http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/include/articles.asp?articleID=5525
Terrorism, Part 2 of 6: Ideology, desperation motivate terrorists
By GEORGE J. BRYJAK, Special to the Enterprise
Terrorism
A series by George J. Bryjak
¯Part 1: Defining terrorism, in its many varieties
¯Part 2: Ideology, desperation motivate terrorists
¯Part 3: Biological, chemical and nuclear threats
¯Part 4: Killing in the name of God
¯Part 5: Feminization of suicide bombing
¯Part 6: Anti-terrorist strategies, present and future
Our understanding of why terrorists murder innocent civilians, often
sacrificing their own lives in the process, is limited and controversial.
Americans have traditionally favored an individualistic or psychological
interpretation of terrorist motivation as opposed to a broader economic
and/or political perspective. Because terrorism involves wanton, random
violence against guiltless victims, many people assume that the perpetrators
are mentally unbalanced, sadistic, sick individuals.
While there can be little doubt that some terrorists are mentally unbalanced
(just as there are mentally unstable individuals in any endeavor), with few
exceptions scholars and law enforcement officials reject the wholesale
mental illness or psychopathological interpretation of this behavior for at
least three reasons:
1) The available evidence, as psychologist Ken Heskin notes, does not
support the proposition that terrorists are diagnostically psychopathic or
otherwise clinically disturbed. Psychologist Ariel Merari, head of the
Political Violence Research unit at Tel Aviv University, argues that most
terrorists are of above average intelligence and have sophisticated ethical
and moral development. On the basis of her research, political scientist
Martha Crenshaw concluded that the outstanding common characteristic of
terrorists is their normalcy. Richard Rubenstein, author of Alchemists of
Revolution: Terrorism in the Modern World, argues that most terrorists are
no more or less fanatical than the young men who charged into Union cannon
fire at Gettysburg. ... They are no more or less cruel and cold-blooded than
the Resistance fighters who executed Nazi officials and collaborators in
Europe, or the American GIs ordered to pacify (destroy) Vietnamese
villages.
2) Even if terrorists were mentally disturbed in some manner that
predisposed them to violence, why would they turn to terrorist violence as
opposed to robbery, rape, aggravated assault and/or serial killing? To know
that someone is prone to aggressive behavior is not the same as knowing why
this predisposition is expressed in a particular way. As sociologists Steven
Barkan and Lynne Snowden argue, At most, a psychopathological viewpoint can
explain why someone turns to violence, but it cannot readily explain why
they turn to terrorist violence.
3) A simple terrorism-as-psychopathology interpretation turns our attention
away from the larger context within which this behavior occurs. It would be
both simplistic and naive to try and understand the motives of the men who
turned airplanes into guided missiles on Sept. 11, 2001 without examining
the social, political and religious milieu from which they came. This
criticism has been succinctly summarized by Peter Sederberg: While
psychopathology offers some intriguing insights, it tends to discount the
significance of the social and political environment. Indeed, under certain
conditions, such as those of the (Nazi) death camps, terrorist acts may
become the norm, and the deviant personality may be the one who resists
committing acts of terrorism.
It is these psychological shortcomings that a structural interpretation of
terrorism addresses. From this perspective, terrorist violence is the
ultimate form of social protest political action in its most extreme form.
It is the last recourse of individuals who feel powerless and believe
(rightly or wrongly) that all nonviolent avenues of redressing injustices
done to them are pointless, or have been tried and failed. For example, from
a structuralist perspective, vigilante terrorism (the Ku Klux Klan, for
example) is a violent response to racial and ethnic minorities thought to be
challenging the superiority and way of life of the dominant group(s) in
society. Abortion clinic bombers are convinced the government is doing
nothing to save the lives of the unborn and therefore, must engage in
violent acts to rescue them. The transnational terrorists who attacked New
York City and Washington most likely believed the United States is primarily
responsible for the unrestricted spread of ungodly Western capitalist
materialism that will eventually eclipse Islam. Since the rich nations of
the world will never willingly abandon that economic system, it must be
destroyed.
Numerous scholars are of the opinion that individuals regardless of their
personality makeup are unlikely to commit terrorist acts unless they adopt
ideologies justifying the use of violence to achieve political goals.
These ideologies can be transmitted in various ways, from friendship
networks to government propaganda. For example, the state terrorism of Nazi
Germany depended on the transmission and adoption of a bioideology that
defined Jews as subhuman. A similar orientation underlies the vigilante
terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan. A racist ideology that dehumanized blacks by
portraying them as sinister threats to white society was a necessary
condition for the several thousand lynchings that occurred after the Civil
War and the first three decades of the 20th century.
A terrorist profile
Although most experts believe that searching for a terrorist personality
is futile, social scientists Cindy Combs and Martin Slann have constructed a
demographic profile of characteristics common to known terrorists. While
these characteristics tell us little about individual motivation per se,
they do shed light on a category of people who have already engaged in
terrorist activity and, perhaps, on those who might follow.
¯Age: Terrorism is a vocation of the young, with most known active
terrorists in their 20s. However, beginning in the late 1970s, terrorism
became the pursuit of children as young as 12 to 14 years of age. The trend
toward increasingly younger terrorists is most notable in Northern Ireland
and the Middle East.
¯Gender: Historically, terrorism has been the sinister work of males,
although over the past 25 years there has been a marked increase in female
participation. Terrorism, as a number of experts have noted, has become a
more equal opportunity activity. Combs and Slann note that female members
of some terrorist groups have proved to be tougher, more fanatical, more
loyal and possessors of a greater capacity for suffering than their male
counterparts.
¯Education: Prior to the mid-1970s, approximately two-thirds of identifiable
terrorists had some college education, with many holding post-graduate
degrees. Over the past 30 years, education levels have declined, with
terrorist organizations recruiting ever-younger members. As a consequence of
this strategy, terrorists as young as 12 years of age have little more than
a watered-down version of their groups political ideology.
¯Economic status: Terrorists in the 1960s often came from middle- and
upper-middle-class families, their ideology and behavior a rejection of a
privileged lifestyle they believed came at the expense of the poor. In
recent years, terrorists are more likely to come from the poorest class,
individuals with roots in absolute destitution.
¯Violence as a way of life: A significant number of contemporary terrorists
came of age in societies characterized by ongoing violence. Having witnessed
the maiming and killing of family and friends, Peace as much as the world
knows it has little meaning for them. Combs and Slann argue that these
individuals neither understand nor recognize the need for limits on
violence.
This demographic profile is most disturbing. With tens of millions of young,
poorly educated (and, therefore, high suggestible), Third World males raised
in a culture of violence, terrorists recruiters will have little trouble
attracting new followers.
George J. Bryjak was a sociology professor for 24 years at the University of
San Diego. Now retired, he lives in Bloomingdale.
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