What Makes a Terrorist? The Road to 9/11

I don't take the subject of terrorism lightly. I lost my younger sister Ann to five Saudi Arabian terrorists almost six years ago. But like the moth and the flame, I am intrigued by why people become terrorists.

So why do people become terrorists? They:

• "hate our freedom"
• are poor, ignorant, and easy prey for radical political/religious movements
• bored
• want to drive the infidels (us) from the holy land
• are motivated by longstanding religious/cultural conflicts
• all of the above
• none of the above

Turns out it is not as simple as it seems, but the second bullet is often cited by many (although our President is understandably fond of the first one). But a new book by Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger, What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism, argues that we should discard that premise. Krueger's review of hard data from a variety of regions and countries indicates that, more often than not, terrorists come from the educated elite of their respective countries.

Tony Azios wrote about Krueger in the 28 August 2007 issue of the Christian Science Monitor. Read more about Krueger here.

Krueger's book, based upon three lectures he gave at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2006, does not deal solely with Islamic, anti-Western terrorists. He discusses the Colombian and Spanish (ETA) groups. He does acknowledge that the Northern Ireland IRA terrorists represented a notable exception to his hypothesis.

Krueger's thesis corroborates what I just read in Lawrence Wright's excellent tome, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. In it, Wright cites (pp. 67-68) a study by Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who studied his country's political prisoners in the 1970s. He found that most of the Islamist recruits were young men who had come to the city for schooling and were often from the families of mid-level government bureaucrats. They were ambitious, and drawn to elite fields such as science and engineering. They were not the alienated, marginalized youths that a sociologist might have suspected. Ibrahim posited that what drew them to the Muslim Brotherhood and other militant Islamist groups was the groups' emphasis on brotherhood, sharing, and spiritual support, all of which provided a "soft landing" to these young men as they adjusted to life in the big city.

Note that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the prominent al-Qaeda leader, is a surgeon and a member of a prominent Egyptian family. Wright states (p. 68) that al-Zawahiri heatedly disagreed with Ibrahim's analysis, claiming that the young men joined because they responded to Islamic ideals.

I also remember similar research conducted by a Princeton doctoral student (perhaps it's cited in Krueger's book, which I have not read) that indicated something similar: the bulk of Palestinian suicide bombers were not from the lower classes, but the middle/upper classes.

Krueger asserts that it's living in a society lacking civil liberties and political rights is the biggest indicator of what may comprise the root of terrorism. If there is no recourse to political woes other than violence, well, that is more likely to lead someone to become a terrorist. Providing aid and education to regions plagued by terrorism will not necessarily mitigate terrorism, although Krueger admits such assistance will correct other social ills. In a given region people with higher levels of education and income relative to the norm of their region are more likely to view terrorism as justifiable. They may also be confident enough to effect political change through violent means. 

Krueger also includes questions from the LSE audiences. I'm looking forward to reading it.

He also addresses the semantics of defining terrorism, which can be tricky. After all, recall that the "father of our country", George Washington, was branded a terrorist by the British.

"To the memory of Pat Tillman, whose life exemplified the courage and dedication of American heroes and whose death revealed their shameful exploitation." -- Dedication in Alan B. Krueger's book What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." -- Anonymous

Comments

[phuknjrk]

One person's child molester is another person's sex education teacher..

A perspective can't be considered correct, just because it exists..