Hallmarks That Define Terrorist Organizations - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the contemporary world, the word "Terrorism" refers to the act of killing innocent citizens by a group to arouse feelings of fright among people of the country. Terrorism is an international threat as we talk and the risks from these groups have grown terrifyingly and posed numerous challenges to many nations, and their main aim is to cause destruction. Despite, the government sectors investing many resources in this area to fight the insecurity and fear instilled in the citizen by the deadly acts by this inhuman group, the process has not been entirely fruitful. It is because the governmental and non-governmental agencies involved lack firm foundation and understanding of the terrorist groups and their aggressive acts. Therefore, there is a need to cover the motivations that have resulted in the radical increase in terrorism today, and this paper focuses on the familiar hallmarks that define the terrorists' organizations.

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Motivations

Religion

It is a common belief that terrorism manifests the religious fanaticism and due to the failure of these terrorist group to attain their unrealistic ambitions by conventional means; therefore, they tend to send a religious and ideological message by terrorizing the public. For instance; Muslim terrorists use religion as an instrument to justify their actions and to offer proper explanations to their inhumane acts. Mostly, when a young gentleman passes his threshold, he starts the indoctrination process and dramatically changes his environment information. Therefore, he gets isolated, indoctrinated and his perception of the world is altered (Janeczko, 2014). The moment that a potential recruit becomes part of the pipeline, positive influences turns to be narratives to him, and he could hardly even conceive an opposing message hence the probability to objectively respond and interpret it is nil.

The suspected entire group of terrorists is currently associated with religion as being the primary terrorism motives. Religion and Islam in specific are applied by the agencies and commonly used by suspected terrorists to fight, recruit and justify their actions. According to a study by Gill, Horgan, and Deckert (2014) which was conducted at the Institute for Security Studies, Religion plays an active role in these organizations. In the survey, 87 percent of the respondents argued that religion is the main reason they joined Al Shabab despite no terrorism word indicated in the Qur'an. Thus, the religious wises use fatwas which means that the legal pronouncement made by them is not binding to the entire Muslims (Gill, Horgan, & Deckert, 2014). Also, they use their spiritual power in an attempt to justify the actions of terrorists as the necessary methods for satisfying the requirements of reality. The terrorists make sure they take sanctuary in the religion of which they use as an instrument for political action and activism.

According to Janeczko (2014), culture offers social behavior and collective identity that support and legitimizes terrorism and creates a vital environment to raise funds and recruit activists. The religion itself can never be adequate reason for the attacks without the appropriate culture. Therefore, religion and culture combination generate a set of values and beliefs that induces Islamic terrorism and result in social unity, in spite of the community members fervor (Janeczko, 2014). Hence, when intertwining them, they should be explored jointly and evaluated in the socio-economic and political context to comprehend the Global Jihad real nature.

There exist essential facts regarding religious education; therefore, according to the present study, the terrorist groups are as a result of incomplete or incorrect spiritual knowledge by the subjects throughout their formative years. The potential youths tend to be vulnerable to such group skewed appeal because they lack appropriate understanding of their faith. Former extremists in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Netherlands have successfully been rehabilitated via Reintegration programs that directly refutes religious miss-interpretations by al-Qaeda with the use of knowledgeable scholars in Islamic. It is evident that to renounce al-Qaeda, reeducation in religious teaching is essential to the fighters and therefore, religious education programs to younger participants could be the most potent weapon against the al-Qaeda appeal. The government should vigorously support members of the clergy whose Islam interpretation hold up peaceful coexistence (Janeczko, 2014). Despite the ideas being active all over the Muslim world, there is a need for the voices to be retransmitted and amplified to wider audiences.

Political Activity

Terrorists have been frustrated about not obtaining a preferred place in the community, and this has led to the development of catastrophe in their psychosocial identity. The fundamental need to be a member of a terrorist organization is suggestive of a fragmented or incomplete political identity. In a study, approximately 50 percent of the suspected individuals to be terrorists reported that political repression is among the significant motivational factors that associate them with terrorist activities. Also, the personal pathway model indicates that terrorists emerged from a chosen, at-risk people, who experienced early damage to their self-worth. Their following political actions may be steady with the open-minded families' social philosophies yet exceed their view of the contradiction in the beliefs of their families and the deficient in social activity. In contemporary society, family political philosophies serve the role of sensitizing such people to the political and economic tensions inherent (Jongman, 2017). However, the security police and forces are quoted as inciting more violent political actions by these people. Belongingness

