Causes of Terrorist Attacks
In recent years, no one seems to be safe in the world. Terrorism is an ugly development which has compelled world leaders as well as many public figures to spend millions of dollars in the attempt to beef up their securities to keep their countrymen and families safe from terrorist attacks. It is correct to say that today’s world in an increasingly complex world and which has led to an increase in challenges faced by citizens of various countries. Often, terrorism involves the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. As a result, common citizens develop a state of fear and submission produced by these evil and inhuman acts. With the increase and advancement of technology, terrorists are finding new ways and techniques to carry out their acts making it difficult for the security forces to detect or predict these attacks.
Summary
For many years, the Muslim community has been largely associated with terrorist attacks in various parts of the globe. However, it is the high time that world leaders change their beliefs and notion regarding terrorism. A broad array of different countries and regions not necessarily of the Muslim countries have practiced terrorists to further their political objectives. For any nation to be in a position to stop these attacks, it has to have a full understanding of the root causes of terrorist attacks. However, this fight cannot be left in the hand of a few countries with financial, political and military power and we all need to participate (Wilson 2013). As a fact, terrorism has become a hazardous threat to all countries around the globe. Some of the basic causes of terrorists include political and social injustices as well as belief that violence will be effective to usher in any change particularly political changes. Moreover, the formation of the nationalist or separatist organization in various countries can lead to these attacks that leave devastating casualties and loss of lives. This assignment will attempt to explore various aspects of terrorism, particularly its causes and possible solutions.
Root causes of terrorist attacks around the globe
The most important lesson in human life is not to stay still, but rather people should seek new challenges with vigor in the attempt to design and create solutions to these issues. As a result, world leaders should focus on finding a solution to reduce terrorist attack if not to eliminate them completely. Nevertheless, there is no one single religion that encourages terrorist act or violence, and thus, most of the prolific world leaders are wrong to associate terrorist attacks with the Muslim region. Some of the possible causes of terrorism include:
Political injustices and grievances
Often individuals may choose terrorism when trying to the right a political or a social event that they perceive to be wrong. The chances are that when people lack political inclusion in state or when solving political grievances may trigger them to form a terrorist organization in the attempt to push for political inclusion as well as righting political wrong. Statistics show that in recent years, there has been an increase in reported cases of frustrated expression of political will which turns violent in the future leading to attacks on innocent people (Aksoy 2014). Despite the fact that this is the only way such individuals may explain their frustrations to their leaders it is against the bible that states “ there are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.” This verse is a clear indication that there is no religion that is allowed to practice terrorism and in the case of political grievances and injustices leaders should sit down and find a solution amicably rather than fighting and killing an innocent individual. In most cases, Islam is a reaction to oppressive governments and its western supporters who try to manipulate all that they do ranging from their political life to economic life to social life. So often, Muslim grows angry for the lack of representation like other communities in world matters, especially western affairs leading disillusioned persons into the arms of terrorism.
Oppression
Terrorist will be greatly increased if they can influence people around the world to achieve objectives and goals of their groups. While terrorism is on the increase in recent years, there is an increase in a number of people who suffer because of their ungodly acts. Another major cause of terrorism around various regions in the world is oppression that is usually inflicted on the indigenous communities by the colonialist. Most people believe dead and gone the days that countries could colonize others, but this is not true (LaFree 2014). In the current era, the developed countries may exercise neo-colonialism particularly economically by inflicting bans and conditions for a particular country, making it difficult for such countries to participate in world affairs. Such countries who feel that they are colonized may form nationalist movements to fight against oppression and discrimination, thus increasing chances of becoming terrorist organizations. In most cases, extreme nationalism can set up or uphold language rights, religious belief, and symbols of a particular company community. Research and past studies show that most of the resistance groups against oppressors have turned into terrorist organizations in the attempt to free their countries, families as well as communities from the oppressors.
