Not All Terrorists Come from Faraway Lands
By Gordon Bowen
Newsleader.com
Jun. 3, 2009
Why do some American Muslims go so terribly wrong? Political scientists who study the process of radicalization cannot point to a simple predictor of who will “go terrorist.” We know, for example, that it is not typically economically disadvantaged individuals who turn in this direction, nor is it the poorly educated. The New York cell apparently became radicalized while in prison. These features hardly narrow things down enough to guide police work.
Steps forward are being taken, however. With careful study of the life histories of 117 recent homegrown terrorists in the U.S. and Britain, in April 2009 a well-reasoned answer emerged in a new study sponsored by the Washington-based think tank, The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Authors Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Laura Grossman suggested that there are six key factors:
- the adoption of a legalistic interpretation of Islam
- coming to trust only a select and ideologically rigid group of religious authorities
- viewing the West and Islam as irreconcilably opposed
- manifesting a low tolerance for perceived religious deviance
- attempting to impose religious beliefs on others
- and the expression of radical political views.
Of these six, the authors suggest the most important thing might be homegrown terrorists’ understandings of their religion and what it requires of them.
