Trying to decipher the mentality of terrorism and the fledgling terrorists to be is certainly an intriguing topic. There are too many unknowns in the human psyche to truly break down what really contributes to radicalization. The fundamental factors that lead individuals towards terrorist organizations, religious cults and violent and destructive riots is the needs of the weak willed to be a part of something larger than themselves. Ignorance of others customs, courtesies and cultural practices coupled with religion tends to be the driving factors, many distort to influence hate in future radicals. Sarah Kershaw discusses extremist beliefs justifying violence with a higher moral condition set by their religion, ethnicity and or national political struggles (2010). Through that reasoning people are able to justify violence as a means of influence or control over a given situation or purpose. To me this breaks down as the criminally culpable ignorance of the many lead by the charismatic and deceitful few. Terrorism is attributed …show more content…
Moghaddam, PhD, created “The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration” (2005). In this book he discusses how every experience and choices they make lead them through the phases or stairs in this case towards terrorism. This explanation of the psychological factors leading to radicalization makes the most sense to me, due to know two people being exactly the same. Using Dr. Moghaddam’s staircase metaphor it’s easier to establish a framework for details leading to terrorist outcome. Delve into the past and of the individuals understanding their character makeup as the ground floor. Then the choices and influences along the way as the middle floor of the stairs, leading to the narrowing and or final steps that are usually involved with a major life changing contributor. It’s a simple method but effective. In McVeigh’s narrowing steps it would have been the death of his friend from the government officials as an
Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “School of Hate” is about a young girls experience growing up in a deeply conservative American state. Brittany Geldert has to endure the bullying that is unleashed upon her. No matter how traumatic the experience, it is ignored by the teachers. They betray Brittany by turning the other way on these issues. The wrong religious mindset appears to take paramount no matter how scandalous the ¨Bullying on LGBT¨ issues is in a modern day America. This is a great injustice to the people who have to endure this.
Cathy's Book by Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, and Cathy Briggs is a break-out Young Adult first published September 12, 2006. A following of about 1000 members online of all ages and genders, it sold 6,000 copies in a meer 3 months of being published, and number 7 on the New York Times Best Seller list. And those are just the book's stats. Cathy herself is a very popular character with 1,200 friends on Myspace, 22 followers on Flickr, and 1,863 friends on Facebook. An impressive feat, considering she's a fictional character. After reading the book myself, I completely understand what all the hype is about. Cathy's book is a fully engrossing novel that blurs the lines between Young Adult genres and can definitely keep even the most hard-hearted of book critics distracted from their daily duties such as sleeping, eating, working, and the likes.
"Battleground America," written by Jill Lepore, provides a strong history of guns and the way they have changed in the eyes of the American through the years. She proves her point with strong evidence throughout her article, sprinkling it with opinion and argument that is strongly supported. She presents her argument to convince her audience that the open availability of guns allows citizens to undeservingly purchase them by displaying the credibility in her sources, using negative connotations in her speech, and the strength and objectivity only a strong logos appeal can provide.
What internally drives a terrorist’s motivation varies from subject to subject. While the average American citizen would likely be quick to point terrorists hate the western way of life and what it represents, the issue is far more complex. Simon Cottee’s article “What Motivates Terrorists?” (2015), looks at various levels of motivation. Prior definitions of terrorism looked at the defining cause as possibly psychological abnormalities within in the individual (Cottee, 2015). As studies have evolved, the focus has shifted to the environment in which the terrorist is surrounded. While certainly there is cases in which a person who is mentally unstable could be an ideal target for terrorist propaganda, the number of cases involving mental
Shabana Mir authored the book “Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity” in The University of North Carolina Press in the year 2014. In her book, Shabana explains how Muslim American college students face difficulties in there colligate career. She provides examples of what actions she had to do when she was in college and what other Muslim Americans are doing right now in college. She claims that Muslim Americans that live on college campuses have to hide their culture and true identities to fit in with the “regular” Americans. Also, she says that Muslim Americans have some “Painful” maturing to do as they live and interact with a diverse group of people in college. And lastly, she explains how Muslim Americans
More and more in the world today, circumstances have brought about changes in how members have used radical protesting. One way used to protest a situation is through terrorism, and the people who exercise violence in the pursuit of what they hold to be just causes are alternately known as terrorists. This movement, although viewed as barbaric, requires a person to view the needs and goals of a particular cause to be greater than that of the well being of others. There are certain characteristic traits that can be found in the majority of terrorism, which can identify a profile of a terrorist’s mind. A terrorist is not just an insane person, but also possibly a person that has been forced either by personal decision or by situations beyond control to choose an “insane” method to achieve an unachievable goal.
Ann Rinaldi has written many books for young teenagers, she is an Award winning author who writes stories of American history and makes them become real to the readers. She has written many other books such as A Break with Charity, A Ride into Morning, and Cast two Shadows, etc. She was born in New York City on August 27, 1934. In 1979, at the age of 45, she finished her first book.
Kite Runner depicts the story of Amir, a boy living in Afghanistan, and his journey throughout life. He experiences periods of happiness, sorrow, and confusion as he matures. Amir is shocked by atrocities and blessed by beneficial relationships both in his homeland and the United States. Reviewers have chosen sides and waged a war of words against one another over the notoriety of the book. Many critics of Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, argue that the novel would not have reached a lofty level of success if the U.S. had not had recent dealings with the Middle East, yet other critics accurately relate the novel’s success to its internal aspects.
Terrorism is used around the world to create fear and influence the public on political views (Siegel, 489). There are four views of terrorism including the psychological view, socialization view, ideological view, and the alienation view. A religious terrorist would most likely fit under the ideological view. In this view the terrorist feels the need to change a wrong opinion and believes that, because they are sacrificing themselves for something they believe so strongly in, it justifies the damage and harm done to innocent people (Siegel, 490). They use terror to create fear in anyone who opposes them and attract followers to their religion. In short, terrorism is widely used for political reasons but religion has been linked to the violence as well.
