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The motivation for Joining Terrorist Organizations

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The motivation for Joining Terrorist Organization

Terrorism is primarily due to social, political, and economic factors. Religious extremism appears secondary in this pool. Terrorist organizations recruit young men i.e. by providing a surrogate "family" and making angry young men feel like they're doing something that gives meaning to their life. This is why people join street gangs, cults, hate groups, and, of course, religious extremists. They're incredibly violent, but keep in mind that ISIS emerged from brutal warfare. They didn't just come around butchering people all of sudden, however, there was plenty of brutalities before they came around.

Why so many young people in some areas turn to terrorism? Look at the social, political, and economic factors in their home countries and regions. Look at the effects of globalization, economic inequality, and the type of educational and job opportunities available to them. Actually, this was really well explored in the 2005 George Clooney film "Syriana." It follows a young man's journey to ultimately becoming a terrorist. Social, political, and economic factors load the gun. Religious extremism just aims it.

When people become inspired by acts of violence, it’s because they perceive the act of violence as being a brave blow against a legitimate target, and they feel inspired to do likewise. Terrorism in that respect is no different from any other act of war. People generally react to the terrorism with stupefied horror save its victims and those who do not sympathize with the terrorists ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"rxc0WDic","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Mueller & Stewart, 2016)","plainCitation":"(Mueller & Stewart, 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":901,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/EHIHFYKJ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/EHIHFYKJ"],"itemData":{"id":901,"type":"book","title":"Chasing ghosts: The policing of terrorism","publisher":"Oxford University Press","source":"Google Scholar","title-short":"Chasing ghosts","author":[{"family":"Mueller","given":"John E."},{"family":"Stewart","given":"Mark G."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Mueller & Stewart, 2016). Terrorism is the mirror of the mindset that sees ‘terrorists’ as being a monolithic and inexplicable bloc of people. Terrorists who carry out mass attacks have got to the point—often they have been shoved at least part of the way there—where they see their targets not as individual people but as interchangeable members of the target group ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"Dzz0MrmW","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Mueller & Stewart, 2016)","plainCitation":"(Mueller & Stewart, 2016)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":901,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/EHIHFYKJ"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/EHIHFYKJ"],"itemData":{"id":901,"type":"book","title":"Chasing ghosts: The policing of terrorism","publisher":"Oxford University Press","source":"Google Scholar","title-short":"Chasing ghosts","author":[{"family":"Mueller","given":"John E."},{"family":"Stewart","given":"Mark G."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2016"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Mueller & Stewart, 2016). Just as the target group sees the terrorists not as people with hopes and frustrations but as interchangeable, insect-like ‘terrorist’ who live in ‘the woodwork’. Terrorism is reduced by making people feel like they’re better off not being terrorist. It is a tactic of the desperate, even when it’s funded by the wealthy.

The difference between terrorism and hate crime as portrayed by western media identifies a glitch in the social machinery of the West. We can hardly find any new strategy in Western policy when it comes to muddling through far-right extremism perpetrated against Muslims. Whenever a Muslim man is charged with terrorism, he makes a front-page story, and Western media would start calling him an ISIS enthusiast. He not only represents a terrorist group but the Muslim community as a whole. This explains the wholesale treatment of Muslims as a suspect community. However, if a white man commits the same crime, of the same intensity, it is viewed with a different lens ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"RtguXL6d","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Morgan, 2004)","plainCitation":"(Morgan, 2004)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":904,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/AQR8VK7S"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/AQR8VK7S"],"itemData":{"id":904,"type":"report","title":"The origins of the new terrorism","publisher":"MILITARY IN℡LIGENCE BN (125TH) SCHOFIELD BARRACKS HI","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Morgan","given":"Matthew J."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2004"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Morgan, 2004). The same media who branded Muslim as an ISIS manic would brand a white man as an ‘angelic boy’ with a juvenile picture of him. In most of the cases, it is a secondary news item.

The Muslim community has been mutilated over the years in the wake of War on Terror. The venomous rhetoric of the West has poisoned their lives with fear. The gesticulation of Western leaders at such incidents has fanned the flames of terrorism. Explicit efforts of media have created an organic link between Islam and terrorism. Mantras of ‘Never Forget’, following the 9/11 attacks, are grounded on the assumption that westerners have been compelled to see Islam as a potential threat to their culture, race or civilization. Evidence of western hypocrisy is borne out by the research carried out in 2015.

Muslims are blamed for harboring terrorists. But going down the aisle of history exposes a deep crack in Western and especially American grandeur. Their rational domain has been restricted to “Never Forget” that Islamic Fundamentalism is a threat to their very existence. However, they have worked so hard to distemper their historical brutalities. Yes, they have forgotten the US-sponsored Phoenix Program ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"wPztP4IJ","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Morgan, 2004)","plainCitation":"(Morgan, 2004)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":904,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/AQR8VK7S"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/jsvqEXt1/items/AQR8VK7S"],"itemData":{"id":904,"type":"report","title":"The origins of the new terrorism","publisher":"MILITARY IN℡LIGENCE BN (125TH) SCHOFIELD BARRACKS HI","source":"Google Scholar","author":[{"family":"Morgan","given":"Matthew J."}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2004"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Morgan, 2004). The operation which annihilated some forty thousand people. It’s really a surprise that they have overlooked torture cell in ‘Abu Gharib’ and CIA black sites. History propounds the view that they need to tell the truth about themselves and their sins.

References

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Morgan, M. J. (2004). The origins of the new terrorism. MILITARY IN℡LIGENCE BN (125TH) SCHOFIELD BARRACKS HI.

Mueller, J. E., & Stewart, M. G. (2016). Chasing ghosts: The policing of terrorism. Oxford University Press.