‘The Zainab Salbi Project’ in France: ISIS fills a void as Islamists ‘don’t feel they can belong to French society’
The 2015 and 2016 terrorist attacks in France left the world shattered and horrified. Society was left wondering how young French men of Muslim Arab origin could commit such atrocities against their own country.
In this week’s episode of “The Zainab Salbi Project, Zainab traveled to France to speak directly with family members and young people to find out why so many youth are being seduced into joining the Islamic State.
photo/Islamic State flag
“ISIS is simply filling a void. It is giving a sense of belonging to people who don’t feel they can belong to French society,” said Salbi in the episode. “You can kill as much ISIS as you can – and we will – but that does not resolve the issue of the void. We need to address the void itself because all of us are a part of the collective that makes the void.”
What Zainab discovered was that the families of these young men and women “are as afraid of the parts of French society who have demonized them as much as the French society is afraid of them for thinking they will change French culture for being Muslims.”
Watch this week’s powerful episode, “Radicalization of Youth,” here.
