Islamist Influencers on the Net: "Why Do I Have to Be a Democrat?"
06.22.2023 at 15:10
Members of Muslim Interaktiv at a protest in Berlin. Reuters/MICHELE TANTUSSI
Islamist groups on the net are booming. The suspects in the foiled attack on the rainbow parade are also said to have radicalized online.
Vienna. The videos are modern, crisp and highly professional. The producers behind them are getting a strong following. On TikTok, 36,5000 people followed the group at the beginning of the year. Half a year later, it already counts 94,300 followers in mid-June. It has also been able to expand its fan base on Instagram and YouTube in just a few months.
This success, it is not due to a new band or a group of youthful influencers. It is the Islamist propaganda group Muslim Interaktiv that is succeeding. It is not alone in this: Similar groups such as Generation Islam and Reality Islam are also gaining reach in the social networks, albeit to a lesser extent.
The activities of such Islamist influencers have been in the spotlight again since the foiled attack on the Vienna Rainbow Parade. The suspects in the case - three boys aged between 14 and 20 - are also said to have radicalized themselves on the Internet via various preachers. It is not known exactly who they were. The 14-year-old suspect stated during his interrogation that he had obtained his knowledge about religion via YouTube and TikTok. "The suspects belong exactly to the target group of these preachers. They are young and have radicalized themselves on TikTok or other social media channels," said Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the State Protection and Intelligence Directorate (DSN).
Video against campaign of the city of Vienna
On the video platforms, the groups can spread their propaganda without restriction and successfully. They glorify the Taliban, criticize an alleged "assimilation agenda" against Muslims, but themselves call more or less openly for isolation, rail against LGBTQ+ and take aim at Austria's politics.
A video by the group Realität Islam from mid-June criticizes the City of Vienna's extremism prevention work. It is about the "Wir alle sind Wien" pilot project, which is to start in the fall at ten Viennese secondary schools and vocational schools. Among other things, influencers such as rapper Schwesta Ebra and the TikTok duo Cop & Che will be used to talk to young people about sexism, police violence, racism and anti-Semitism.
Austria's goal is to influence Muslim children, Reality Islam warns in the video. How can a state presume to "influence the values of the Muslim community?" "Why do I have to be a democrat?" it asks. Likewise, why it is illegitimate or dangerous to be only a servant of Allah according to Islamic values "and not to be free according to liberalism."
The project is dismissed as part of an "assimilation agenda" and "values dictatorship" against Muslims. This fits into the victim narrative that influencers preach: Actual or suspected discrimination is generalized "in Germany and Austria into a structural Islamophobia of society," wrote the Dokumentationsstelle Politischer Islam.
Islamists are getting younger
Muslim Interaktiv has been particularly successful in spreading this narrative. Individual videos by the group, such as a montage of an Islamist rally in Hamburg in February 2023, have already reached two million views on TikTok.
The influencers' success fosters the phenomenon that Islamists are getting younger and younger. That TikTok has not done enough to combat such Islamist tendencies was recently criticized by extremism researcher Peter Neumann. Like the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Austrian DSN is monitoring the scene. (dab)
Members of Muslim Interaktiv at a protest in Berlin. Reuters/MICHELE TANTUSSI
Islamist groups on the net are booming. The suspects in the foiled attack on the rainbow parade are also said to have radicalized online.
Vienna. The videos are modern, crisp and highly professional. The producers behind them are getting a strong following. On TikTok, 36,5000 people followed the group at the beginning of the year. Half a year later, it already counts 94,300 followers in mid-June. It has also been able to expand its fan base on Instagram and YouTube in just a few months.
This success, it is not due to a new band or a group of youthful influencers. It is the Islamist propaganda group Muslim Interaktiv that is succeeding. It is not alone in this: Similar groups such as Generation Islam and Reality Islam are also gaining reach in the social networks, albeit to a lesser extent.
The activities of such Islamist influencers have been in the spotlight again since the foiled attack on the Vienna Rainbow Parade. The suspects in the case - three boys aged between 14 and 20 - are also said to have radicalized themselves on the Internet via various preachers. It is not known exactly who they were. The 14-year-old suspect stated during his interrogation that he had obtained his knowledge about religion via YouTube and TikTok. "The suspects belong exactly to the target group of these preachers. They are young and have radicalized themselves on TikTok or other social media channels," said Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the State Protection and Intelligence Directorate (DSN).
Video against campaign of the city of Vienna
On the video platforms, the groups can spread their propaganda without restriction and successfully. They glorify the Taliban, criticize an alleged "assimilation agenda" against Muslims, but themselves call more or less openly for isolation, rail against LGBTQ+ and take aim at Austria's politics.
A video by the group Realität Islam from mid-June criticizes the City of Vienna's extremism prevention work. It is about the "Wir alle sind Wien" pilot project, which is to start in the fall at ten Viennese secondary schools and vocational schools. Among other things, influencers such as rapper Schwesta Ebra and the TikTok duo Cop & Che will be used to talk to young people about sexism, police violence, racism and anti-Semitism.
Austria's goal is to influence Muslim children, Reality Islam warns in the video. How can a state presume to "influence the values of the Muslim community?" "Why do I have to be a democrat?" it asks. Likewise, why it is illegitimate or dangerous to be only a servant of Allah according to Islamic values "and not to be free according to liberalism."
The project is dismissed as part of an "assimilation agenda" and "values dictatorship" against Muslims. This fits into the victim narrative that influencers preach: Actual or suspected discrimination is generalized "in Germany and Austria into a structural Islamophobia of society," wrote the Dokumentationsstelle Politischer Islam.
Islamists are getting younger
Muslim Interaktiv has been particularly successful in spreading this narrative. Individual videos by the group, such as a montage of an Islamist rally in Hamburg in February 2023, have already reached two million views on TikTok.
The influencers' success fosters the phenomenon that Islamists are getting younger and younger. That TikTok has not done enough to combat such Islamist tendencies was recently criticized by extremism researcher Peter Neumann. Like the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Austrian DSN is monitoring the scene. (dab)
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