Extremism and Terrorism: Beyond the Stereotypes
Adhishmaya E V and Dr Aswathy Gopi
Department of Psychology, SRM University AP
In the contemporary political landscape, “terrorism” and “extremism” are words that carry much weight, at the same time frequently misunderstood. While all these words are assumed to be used in context of senseless violence; historical analysis and academic research show the reality of complexity of these words. Different calculated strategies, deep-seated histories, and tangled psychological drives that could result in fueling these violent behaviors are being blurry when we understand these phenomena just by the everyday usage and biases and stereotypes that we carry with us.
Terrorism is not merely an act of violence, but an indirect strategy. It is the use of fear or terror indulged by violent attacks against a direct target, which can be people or property, as a mean to intimidate an indirect target, which is usually governing authority or a large group of people, to influence their actions and also to achieve any specific political objective. Terrorism is the calculus of strategy that defines it and not something that specify any particular weapon. This strategy can be employed by both state and non-state actors and history shows state-sponsored terror is prevalent as revolutionary groups. Since it directly relies on psychological warfare rather than achieving military victory and it is frequently labelled by social scientists as the “weapon of the weak”.
The enduring and horrifying feature of terrorism can be understood by the history that can be traced long back modern era. Greek historian Xenophon noted the effectiveness of psychological warfare against enemy populations, while Roman emperors like Caligula used banishments and execution to discourage opposition to their rule. Jewish Zealots, also known as the Sicari (Daggers) is one of the earliest and most cited examples of religious terrorism in the first century. They used terror as a tool for religious and political enforcement against Hebrews suspected of colluding with Roman authorities and engaged in frequent violent attacks. The French Revolution is where the modern term “terrorism” originated. In the 1790s, mass executions by guillotine to suppress opponents by the Jacobin party under Maximilien Robespierre who carried out a “Reign of terror”. The terrorism in this context was an official policy of the state used against its own domestic enemies. Later in the 20th century, the tactic was widely adopted across different political spaces. Totalitarian states like Nazi Germany under Hitler and Soviet Union under Stalin have used imprisonment, torture, and execution as official policy to enforce nationalism/ national ideology. Groups including the Italian Red Brigades and the German Red Army Faction revolutionary movements used terror to pursue class struggle and political goals. The separatist groups such as, IRA in Northern Ireland, ETA in Spain, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam from Sri Lanka used suicide bombings and kidnappings, to fight for territorial or nationalist goals.
Despite the existence of diverse history on terrorism, today the public narrative often reduces terrorism to an exclusively “Islamic” issue, a deformation that fuels Islamophobia and marginalizes a global community of 1.9 billion people. This stereotype was the result of specific historical and media-driven shifts. Following the 9/11, served as a massive turning point and the media amplified disproportionate portrayal of Islamic-based terrorism and gave it greater prominence than other types of violence. The perception of Middle Eastern and other Indigenous cultures as “backwards” by the Westers power and the “othering” of non-Western civilizations has this colonial root.Famous Scholar Noam Chomskyargues that the Western interventionist policies in Muslim-majority regions, especially in the Middle Eastern countries, have created conditions of instability and collapse of central governments, and long-term conflicts. These interventions, conflicting to what they claim, provides a fertile ground for extremist groups to exploit the people and distort the peace and end up manipulating the religious texts for political decision making and control the crowd.
Individuals must understand the psychological and sociological mechanisms that leads them towards violence, rather than obsessing over the stereotypes. Traditionally, models of “staircase” or “pyramid” suggest a linear progression where “radical” thoughts leads to “radical” actions. However, contemporary research argues these are flawed assumptions. The Attitude-Behaviors Corrective (ABC) Model places a critical disconnect at its core. The people who engage in violence and terrorist acts are mostly indifferent to the ideology and holding a “radical” or sympathetic view towards an ideology does not make them engage in violence. They are choosing not to act due to the high personal costs involved, including imprisonment and death. But the one who engage in the violence are motivated by the material gains, a sense of adventure, or social status rather than religious or political conviction. To understand what motivates an individual along the axes of attitude and behavior, we can go through the three-point classification system given by the sociologists. The first one would be the structural motivators that are high-level contextual factors like poverty, state repression, political exclusion, and corruption. Even though this can create grievance and sympathy towards extremist groups, these reasons itself do not explain why a specific person turns to violence as millions of people live in poverty without becoming terrorists. Which explains the next point, the individual incentives. By involving themselves in these acts, they receive personal benefits that include material incentives, protection, status, and sense of belonging into a group and in many cases these personal rewards are convincing one to join. And the third one is the enabling factors, such as the elements that facilitate the journey, such as radical mentors, online social networks, and access to weaponry. One key enabling factor could be the territorial control; when an extremist group controls a region, it can incentive recruitment much more effectively than a through small groups. One of the important factors we mustinvestigate is the feeling of belongingness people feel with the group that carries extremist ideas and terroristic activities. This comes from a space of not getting accepted anywhere else, and them questioning their existence from a multifaceted condition that leads to searching for a space of individual safety and submitting themselves where they feel belonged without questioning the ideas they put forward. This is a failure of every individual, including the one who does not take any action to prevent this from happening and carry their stereotypes without questioning where their fear comes and fell for the propaganda.
The ABC model clarifies the path of extremism by distinguishing between disengagement and deradicalization. An individual can be disengaged but not deradicalized. In the context where someone who stop fighting because they are ‘burnt out’, but still believes the cause. And others may be deradicalized bot not disengaged, because the threat of retaliation by their former group prevents them from leaving. Understanding terrorism and extremism as a calculated strategy rather than a symptom of specific believe system allows for effective countermeasures and solutions. If terrorism is a strategy of coercion through fear, then a purely military strategies may be counterproductive if it serves to increase the very grievances and fears that terrorists exploit. Instead, a more effective approach focuses on limiting the effects of attacks, addressing the structural damages, and provide individuals with pathways to disengage from violence, regardless of whether their personal ideologies have fully shifted. Only by deconstructing the complexities of fear a society can hope to dismantle the machines of extremism.
