of a cleavage

Turn that into poetry, I dare you.

I should suggest that our Internet Cafe hero appears to have intervened for more than banging away too hard on the key boards. I don't believe it is mere propaganda in the reports he may have been alarmed by their visiting neo-Salafi takfiri sites.

Well, this example should suggest to you depending on Reuters and MEMRI to give you an idea of "silence" or not, and who is doing what is a piss-poor idea.

You are missing the point. As of yesterday (I haven't checked today) there was ONE, count them, ONE, English language website mentioning Mohamed Faïz by name. In fact, the most extensive English language discussion of Mohamed Faïz in the world has occured right here on Aqoul. It's not a matter of relying on "Reuters and MEMRI." Aqoul is, once again, on the cutting edge of MENA news analysis! BTW, even mentioning Reuters and MEMRI in the same sentence is hyperbole of the sort that regularly sends you into fits of invective. MEMRI is an often comical propaganda service. Reuters, whatever its faults, is a perfectly legitimate and respectable news organization.

BTW, I'd add better than publicicity for Mohammed, money to redo his blown-to-fuck internet cafe would be appreciated.

Yes indeed! Not that the two don't go together. . . Is there any way to do this? I'd be perfectly happy to contribute myself and, perhaps, try and shake a couple of trees on his behalf. Are you willing/able to front this at your end? Or will it possibly bring you unwanted attention? On the other hand, this could sort out your zakat problem for the entire year!

I'd imagine that even a relatively small amount of cash would go some way in helping this guy out.

and simply wanted to prevent a customer from hammering away too violently on the keyboard of one of his computers.

Please don't tell me this! Is this the way it really happened? My cynical nature immediately wondered whether this was actually a dispute about unpaid internet charges or something. But from what little I've been able to gather, it seems he really was concerned about terrorism rather than some trivial commercial dispute.

He is therefore unlikely to indulge in the histrionics of Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (assuming that this is her real name) or Irshad Manji. Mediatically speaking, he's not sexy enough, and could probably not be instrumentalised in the ideological drive against "islamo-fascism".

Never underestimate the power of spin, especially when it comes to myth building. The active participation of the subject is not necessary and, in fact, often makes creating the appropriate media image more difficult. Wafa Sultan owes much of her prominence to thoroughly doctored video clips. Ayaan Hirsi Ali batters her own media image with every word she says and every book she writes. She was a much easier sell when she was in hiding after the van Gogh murder. In the U.S., Terri Schiavo managed to become an enormously powerful symbol for both sides of the debate even though she certainly never demonstrated any histrionics or even brain activity.

Mohamed Faïz could become a media symbol precisely because he is an ordinary Moroccan and, I assume, an ordinary Muslim. Right now in the West, the face of Islam is Osama bin Laden but it certainly doesn't have to be that way. Islam just needs to hire itself a decent PR firm. Mohamed Faïz has a very spinnable story with all the necessary elements for a direct-to-cable movie. Much better than that guy who threw himself under the train in New York a couple of months ago to save a stranger.

I should suggest that our Internet Cafe hero appears to have intervened for more than banging away too hard on the key boards.

Ibn Kafka will correctly if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that part was to be taken litterally. I understood the point as that he had the profile of just an average Moe who wouldn't otherwise care much about politics.

Lounsbury & Anonymous: It was when Faïz was drawn to the suicide bomber's computer to tell him to be careful with the keyboard that he noticed that he was on a djihadi site. He then told him to quieten down. The suicide bomber was then at it again, which prompted the owner to intervene more forcefully. That's what the Moroccan papers tell anyway: "L'incident a commencé quand le gérant du cybercafé a reproché à l'un des deux kamikazes de trop marteler le clavier d'un ordinateur" (Le Journal, 17 March 2007, p.22). Here's what Tel Quel of the same day has to say - in introduction, they inform us that filters have been installed in many cybercafés to stop any connection to suspect - islamist - sites, and that police has asked cybercafé owners to give notice anytime when a customer tries to make som dubious connections. Faïz tells that since he had installed a filter, the two suicide bombers had difficulties connecting to the sites they wished. "Mais Mohammed Faïz n'allait réellement réagir que quand les deux individus ont commencé à malmener le clavier de l'ordinateur, parce qu'ils n'arrivaient pas à accèder à un compte MSN. Craignant pour son matériel, il menace alors d'appeler la police".

