Terrorist motives worth studying
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Pavan Vangipuram
We have heard quite a lot about the evil terrorists during the past few years, but we have heard strikingly little about how people become terrorists.
It is assumed terrorism is some inscrutable aberration — that terrorists are either evil or insane, and they are driven only by blind, fanatical hatred. But this does not appear to give a full picture. Several attempts have been made to identify the path by which one adopts terrorism, the latest of which is a handy volume by anthropologist Marc Sageman, titled “Leaderless Jihad.”
The book is not a literary masterpiece, but it is valuable for being one of the first such studies conducted with a semblance of the scientific method. Instead of focusing on individual cases, Sageman compiles a database of more than 200 terrorists from police records and extensive interviews. Throughout the book, he attempts to answer questions such as, “Who becomes a terrorist and how does the process occur?”
Though he limits his study to Islamic terrorism and neglects suicide bombers in favor of group leaders, Sageman comes to some very definite conclusions about the causes of terrorism, many of which defy conventional wisdom.
The first, and most interesting, is a refutation of the popular idea of a terrorist. According to Sageman, a terrorist is not likely to be poor, uneducated or intensely religious. He found 61 percent of his sample to be college graduates, predominantly in technical fields such as science and engineering (Osama Bin Laden himself was a civil engineer).
In terms of socioeconomic background, the terrorists studied were overwhelmingly middle class, often born to parents who had moved to the West and found a comfortable life. And in regard to religiosity, only 20 percent had religious education from childhood, while more than two-thirds had a secular upbringing. Why, then, do people become terrorists?
The path to extremism is slow and nuanced, according to Sageman’s book, and relies heavily on what he calls “group polarization.” It begins with a feeling of moral outrage. Though such claims are regularly denied by American politicians, there is a widespread belief that the United States and Europe are waging a “war on Islam.”
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are considered proof of this, and other actions by the West, such as the Bosnia campaign, were similarly regarded in the past. Many young Muslims who travel to the West as students become preoccupied by this perceived war and deeply resentful of their host societies.
After a period of brooding, the fledgling terrorist seeks out sympathizers. Often this is done out of sheer loneliness. Sageman finds that 60 percent of his sample adopted extremism while living in a country where they did not grow up. They feel as though there is some vast injustice being done to Islam in the name of democracy, and during their isolation, they begin to consort with a tight group of people who share that view.
From that point, group polarization takes over. As the group becomes closer, the tendency is to adopt more and more extreme attitudes. This occurs because each member of the group has an idea of what he thinks the group wants him to say. The dynamic fuels a feedback loop, wherein the discussion spontaneously evolves from: “There is a great injustice being committed” to “We have to do something about this” to “We need to do something now.”
These pockets of malcontents (“bunches of guys,” as Sageman calls them) form the real backbone of the jihadist movement. Al-Qaida and other major organizations are only on the sideline.
This is a departure from the conventional paradigm of terrorism, and Sageman presents a new policy to address it. He comes very close to rejecting a military solution — with the familiar argument that every terrorist killed spawns many times more.
Instead, he asserts, it is the feeling of injustice that must be attacked, either through propaganda, a more cautious military policy or both.
These conclusions are unlikely to be popular with our policy-makers, who have staked their careers on the idea that terror can be contained through military force.
But they are valuable for bringing to light a point that is not often discussed: People are not born terrorists, they become terrorists.
Pavan Vangipuram is a State News columnist and chemical engineering senior. Reach him at vangipu1@msu.edu.
Commentary
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Mike
(10/21/08 12:35am)Report
If you want to understand terrorism, simply open up the koran.
Oh, Mike
(10/21/08 12:38am)Report
….and if you want to understand a bigot, simply meet up with Mike.
J-money
(10/21/08 4:44am)Report
“He found 61 percent of his sample to be college graduates, predominantly in technical fields such as science and engineering”
Not drawing any conclusions, but Pavan is a chemical engineer….
Dan
(10/21/08 6:54am)Report
Pavan,
Thanks for the book review! It offered just the kind of insight I was expecting from you.
Mike
(10/21/08 7:09am)Report
Just read these quotes taken directly from the Koran and then tell me that it isn’t a terrorist instruction manual:
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/koran.html
Over 40% of Muslims living in England believe in a radical philosophy. This is hardly a small minority.
