Award-Winning Journalist Speaks on Terrorism
Most current Principia College students have grown up surrounded by news accounts about terrorism, widely regarded as the defining issue of our time. This year’s Ernie and Lucha Vogel Moral Courage Lecturer, New York Times foreign correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, knows the topic inside and out. She began reporting on ISIS and Al Qaeda in 2014, when she was the West Africa Bureau Chief for Associated Press and Al Qaeda took over much of northern Mali. Wired magazine has called her “arguably the best reporter on the most important beat in the world.” She shared insights and engaged in lively discussion during her campus visit and talk to a full audience in Wanamaker Hall last week.
Noting that the Islamic State has lost geographic territory in Syria and Iraq during recent months, Callimachi cautioned that this does not indicate the demise of the jihadist network, as some headlines claim. Relentless attempts to recruit so-called “freedom fighters” through the internet continue. “The openness of social media platforms has created opportunities for ISIS to develop a remote-control method of radicalizing individuals to carry out attacks,” she said. Citing recent examples in France, India, and the United States, she outlined how extremists communicate through chatrooms to provide details on everything from drop points for weapons to bomb-building instruction: “All it takes is a WiFi connection and a smartphone. They engage with individuals they’ve never met—these are not hardened terrorists, but amateurs who have been recruited online.”
While Callimachi acknowledged the dedicated effort by authorities to detect terrorist activity and thwart attacks, she illustrated the relative ease with which jihadists operate by guiding the audience through an exercise using Twitter and the lesser-known social media platform Telegram. Participants briefly followed suspected ISIS accounts to learn what is involved in reporting suspicious accounts. “Twitter has steadily increased efforts to shut down accounts managed by known terrorists by assigning additional resources to the task,” she said. “However, in my opinion, the company was very slow to respond. Jihadists abuse and even mock these platforms. In fact, ISIS users post how many times they’ve been blocked on Twitter as a badge of honor. One known terrorist posted that he had created his 600th account.”
Imparting a Message of Hope
Callimachi emphasized that one of the tenets of the Islamic State is to eliminate “gray zones”—areas where moderate Muslims are able to live alongside Christians, Jews, and those who practice other faiths. “They want to create a clash of religions and cultures,” she said, encouraging students to do what they can to foster a spirit of tolerance and respect. And she provided accounts of former terrorists who now reject extremist views, though admittedly there are very few.
Though Callimachi soberly outlined the threat of terrorism in a post-9/11 world, she concluded the presentation with an account of her interaction with an elderly Iraqi man whom she saw painting over ISIS graffiti in an attempt to beautify his community, a suburb of Mosul that was freed by Iraqi security forces last summer. Senior Shane Witters Hicks appreciates Callimachi’s use of Twitter for a higher purpose—sharing that man’s story, for example. “Though she seldom has time while covering the bigger stories,” Shane says, “she seeks ways to uplift thought by posting examples of good deeds and the common humanity of people she meets.”
Earlier in the day, Callimachi visited political science classes and had dinner with a group of students prior to her talk. Meeting the three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of numerous journalism awards inspired junior Courtlyn Reekstin. “I am so grateful I had the opportunity to engage with Rukmini Callimachi—what a special opportunity!” she says. “I found it very interesting to learn about how she connects with her sources, whether via Twitter, a chatroom, a phone call, or an in-person interview. And I was so impressed by her humility, passion, and genuineness.”