Turning away from Islamic Violence. Revisiting the Phenomenon of Rejecting Jihadism

This article attempts to identify what pushes a person to leave Islamic violence behind. Because disaffiliation is a process, it suggests looking not for a trigger element, but for the different variables that are intertwined in an “equation of disaffiliation.” The reasons for getting out are the product of a “jihadist disenchantment” followed by a discordance between the individual’s aspirations and the possibility of reaching those aspirations within the jihadist movement: first a gap forms between personal aspirations and the orders within the organisation, then personal satisfaction level falls and engagement diminishes leading, finally, to a defection. Studying the personal firsthand accounts of “repentant” French and Belgian jihadists, our hypothesis is that it is the first doubts and questioning concerning the engagement that needs to be analysed as the catalyst for the disaffiliation.The realization of the individual that something no longer works for him in his engagement in violence can also find its origins a feeling of distance from the juhadist values and enviorment, in the political and/or ideological contingencies within the group, the living conditions, personal reflection or again with the contingencies from outside the group, linked for example, with societal pressures that were experienced badly.