Bleed Green
(10/21/08 7:22am)Report
I’m sure parts of the Bible could be taken the same way, Mike.
Do you have any sort of source for your ridiculous statistic? What does that even mean, “believe in radical philosophy?” “Believe in,” as in “believe it exists,” or “believe it is something to be acted upon?” Radical, by whose standards?
RSB
(10/21/08 7:50am)Report
Who cares. A terrorist is a terrorist no matter what path he or she took.
NachoLibre
(10/21/08 7:58am)Report
Seriously… Pavan looks like the guy from Nacho Libre.
Joe
(10/21/08 8:57am)Report
RSB,
We should care because if there is a most common “path” on the way to becoming a terrorist, we could implement strategies to avoid people taking it. As the saying goes, nip it in the bud before it grows.
RSB
(10/21/08 9:07am)Report
Good luck with that Joe…
Joe
(10/21/08 9:39am)Report
RSB,
You’re essentially saying “It’s too hard so we shouldn’t even try.” That’s not the American attitude I know.
beau
(10/21/08 9:39am)Report
I feel the best policy is the Bush policy of not understanding anything about your enemy and blindly going into to a conflict with your ignorant preconceived notions firmly intact. I further feel that any effort to clarify who you are fighting and why they fight us is a waste of valuable time. It is clear they fight us only because they hate our freedom. Any other explanation is liberal/communist/socialist crapola and should be hooted down by us real Americans. To imply jihadist actually feel and think is ridiculous on the face of it. Hey, if they could think don’t you feel they would have surrendered by now and gotten on the gravy wagon like our previous enemies? There’s nothing better for an economy then losing a war to the US and then ponying up for nation building paid for by the ever generous American taxpayer. Besides, our Bible is heavier then the Koran so cold crush it in an instant.
Understanding
(10/21/08 10:43am)Report
Because they hate our freedom? Beau, the reality of the matter is that they fight because they feel threatened by Western society. And can you really blame them for feeling that way? Businesses like McDonald’s and others push their way into countries everywhere replacing unique, ethnic lifestyles with the boring sameness of American culture. Combine that with pushing our ideals of how we think they should run things, and this need to spread America’s brand of democracy and its easy to see why they resent and even fear us. Honestly, any rational American should not try to distill this into the simple, Bushesque “they hate our freedom”.
Now I’m not saying that the reaction of terrorists is in any way acceptable. It is not. Fighting back with guns, RPGs, improvised explosive devices and crashing planes into builds is akin to taking a chainsaw and hacking away at one’s problems with abandon. Not to mention the disregard for humans lives is absolutely appalling.
beau
(10/21/08 11:24am)Report
Dear Understanding: Sarcasm, pure and simple. It’s too late to try and convince anyone who believes that bull how out to lunch they really are. The British would call the Sons of Liberty terrorists if this was happening today. Anyone fighting unconventional wars against huge armed forces like we have deployed are simply boiled down with the terrorist catch all. Serves no purpose other then to placate the pointy heads out there who suck up such drivel as an explanation for why we are at war.
awesome
(10/21/08 11:25am)Report
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the State News opinion page is actually publishing meaningful, important articles now. This is the kind of thing that needs to be published more often… Indescribably better than ‘fish stories’.
And beau, you are dead on, but you stop short on a few important points. Not only are they jealous of the weighty might of our Bible and hate our freedoms, they are jealous that our flag looks cooler and that our babes are WAY hotter. They also are pissed because they don’t have NASCARs and are pissed because NFL Europe folded before there could be an NFL Middle East league.
Matthew
(10/21/08 11:47am)Report
Well said, beau. FYI, the British did call the Sons of Liberty (actually the whole of the American Revolutionaries) terrorists. They used it to drum up support for the taxes they needed at home to run the war and in the colonies to justify housing soldiers.
Understanding
(10/21/08 2:34pm)Report
“Dear Understanding: Sarcasm, pure and simple.”
Sorry about that, sometimes is a bit hard to pick up on sarcasm in the printed form. But yes, you are correct in that its a bit late to convince people how idiotic it is to believe that we’re good, they’re bad, and terrorist are against freedom. Life is never so simple and black and white.
