Terrorism

This is an informal blog by the author in which I post various things of interest to me, about religion, politics and philosophy. It aims to be a kind of public commentary that is mostly a reflection on my own thinking, opinions and beliefs. It will have limited information, so it’s open for discussion and debate. So far, I have written about this in two journals and in several other publications that I have read. However, I would hope that one day more would come out from these same sources.

I am not religious nor do I believe anything except what I have read, heard and seen. However, I wish to write about religion as a way to discuss some of the most important aspects of how people, groups, and nations all over the world view religion, religious institutions, the practice of religious beliefs to understand their perspective and give a better understanding of how they can get their needs met. Also to offer some insight into different religions and the type of practices they follow. To understand how both mainstream American religions like Christianity, Judaism, Muslims, Confucianism and Hinduism and radical modernist groups like Black Lives Matter and Unitarian Universalists like myself can co-exist together peacefully despite the differences in political belief and values. To see what works best, so I’d like to explore with you for a while the ways in which different people and nations can adapt to each other and find common ground. We should also take time to reflect on the difference between how “normal” and “abnormal” things are viewed from religion to religion or from a community to a community.

I think I’m sure this is not too difficult to write or to write about but let me try anyway. A few years ago I was doing work for the US Department of State and we did research related to international terrorism (a topic that has been written about at https://www.thedefense.org/). Over these past few months we were doing a series of analyses which led us to question whether we may need to distinguish between different attacks or to identify what makes them such that even if they are not based on ideology or beliefs (as opposed to simply being the wrong type of group) then they still qualify as terror. With this in mind I decided this would be my focus and it would be a brief review rather than a specific report or paper but hopefully you will see what I have thought of it. For now the main questions that came to mind are:

What accounts for the differences between terrorist groups? And.

To whom do terrorists belong? Who can control (and influence, as well as direct) them? This is particularly important for those who want to avoid certain groups in society and find new ones that don’t align with their views, so they may want to know whether any government or non-governmental organization should intervene or force another group change its mind?

There seems to be very little consensus among researchers, policy makers, journalists, civil society activists, academics etc… How else can we interpret the motivations, practices and beliefs of groups? What motivates terrorist behavior, for example? Why do terrorist groups choose particular locations to attack?

The answers may vary depending on the individual. From my own personal point of view, I am motivated for the reasons outlined in my essays but many others may not share with me. Therefore, perhaps I will only touch on certain examples here and there because of this.

First, from our findings it doesn’t seem to be a matter of choosing what religion to practice that influences violence (or not do, depending on how you read), as many religious groups follow Islamic law. In fact I found numerous case studies explaining more nuanced factors related to Islam and its practices. One interesting study done by William Womack, et al., showed the relationship between religiosity and violent attitudes and behaviors, which leads us to ask how Muslim practices I link to violent outcomes.

Another study by J. B. Kelleher and R. E. Schofield shows the relationship between youth exposure to news stories about religion and future violence. They showed the link between television and video games and the increase in physical violence that occurred during child abuse. The authors found that “individual cases of crime also appear to be linked to increased media exposure.” This is what we can call the “interplay theory” – they associated religious involvement with an increased likelihood of committing crime, thus increasing overall aggression. These results support our hypothesis because they show that people are interested in certain situations and behaviors and react emotionally (which usually means violence) to certain events, so when religious groups engage in crimes, they generally do so on basis of what they believe. According to the Interplay theory, religious people tend to adopt behaviors that fit their moral code or moral beliefs, not random acts of randomness, thus leading to more or less predictable behaviors. That said, a person who shares my views can tell the difference between a criminal as a follower of the Taliban (which I believe is actually extremely dangerous) compared to a Christian following the Roman Catholic Mass. As a result, I’m encouraged to note that there is much more variability in the violent behaviors of individuals within religions than within the majority of societies. Again, because of what they believe or think they want and because the state is often concerned with their behaviour.

I’ve explored these ideas as part of previous posts: Islam vs. Secularism vs. Radical Politics and Peace, Islam vs. Secularism vs. National Security and Religion vs. Secularism and Peace. You can read my original writing about these topics (and also read, at least in parts, a lot of good and bad points on them) here, here and here.

Now it does seem to be much easier to differentiate between Islamist fundamentalists and Western liberal democracies, and this has had impacts on domestic politics. Most politicians would readily acknowledge the distinction (even if there is still considerable disagreement among scholars/observers on where Muslim fundamentalists fall) but I think the implication should also be taken into account, because many people might want to consider different political parties and their approaches to religious extremism and terrorism. I tend to think of it as something of a “cognitive divide”. If we take the terms right/left and centre/right (as defined by Merriam Webster) then the central-right-left binary that exists to frame politics is completely misleading. Some people may see these two words as having quite similar meanings, but in reality, the real meaning isn't that much different. Here is another interesting analysis by Jeremy Weber that explains the situation further:

In fact, I think we do live with a “cognitive divide”. For example, people often talk in terms of left-right divisions. Often people talk about progressive and conservative, or liberal and conservative, but what is really doing the work is a cognitive divide, a division of categories based on the concept of cognitive processes. Just like how a student may have a mental model of what his/her subject is like, someone may have a mental model of what we can expect him/her to become. But if we look deeper and ask why this person may be left-right vs. non-left-right, or liberal and conservative, they will realize that they have separate models in place for themselves; a model of the subject he/she is trying to help or protect. Similarly, for a politician this would be the case for every issue. A leader has a range of policies (to be referred to as “progressive”, “conservative”, “libertarian”, “conservative”, “liberal”, “socialist”, etc.) that they aim to promote in society. Now you can imagine that our politicians, as a consequence, also have a vision of what is best for them and their constituents. The goals they will pursue and their values must be clearly set for their citizens and citizens must have confidence in them. And when they are, they are effectively elected. Then maybe they can use this to build strong bonds with them and convince them to vote for them when an election is called. Or if we go even farther in the definition of what should be pursued a politician may say what is in the public interest. Maybe they may say they want to lower taxes to encourage economic growth or maybe they claim that social welfare is essential for our economy and so they demand it for the nation.

Now it doesn’t sound like there much of a problem with this for the citizenry especially because they have an already formed opinion about the politicians and what they want from them. Moreover, for politicians, they do have to work with their voters. There is virtually no room for error and so the idea of running out the clock is impossible for them. Thus, politicians have to take care to win more votes and keep power by keeping everyone happy. Because if these two elements aren’t there then nobody’s going to be voting them in again. They may claim that they care, that they help their supporters, that they are just helping the country grow. While everyone knows that politicians may take advantage of this and run away from the political fray they can’t succeed without people backing them. To succeed politicians have to appeal to the base.

How can we move forward and create dialogue? This is what the United Nations tried to achieve with the UN Economic Commission for Asia and Pacific (ECA), through its First World Conference on Workplace Relations in New York City in 1989. The key message behind this conference was to make businesses understand that it is not enough to rely on rules and regulations to sustain business, but more important that businesses act fairly and respect employees. Businesses must show empathy to their staff and make a genuine effort to understand the daily reality of working life.