Paris Jihad: will of Allah or blasphemy?

The CPDSI, provides ongoing assistance to about 750 families who have turned to it to help prevent their children joining the ranks of ISIS in Syria. So far, none of them have done so.

Ms Bouzar explains that provided the young victims have not reached the final stage of the dehumanisation process there is hope that they may be recuperated. However, this cannot be achieved by appealing to their reason, through logical argumentation. They are convinced they are superior beings and that everyone is jealous of them and simply trying to denigrate them and their ideals. To un-indoctrinate them, Ms Bouzar and her team employ a technique they call "Proust's madeleine".

This is in reference to an incident narrated by Marcel Proust in the first volume, "Swann's Way" or "The way by Swann's", of his epic novel in seven volumes on the theme of involuntary memory entitled "In search of Lost Time" or "Remembrance of Things Past". The taste of a small madeleine cake dipped in tea brings back fond memories of when he was a child.

Ms Bouzar works closely with the parents of the victims to help them recall and reproduce some pleasant event the children experienced prior to their indoctrination in order to bring back fond memories of that experience. It is through the affect (emotions) of their children that the parents are able to revive whatever remnants of humanity remain buried deep inside them and bring them back to life and reality again and re-establish a meaningful relationship with them.

As an additional measure, Ms Bouzar and her team enlist the help of "repentant" jihadists with a profile as close as possible to those of the victims and have them explain how they were indoctrinated until they managed to see the difference between myth and reality and realise that they had been manipulated.

However, Ms Bouzar insists on the importance of the role of the parents in the effort to un-indoctrinate their children. She esteems that the parents have to do 60% of the work.