So I suppose that Faïz was initially driven by the instinct to preserve his business, and only tried to alert the police when he thereafter discovered that his two customers were connecting to djihadi sites.

It will btw confort all of us to learn that Faïz is the new folk-hero of Sidi Moumen, where people are sick and tired of being taken for terrorists the suicide bombers of May 16, 2003 where all from two areas of Sidi Moumen, Carrières Thomas and Skouila. I'll try to write some more about this in a post later on.

Mate

Re My comment:
Well, this example should suggest to you depending on Reuters and MEMRI to give you an idea of "silence" or not, and who is doing what is a piss-poor idea.

And the reply
You are missing the point. As of yesterday (I haven't checked today) there was ONE, count them, ONE, English language website mentioning Mohamed Faïz by name. In fact, the most extensive English language discussion of Mohamed Faïz in the world has occured right here on Aqoul. It's not a matter of relying on "Reuters and MEMRI." Aqoul is, once again, on the cutting edge of MENA news analysis! BTW, even mentioning Reuters and MEMRI in the same sentence is hyperbole of the sort that regularly sends you into fits of invective. MEMRI is an often comical propaganda service. Reuters, whatever its faults, is a perfectly legitimate and respectable news organization.

Point taken on the MERI-Reuters juxto.

I did not mean it in quite that way, but rather in the sense that generally that if you rely on English language reporting (from the good, Reuters, to the Agit-Prop, MEMRI) to draw a conclusion on Muslims denouncing or not.

However, poorly expressed. Too much rhum.

As for the issue of helping our hero, as it were, rebuild his cyber, a good question:
Yes indeed! Not that the two don't go together. . . Is there any way to do this? I'd be perfectly happy to contribute myself and, perhaps, try and shake a couple of trees on his behalf. Are you willing/able to front this at your end? Or will it possibly bring you unwanted attention? On the other hand, this could sort out your zakat problem for the entire year!

This should be investigated.

I'd imagine that even a relatively small amount of cash would go some way in helping this guy out.

Oh, indeed.

One just has to avoid giving him tax headaches.

On this angle:
and simply wanted to prevent a customer from hammering away too violently on the keyboard of one of his computers.
My reaction was relatively similar:
Please don't tell me this! Is this the way it really happened? My cynical nature immediately wondered whether this was actually a dispute about unpaid internet charges or something. But from what little I've been able to gather, it seems he really was concerned about terrorism rather than some trivial commercial dispute.

No the reporting, across all sources seems to be fairly clear. Worst interpretation, from a political point of view, he got freaked out by the sites they were visiting for fear of the police. But the story told incidiates he actively was blocking them and had rung the police.

Bastard may have been apolitical (probably was) but something about them seems to have freaked him out.

He is therefore unlikely to indulge in the histrionics of Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (assuming that this is her real name) or Irshad Manji. Mediatically speaking, he's not sexy enough, and could probably not be instrumentalised in the ideological drive against "islamo-fascism".
To which Anon replied

Never underestimate the power of spin, especially when it comes to myth building. The active participation of the subject is not necessary and, in fact, often makes creating the appropriate media image more difficult. Wafa Sultan owes much of her prominence to thoroughly doctored video clips. Ayaan Hirsi Ali batters her own media image with every word she says and every book she writes. She was a much easier sell when she was in hiding after the van Gogh murder. In the U.S., Terri Schiavo managed to become an enormously powerful symbol for both sides of the debate even though she certainly never demonstrated any histrionics or even brain activity.

Correct.

Mohammed might be saleable.

Mohamed Faïz could become a media symbol precisely because he is an ordinary Moroccan and, I assume, an ordinary Muslim.

Oh yes, he's Joe Schmoe.

Right now in the West, the face of Islam is Osama bin Laden but it certainly doesn't have to be that way. Islam just needs to hire itself a decent PR firm. Mohamed Faïz has a very spinnable story with all the necessary elements for a direct-to-cable movie. Much better than that guy who threw himself under the train in New York a couple of months ago to save a stranger.

Precisely.

Image.

Reminded me of this tidbit from Mike Davis in "Planet of Slums" discussing the urban edge/slums as a new form of exile, a new "Babylon":
..."it was reported, for example, that some of the young terrorists who attacked luxury hotels and foreign restaurants in May 2003 had never been downtown before and were amazed at the affluence of the medina."

Given media coverage - that is what the bombers could see on domestic TV, I find the Davis obs to be... journo license.