Nature Editorial and News Item: Can terrorism be studied in a scientific fashion?
Experimentally, we fought in the first decade of this century what was called (and probably grotesquely misnamed) a "War on Terror," as if a war on an abstraction was a practical idea.
The experimental results of this "War on Terror" are now in: It didn't work. There are just as many, if not more, terrorist events now observed after the trillion dollar investment in the "War on Terror" experiment was completed.
In a wise world, when an experiment gives negative results, we generally change the theory. Nevertheless, the experiment of fighting "A War on Terror" is being repeated, apparently with the expectation of a different result: We are still bombing the hell out various regions in the Middle East, and more and more countries are joining the, um, fun(?).
The recent terror attacks, all within a month, in Southern California, Colorado and in France have inspired an almost crazed response, none of it rational, and, even less so, none of it analytically cognizant of results. For just one example, there is the popularity among a significant minority of another fascist with bad hair (as if the mustachioed fascist with bad hair of the end of the first half of 20th century were not bad enough), this time in the United States.
While it is true that in the case of the Colorado terrorist has not inspired bombing runs on bible thumping trailer trash holed up in remote regions of South Carolina, (just at the 1995 bombing of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City did not inspire bombing runs on gun shows), can it be possible that a rational scientific analysis of the people who do these kinds of things and the conditions under which they evolve might be useful?
A recent editorial and accompanying news item in one of the world's preeminent scientific journals, Nature, asks this question.
The Editorial: Nature Editorial: Root Causes (Nature 528, 7–8 (03 December 2015))
Some excepts:
Research to understand why and how people, such as the young people who carried out the attacks in Paris on 13 November, become radicalized is crucial, and as a News story on page 20 describes, such research has provided some important insights. But there is no typical profile of those who turn to violent extremism, and the causes are highly diverse. Radicalization has become a central plank in national counterterrorism policies, with efforts made to identify individuals and groups showing signs of radicalization or vulnerability, and to de-radicalize them...
... other researchers question the effectiveness of such policies, and argue that the focus should be more on community policing and on reinforcing intelligence to identify the recruiters and ringleaders of terrorist networks. Social profiling, they add, comes at a potentially high cost. It risks stigmatizing further Muslims and those of immigrant origin, and inadvertently legitimizing the anti-Islam, and often racist, rhetoric of extreme-right-wing parties. The resulting social division risks making matters worse and increasing the pool of potential terror recruits...
...Most worryingly, the review highlighted blind spots in radicalization research. Much, it concluded, is “one-sided”, in that it looks only at the radicalization of Islamist, non-state actors, and ignores the fact that radicalization of Western governments can also occur, combining in a vicious circle that can fuel strife and terrorism. That is an unpopular view, and is often considered by politicians and the media to be making excuses for terrorism. But it must be taken into account to develop more effective policies and to identify those that are ineffective or even harmful.
The bold is mine.
The news item:
Terrorism science: 5 insights into jihad in Europe (Nature 528, 20–21 (03 December 2015))
Some excerpts:
...Terrorism researchers are trying to understand how young people in Europe become radicalized, by looking for clues in the life histories of those who have committed or planned terrorist acts in recent years, left the continent to join ISIS, or are suspected of wanting to become jihadists. A mixture of sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists and psychologists, such researchers are drawing on information generated by police, judicial inquiries and the media, and, in some cases, on interviews. They also study factors at play in prisons and socially-deprived areas. Some of their insights are summarized here.
Religion is not the trigger
The rise of jihad in Europe has led to an assumption that there is a radicalization of Muslims more generally across the continent. Yet research suggests that most extremists are either people who returned suddenly to Islam or converts with no Islamic background, says Olivier Roy, who specializes in political Islam and the Middle East at Italy’s European University Institute near Florence — and as many as one in four French jihadists is a convert. Roy summarized the latest research at a conference organized in Mainz on 18–19 November by the German Federal Criminal Police Office.
Violent extremism emerges first, with a religious justification tagged on after, adds Rik Coolsaet, head of political science at Ghent University in Belgium, who studies jihadis and foreign policy...
...Resentment is the common ground
It is difficult to make generalizations about how people become radicalized in Europe. At the Mainz conference, Roy said that many extremists come from broken families or deprived areas, lack education and are unemployed. A smaller number are well educated, have held jobs and have middle-class lifestyles. Some are in stable relationships and have young children. The characteristics that extremists seem to share are resentment directed at society and a narcissistic need for recognition that leaves them open to a narrative of violent glory, said Roy.
The last statement, it would seem to me - not based on any research as I am a physical scientist and not a "social scientist" - might well apply to the terrorists Robert Lewis Dear and Timothy McVeigh, who (happily for me) did not inspire any calls for a national registry of white guys, but who are/were terrorists all the same.
It is possible that this sort of inquiry might be useful, but I don't expect it to get much traction. We are entering an age of unreason, and the fact that this editorial and news item appears in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals almost presupposes they will be either ignored or ridiculed.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
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