Mike
(10/21/08 6:07pm)Report
Here is the poll where it says that 40% of British Muslims support radical oppressive Islamic law.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1540895/Young,
British-Muslims‘getting-more-radical’.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1510866/Poll-reveals-40pc-of-Muslims-want-sharia-law-in-UK.html
not BG
(10/21/08 6:25pm)Report
Mike: “Over 40% of Muslims living in England believe in a radical philosophy.”
Telegraph: “Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain.”
First, it is not “over 40%.” Second, there is a big difference in the poll question and your original claim.
Benjy Compson
(10/21/08 6:40pm)Report
“[Sageman] limits his study to Islamic terrorism and neglects suicide bombers in favor of group leaders. … He found 61 percent of his sample to be college graduates. … The terrorists studied were overwhelmingly middle class.”
The leaders of the terrorist groups are middle class college graduates? That’s like the middle-management in any coporation in America. But without people on the assembly lines, or without people suicide bombing, there is nothing for management to do. It is the people doing the dirty work down in the trenches (literally and/or figuratively) that make the enterprise work. I think the suicide bombers and actual combatants are the ones Sageman should have considered.
Mike
(10/21/08 7:31pm)Report
To not BG: You need to read the article, idiot. They rounded down to 40%. It is slightly over 40% hence the wording I used. Regardless, it shows that radical Islam is prominent among Westernized Muslims.
Infidel
(10/21/08 7:41pm)Report
Understanding writes,
“And can you really blame them for feeling that way? Businesses like McDonald’s and others push their way into countries everywhere replacing unique, ethnic lifestyles with the boring sameness of American culture”
There is a new Thai restaurant by my apartment. Should I pull a jihad on the people of Thailand?
You’re making excuses for terrorists.
Get real…
Mr. Anonymous
(10/21/08 8:18pm)Report
Interesting article. And quite true. Many seem to forget that Fidel Castro was a law student in Cuba when he started to plot against Batista dictatorship, then supported by Washington. And Ernesto “Che” Guevara a medical student who never did his intern after graduating in 1948, he ended up joining guerrillas groups in Guatemala in 1954 when the government then under Arbenz was toppled by the military, under USA’s CIA support. By the late 1960s and 1970s in then West Germany, some young intellectuals probably affected by many Germans refusal to see the evil side of Nazis, formed the Baader-Meinhoff gang or “German Red Army”. They carried out shootings, bombings and bank robberies in the Federal Republic. Ulrike Meinhoff’s father was killed in the battle of Stalingrad during World War II fighting in the Hitler’s Wehrmacht. The girl grew up in a post war Germany that lived in denial for many years, which emotionally frustrated her, and made her very resentful toward her own country. She studied psychology but instead of being a scholar, she helped found the urban terrorist group with her “boyfriend” Andrea Baader, an expelled school teacher, and a “loser” son of an aristocratic family from Wurttemberg. And another example is the case of Carlos “Ilych” Ramirez, or the “the jackal” who carried out attacks against USA’s embassies and consular offices in Europe in the late 60s and early 70s. He once said, “USA has no morality to criticize us with its Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s nuclear bombings”. And did this Carlos “Ilych” Ramirez came from poor family? No, his father a lawyer bureacrat in the Venezuela’s governemnt under dictator Perez Jimenes, and he, Carlos, was a law student himself in Caracas in the early 1960s, he is in his late sixties now in a jail in France. This is not to “excuse” terrorism. But see a truth we refuse to see: society when in some conflicts will create people, and many of them well schooled, well read and from good family, willing to “take arms” against the “status quo” committing some “perceived” justice, whether we like it or not. Have we forgotten that Robin Hood, William Tell and the “Minutemen” who fought against the British in USA’s war of independence, were in some way, “terrorists” too? Or the Marquis fighting the Nazis in occupied France in World War II? Remember the George Santayana quote, “those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it?” Much to think about.
Mr. Anonymous
(10/21/08 8:28pm)Report
This one is for “mike”: look in the Holy Bible Jeremiah 51, the whole chapter, and tell me if is so “peaceful”? The violence it preaches is no different than the Koran.
Mike
(10/21/08 9:19pm)Report
To Mr. Anonymous: Christianity has gone through a reformation. That’s why you don’t see Christians beheading people. Islam is still operating like it did centuries ago. And the bible doesn’t hold a candle to the amount of terrrorism and hatred in the koran. Finally, I don’t follow the New Testament so I I don’t really care abotu Jeremiah.