LONDON/United Kingdom, DEC. 3 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Western security analysts over-hype the impact of radical Islam on Central Asia, a new paper by two academics said.

The paper, published by the London-based think tank Chatham House and written by John Heathershaw of Exeter University and David Montgomery of Pittsburgh University, said that there were six key areas where myths on the impact of radical Islam had been wrongly propagated.

There wrongly propagated myths were: There is a post-Soviet Islamic revival; to Islamicise is to radicalise; authoritarianism and poverty cause radicalisation; underground Muslim groups are radical; radical Muslim groups are globally networked; political Islam opposes the secular state.

“The paper demonstrates that while the six claims are made consistently in secular security discourse (with one exception) they are not justified in practice,” Mr Heathershaw and Mr Montgomery wrote.

The paper chose to study reports written by the respected Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) over the last five years. The paper uses ICG reports because it, rightly, described the ICG as the most consistent and serious on the region.

“Once one sees through the myth of post-Soviet Muslim radicalization, it is possible to see that there is nothing essential to former Soviet Central Asia that generates religious radicalisation,” the report said.

This research is important because the spectre of Muslim radicalism is used so often in the discourse by leaders in Central Asia to justify clamp-downs in human rights and media. It also forms, as this paper describes, an important part of the prism through which the West views Central Asia.

ENDS

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(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)