In radical extremist organizations, many potential terrorists get not just the sense of meaning, but as well they find a sense of belonging and oneness. According to Koomen and Van Der Pligt (2015), the great need for being associated with a particular social class is the psychological motivation among the potential terrorists joining the groups. Those people have endured lifetime rejection like; the social rejection and family rejection and they tend to get a new sense of belonging and new family by being members of terrorist groups. In the same study, it was established that more than 80 percent of potential terrorists expressed their urge to fit in a group since they need the rules, structure, and perspectives that are enjoyed for being a member. It is because belonging describes his friends, his roles and his interaction with the community. Therefore, this is a major motivational factor for most individuals to join the terrorist group and it makes their behavior to be similar because of this requirement estranged to belong. For the fresh members, the terrorist leaders turn to be their substitute parents while the group makes up their substitute family. Therefore, there will be no crime committed to saying that sense of belonging and the fraternity of liberal individuals is the key motivational factor for membership in the terrorist organizations (Koomen, & Van Der Pligt, 2015). In case of an attack by security forces, they tend to exercise this unity to win the battle.

Victims of Social Injustice

The central reason for justifying terrorism is an injustice; thus; remediable prejudice is the fundamental motivation for terrorism. The potential subjects tend to view themselves as the victim in society because they perceive that the external forces are reasons for unhappiness and making it tough for them to succeed. The many complaints have been religious, economic, social and political, and the targeted person is who they think is accountable for the injustice (Silke, & Brown, 2016). Also, they trust that their target created disharmony in the community in term of unbalanced communication structure, economic growth, and short of political opportunity. Thus, the most potent motivation factor behind terrorism is vengeance.

Cultural

According to Sandberg, Berntzen, and Kiilakoski (2014), Culture offers the shared identity and the social manners that support and legitimizes terrorism, and it creates the necessary environment to raise funds and recruit activities. Therefore, the absence of appropriate culture makes religion to be a small reason for the attacks and the combination of the two may lead to the generation of the set of values and beliefs that inspire Islamic terrorism hence resulting to unity in spite of the religious passion of the society members (Sandberg, Berntzen, & Kiilakoski, 2014). It is essential then to explore religion and culture as one because they are the primary motivational factors of terrorism.

Identity

It is clear that most people encounter difficulties and unwillingness in identifying themselves with any person for a while and the unsatisfied identity needs tend to be portrayed in many ways. Most suspected terrorists report negative identity as well as identity calamity to be among the main motivational factors of membership in terrorism and thus most individual join these organizations in search of their character. Due to questionable personal meaning, it becomes straightforward for these individuals to adopt negative role; hence they identify themselves as freedom fighters or terrorist to provide an answer to their underlying question (Gill, Horgan & Deckert, 2014). Therefore, being a terrorist group member offers a sense of identity and belonging and the organizations turn the most vital constituent of their psychosocial uniqueness.

Conclusion

It can be said that terrorist and their activities have increased due to the various motivations that aid in justifying their inhumane acts and they include religion, cultural, identity, political, belongingness, and perception of being social injustice victims in the society. Therefore, for the government to successfully eradicate terrorism, it has to dig deeper in understanding the motivations in broad so that it can come up with strategic tackles to encounter these motivations hence completely bring terrorism down.

References

Gill, P., Horgan, J., & Deckert, P. (2014). Bombing alone: Tracing the motivations and antecedent behaviors of loneactor terrorists. Journal of forensic sciences, 59(2), 425-435. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1556-4029.12312

Janeczko, M. (2014). 'Faced with death, even a mouse bites': Social and religious motivations behind terrorism in Chechnya. Small Wars & Insurgencies, 25(2), 428-456. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09592318.2014.903975

Jongman, A. J. (2017). Political terrorism: A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases, theories, and literature. Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351498616

Koomen, W., & Van Der Pligt, J. (2015). The psychology of radicalization and terrorism. Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317677031

Sandberg, Berntzen, L. E., & Kiilakoski, T. (2014). Stories in action: The cultural influences of school shootings on the terrorist attacks in Norway. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 7(2), 277-296. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17539153.2014.906984

Silke, A., & Brown, K. (2016). 'Radicalisation': The Transformation of Modern Understanding of Terrorist Origins, Psychology and Motivation. In State, Society and National Security: Challenges and Opportunities in the 21st Century(pp. 129-150). Retrieved from https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789813140127_0009