Religion
Most of the world leaders specifically Christians hold a belief that terrorism is caused by religion. To most people, religion is paramount cause of terrorism as it is mainly stressed on the Muslim extremists in the Middle East. However, it is prudent for people to understand that not all Muslims are bad and can be associated with terrorism. Only a portion of Muslim width extreme ideas and concepts has led to the belief that all Muslims are terrorists, which lead to discrimination and segregation as most of the Muslim leaders are not allowed to participate in world matters. Past research has indicated that Islamic terrorism completely rejects the ideology of democracy and individualism while another group of Muslim prefers and believes in caliphate rather than capitalism (Newman 2013). Although it is not the primary cause of terrorism, religion plays a vital role in turning innocent minds and roll into extremist who kills and terrorizes other in the name of Allah. Today religion is regarded as one of the fundamental drivers of terrorism as it encourages attacks through promising rewards in the afterlife thus prompting more and more terrorist to carry out suicide bomb that is more violent in nature than other types of terrorism.
Terrorism is perhaps one of the most challenging problems of our time and for those who have witnessed it impacts first hand has an experience of how devastating these acts and activities can be. The truth is that it may be hard or even impossible to reduce terrorist activities in some of the countries leave alone eliminating them. It is difficult to stop an individual who believes that he or she is fighting for his or hard freedom and that there are possible afterlife rewards in heaven. However, with collective efforts and willingness, I believe that world leaders can manage to reduce these activities n larger scales. Some of the most viable solutions to these attacks include:
Keeping a check on extremist clerics
As stated earlier on, religion is one of the factors that have contributed positively to terrorism by encouraging terrorist attacks by extremist clerics. To be in a position to control; attacks, there is the need for world leaders to keep a close check on all extremist clerics to ensure that they do not poison good souls and minds with evil thoughts. Surprisingly, most of these clerics have found refuge in the western countries where they carry out their activities without being suspected or detected, making it difficult for criminologists and other security forces to get to them (Bruyelle 2014). Such scenarios show there are corrupt leaders and officers from the western countries who allow such clerics to get into their countries.
Stop the flow of terrorist funds
Research shows that most of these terrorists come from poor or middle-level countries that cannot afford to plan and equip extremist Muslim and other terrorist to carry attacks around the world. Thus, a terrorist is funded by some of the world countries that have the financial power to purchase as well as pay these poor Muslim citizens to carry out the attacks. The only way to cripple this circle is by finding and stopping the flow of money into such organization. Without financial backup, most of these organizations will not have the funds to run as well as finance most of their activities thus reducing their attacks if not eliminating their activities. There should be no funding of institutions or charities given without proper verification from concerned parties.
Education
There is another group of leaders who feel that educating children and the youth from developing countries and communities can become one of the primary solutions to terrorism. Considering that most of these terrorists go to all this trouble not because they believe in the religion or to fight for their course, it is because they need money to feed their families (LaFree 2014). Thus, educating the younger generation can be a major and significant step in the fight against terrorists.
In conclusion, it is correct to say that terrorism is not the answer to problems affecting our people irrespective of our ethnic or racial. Thus, finding a peaceful solution to all our problems is far much more important rather than to revenge through the shedding of innocent blood. However, to win this fight, it is important to be conversant with all terrorist activities as well have background knowledge as to why they carry out their attacks. Considering that their effects are felt across the globe not only in one country, it is the high time that we all worked together irrespective of our financial abilities or military power. Terrorism is a global threat and should not be condoned.
Bibliography
Aksoy, Deniz. ” “Elections and the timing of terrorist attacks.” .” The Journal of Politics 76, no. 04, 2014: 899-913.
Bruyelle, Jean-Luc, Conor O’Neill, El-Miloudi El-Koursi, Fabrice Hamelin, Nicolò Sartori, and Louahdi Khoudour. “”Improving the resilience of metro vehicle and passengers for an effective emergency response to terrorist attacks.” .” Safety science 62, 2014: 37-45.
LaFree, Gary, and Bianca E. Bersani. “”County‐Level Correlates of Terrorist Attacks in the United States.” .” Criminology & Public Policy 13, no. 3, 2014: 455-481.
Newman, Lindsay Shorr. ” “Do terrorist attacks increase closer to elections?.” .” Terrorism and Political Violence 25, no. 1, 2013: 8-28.
Wilson, Matthew C., and James A. Piazza. ” “Autocracies and terrorism: Conditioning effects of authoritarian regime type on terrorist attacks.” .” american Journal of political Science 57, no. 4, 2013: 941-955.