In the month of March 2016, Women of the World Poetry Slam had Rachel Wiley, a poet and body-positive activist, present her now viral poem called “The Dozens” (Vagianos 2016). This poem was about slams white feminism as a clear indication of whiteness self-defense mechanism. In this poem Wiley included various kinds social events that have occurred in the past years and just to name two: Raven Symone on blackness and Miley Cyrus and Nicki Manji at the VMAs. White feminism continues to become more problematic as the media continues to allow it to be because whiteness makes money; however, intersectionality about race, public imagery, and actual feminism also continues to go viral as the diversity of American become more and more productive.
I enjoyed reading your post. Although the theories that were covered this week attempt to explain us the process of radicalization, in my opinion, I think that each case will be different because the combination of factors will be different in each case. Many homegrown terrorists are radicalized due to jihad or misleading interpretation of Islam, while other homegrown terrorists are not religious at all and have other motives. However, the main factors that are usually found in most cases is crisis and deprivation. When someone is going through a crisis or deprivation, that is the most vulnerable moment in which a person is at risk of becoming radicalized. I think it is very hard for law enforcement to prevent someone from becoming radicalized
When discussing the controversial authors of Indian literature, one name should come to mind before any other. Salman Rushdie, who is best known for writing the book “Midnights Children.” The first two chapters of “Midnights Children” are known as “The Perforated Sheet”. In “The Perforated Sheet” Rushdie utilizes magic realism as a literary device to link significant events and their effects on the lives of Saleem’s family to a changing India. In fact, it is in the beginning of the story that the reader is first exposed to Rushdie’s use of magic realism when being introduced to Saleem. “On the stroke of midnight/clocks joined palms” and “the instant of India’s arrival at independence. I tumbled forth into the world”(1711). Rushdie’s description of the clocks “joining palms” and explanation of India’s newfound independence is meant to make the reader understand the significance of Saleem’s birth. The supernatural action of the clocks joining palms is meant to instill wonder, while independence accentuates the significance of the beginning of a new era. Rushdie also utilizes magic realism as an unnatural narrative several times within the story to show the cultural significance of events that take place in the story in an abnormal way.
Sothern gothic literature that include Works like Flannery O’Connor’s “A Late encounter with the enemy” incorporates the idea of “investigating madness, decay and despair, and the continuing pressures of the past upon the present, particularly with respect to the lost ideals of a dispossessed Southern aristocracy and to the continuance of racial hostilities.”(Marshall 3). These ideas all share a common theme that O’Connor brings to the table in “A Late Encounter with the enemy, along with “The American South serves as the nation’s ‘other,’ becoming the repository of everything from which the nation wants to disassociate itself” (Marshall 3–4). But in true Gothic fashion, the horrors of the past continue to dominate the present.” (Marshall 12). Flannery O’Connor gives readers insight into the life of the granddaughter Sally Poker Sash and how she heavily relies on her families past lineage to shape her present and future in this southern gothic horror (O’Connor 87).
From the literatures explored in this paper it is suffice to argue that terrorism is however multifaceted. It is not adequate to simply denote one linear delineation of terrorism despite Ramsey’s (2015) positing that such is possible. As demonstrated the macro and micro elements of terrorism is founded upon the individual self and how the individual self pertains to the wider social movement of terrorist organisations (Arena and Arrigo, 2006; Lindsey and Williams, 2013). It is argued that social movements are born from oppression of a group of individuals who share the same consensus (Lindsey and Williams, 2013). However, to this rebuttal Arena and Arrigo (2006) build on previous works of the self (cf. Mead, 1967; Stryker, 1981) which ascertain the theory of socialisation and learnt behaviour of the self is socially constructed from an individual’s social environment. This notion however is vapid insofar that it is problematic to suggest society constructs the self and the self-constructs society as the two cannot arguably co-exist. One must preside over the other. Therefore, it could be posited that the role of identity in terrorism is merely conceptual as a way for the state to legitimise their actions against social movements and in turn creates the role of terrorist through identity
ISIS and other extremist terror groups believe that their religion is superior to all, they claim they need to purify/cleanse the Middle East. The Social Learning Theory applies to youths who grow up in conditions with immense violence. The Socialization View of Terrorism and the Ideological View are also present in the documentary. Another concept from class that was in the video was the term insurgents. Insurgents use fear/terror tactics to achieve their goals, ISIS does this with threatening the refugees about selling their family members near the beginning of the film. The term Zealots can also be used to describe ISIS extremists. In the article, Psychology of Terrorism, the concept of psychoanalytic was brought up. This article focused on violence and how it leads to terrorism, “the most widely recognized theory that addresses the roots of all forms of violence is the psychoanalytic model (Borum, 2004, p.11). The next class topic discussed in the articles was the Social Learning Theory. “If aggression is a learned behavior, then terrorism, a specific type of aggressive behavior, can also be learned” (Borum, 2004, p.13). The next topic was the Cognitive Theory; ISIS is unable to solve their problems with an act of a non-aggressive behavior/solution. Having a perception that their environment needs to be cleansed because of the Yazidi is also an example of that theory, filtering thoughts through their beliefs. Profiling was also mentioned in the article. The Russell and Miller Profile was published in the late 1970s; it was a combination of data from eighteen different terrorist organizations including “Palestinian, Japanese, German, Italian, Turkish, Irish, Spanish, Iranian, Argentinian, Brazilian, and Uruguayan terrorist groups” (Borum, 2004, p.