![]() In particular, we find resonances between the narratives of non-recruits and ‘bogeyman’ narratives that exist commonly in many cultures. Particularly, notions of ‘coolness,’ ‘trickery,’ and ‘religious perversion’ mediate participants’ perceptions of al-Shabaab, and enable a self-empowering rejection of its recruitment narratives. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with 118 members of Canada’s largest Somali community, this article draws upon narrative criminology to reverse the ‘why they joined’ question that serves as the predicate for much recent radicalization scholarship, and instead explores, ‘why they would never join.’ We encounter Somali-Canadians equipping themselves with sophisticated counternarratives that vitiate the enticements of al-Shabaab. ![]() These concerns have reached new levels since the absorption of al-Shabaab into al-Qaeda in 2012. Recently, the Somali Diaspora has found itself at the centre of heightened security concerns surrounding the proliferation of international terrorist networks and their recruitment strategies. With this conception, we can, a) understand more fully the discursive/rhetorical dynamics involved in asymmetrical struggle, b) problematize the acceptance of the organizational reality of leaderless resistance in the terrorism literature, and, c) question the assertion of some terrorism scholarship that refers to leaderless resistance and other ideologies of effervescence as hallmarks of the ‘new terrorism.’ Through an examination of the case of Wiebo Ludwig and the EnCana pipeline bombings of 2008-2009, I show how these rhetorics emerge in the interactions between activists and their political enemies. In this article, I seek to describe leaderless resistance as a rhetorical construct, a meaning-conferring ‘ideology of effervescence’ that lifts the spirits of both movement progenitors who advocate the strategy as well as incipient lone wolves who consider responding to their exhortations. Additionally, and quite importantly, only a minority of people with mental illnesses are violent when not in treatment.‘Leaderless resistance’ and ‘lone wolf terrorism’ are concepts that have steadily gained importance in in the study of oppositional subcultures and terrorist groups, being use to describe the operational realities of a variety of terrorisms, from groups like al-Qaeda to Anders Breivik. Still, not all group members have every characteristic, such as mental illness. ![]() ![]() Spaaij, Gill and Corner determined that there is no single profile of the lone-wolf terrorist, but, as a group, they have multiple characteristics in common. However, mental Illness and violence are two very different characteristics in people, neither of which is sufficient to define or predict the other (Spaaij, 2012 Gill & Corner, 2014). Studies have indicated that a larger percentage of lone-wolf terrorists are found to be mentally ill when compared with group-oriented terrorists or the general population. A severely mentally ill person who is also at risk for violence needs access to high quality, non-stigmatized behavioral health and ancillary services over their lifespan in order to reduce the risk of them becoming violent and strengthen their ability to live a healthy, pro-social lifestyle. ![]()
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