Daaesh gets talked over by Serious Men with Beards and Voila! Ladies with Make-up

Lively discussion on the BBC Arabic ...

They were talking about why young Muslims in the west go join Daa-esh (ISIS).

First, this guy gave his opinion:

He said: there's so much Islamaphobia, so much racism, kids grow up in this environment and of course they end up feeling: this western society is not for me.

Said the BBC Arabic moderator: Okay, there's Muslims in Europe who are now government ministers, are you saying they all need to become Daaesh's suicide bombers tomorrow?

Serious Man with the Beard: No, of course not, you know, and it's important to say that most Muslim youth in Europe are just fine, they are not radicalized, they are living okay, these extremists are a very very small part.

Then the Serious Man with the Beard started going down a different tack:

The reason Muslim youth join Daaesh is because all the moderate Muslim groups have been repressed. So they don't have a venue to express themselves and you end up with people who take to extremism to get their points across. You know, there's been a lot of moderate Muslim organizations that have been put down.

The BBC Arabic moderator: Wait, who exactly are you talking about?

Serious man with the beard: Well, you know, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt for one. They were moderate. Can you say that they were like Daaesh?

BBC Arabic moderator: No, we can't say that.

Serious man with the beard: Well, so when the Muslim Brotherhood was legal in Egypt, things were fine. Now that they have been outlawed, it's now that we see the new and dangerous actors come out, the ones who are blowing things up every few days.

There was a lady who was also part of the conversation. I didn't get a chance to take a screenshot of her, which was too bad. She was speaking from Lebanon, and she kept interspersing her Arabic with random French words, like 'voila!' and 'justeeees', and probably making all the Arab grandmothers watching at home get really indignant.

Said the Voila! Lady: You know, kids wouldn't get drawn towards Daaesh if that fertile ground wasn't already there, and honestly, it was the political Islam groups just like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt that planted that ground, they are the ones who led to those ideas, where you first have extremist thoughts, and then you move to extremist actions. They make it possible.

The Serious Man with the Beard was not happy about this, but unfortunately, there was a white-haired man sitting right next to him in the studio, and he piled right on:

Said the White-haired Man: You know, the Muslim Brotherhood have it right in their motto. Their motto says: "Jihad is our way, Death for the sake of God is our wish."

BBC Arabic Moderator: Okay, but you know, they carried that motto out in a different way than Daaesh does.

White-haired Man: Nope, the thoughts are exactly the same.

The Serious Man with the Beard: Nope, not the same at all, And you know what, 'Jihad' can mean many many things. It can mean jihad in a personal sense, that you're trying to make yourself a better person. It doesn't mean you have to do anything violent.

Then the Voila! Lady got in on it again:

You know, it's always the case with men like your guest here representing the Muslim Brotherhood, that as soon as we start talking about identity, he has to take it straight to, oh, Muslims in the west have no rights, and so on. Actually, Europe has given us tons of rights.

The Voila! Lady left, and the White-haired Man left, and this lady with a lot of make-up replaced them:

She said: You know, it's the fault of all the sheikh's at the mosques, they sit and stir up all the youth, and you know, they are supposed to be talking about things like love and peace.

BBC Arabic Moderator: Don't they do that?

Make-up Lady: Well, I'm not saying that they don't, but all of them need to do it. I don't want to generalize. But the sheikhs in the mosques need to take up the responsibility of distinguishing true Islam and pointing out the wrong things that Daaesh says.

BBC Arabic: Well, what about the Internet? It might not be the sheikhs in the mosques at all, it could just be that youths read extremist things on-line.

Make-up Lady: Right. There's actually an initiative that was started in London about this. Two youths try to chat with kids online and get them to see the error of Daaesh's ways. They are actually using Daaesh's ammunition - trolling around the internet - to get back at Daaesh.

BBC Arabic Moderator: It sounds great, but what can two kids do?

Make-up Lady: Exactly, and this is why the British government needs to help and support these kids. They need to put forth resources so that they can develop these initiatives and make them stronger.