It’s pervasive, really. Every time you read of someone joining the extremist Islamists, either by going to Syria to fight with ISIS (or to provide material support, in the case of young women), or by supporting them at home, we hear the same impression: so-and-so “was radicalized” or “became radicalized.”
It implies that an outside force did this: “he was radicalized by an imam on the internet,” for instance, or by some particular figure, or glossy ISIS propaganda, or, in the view of Marie Harf or others in the administration, “they were radicalized by the poor job market.” Or, depending on your politics, you might say that ISIS fighters and supporters “were radicalized by US foreign policy/imperialism.”
This places the blame elsewhere, as if the young men and women who are joining up with ISIS, or taking on the mantle of extremist Islam in other ways, can’t help it, because some outside factor is doing this to them. Now, to some extent, those who speak and write in this manner may mean that it is important to understand what external events may have triggered the decisions these people have made, but the decision to identify these people as pawns rather than actors in their own decisions is, simply, wrong.
How about, instead, “Jihadi John joined the extremist Islamists” or “began to believe in the extremists’ view of Islam” or, more simply, “converted to extremist Islam”?
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