Could injustice and oppression be the cause, when people turn to terrorism? What causes such desperation?

Question

What really causes a person to turn to terrorism? Some would want you to think that they are inherently evil. The truth is that there are psychological links between oppresion hopelessness and haveing no one willing to help, that causes a person to turn to violence. Without the perception of people caring about you, how can you really care about other people?

Answer 1

I think it's not as much psychology as ignorance. By that, I mean ignorance of those who really could do something to prevent the cause of terrorism in the first place. Before 9-11, not many people understood the causes of Middle Eastern extremism; now we can't just dismiss it. The problem is that many still think we should have others solve the problems, which only makes the situation worse, in my opinion. As a supposedly "individualist" society, we should be using our individual skills and motivation to solve the problem; asking the government to do it for us is begging for a disaster.

Answer 2

Well it was hypothesized for years that terrorism was caused by oppression, poverty etc. But they started to do a few statistics and a little research on the people who were actually becoming terrorists and realized that the people doing the "terrorism" tend to be the highly educated, affluent, religious freaks! When they interview the poor impoverished people the terrorists say they are championing they often say they would just like everybody to stop this crap and let them work safely, raise their family's safely, and worship safely.

So, I have to conclude it's all a power trip. I'm not making this up really! There were all sorts of terrorism studies done in the 80's, 90's, etc. check them out and see who becomes a terrorist!

Answer 3

Injustice and oppression are one of the causes of people turning to terrorism. But it is not the only cause. Otherwise, how can one explain the fact that there is NO massive terrorist acts throughout Western Europe and North America by Serbs?

Answer 4

An extreme is bread by another extreme - hence the saying 'from one extreme to another'. Although most Muslims think it customary and natural that women should be covered from head to toe without even their eyes exposed, in truth that is a conditioned extreme - not just in itself as a way of life, but also in stark contrast to most cultures which are now westernised. In a sense the Muslim lifestyle which is part and parcel of their religion, is isolating, it is insulating, and it creates a cultural territorialism - tribalism. It is the lifestyle that I pin down as the source of extremism rather than the idea of fundamentalism, or in other words - taking the whole of ones faith on board. There is allot of anger towards religion, but more than often the resentment stems from different habits and ways. God did not design us all to live in one way, and separated us through language and sea and mountains. The Faith was not to be won by warring and demolising traditions, but through example, free will to express it and free will to listen.

I am not for mixing traditions at all, espechally into Faith. The Faith may spread, but peoples should live within their own lay cultures and speak their own language.

Perhaps the anger towards the U.S is to do with its lack of acceptance of existing differences. The same could be said of the E.U, which is bent on destroying differences of traditions by trying to inveigle its secular, unipolar constitution on all its members.

In saying that, I do not discount the fact that terrorism is a threat, and that Muslim Jihad is a force that flagrantly incites violence, espechally towards the U.S.