(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The terrorist bombings in Spain are the latest deterrent to one of the main challenges facing the global community today. The fight against terror is important and difficult. But is it enough to attack the symptoms if terrorism is to be fought? Is there no need to do something about the root causes of terrorism? Will terrorism disappear if one can remove the causes that produced the terror?
These questions were discussed by some thirty leading experts on terrorism when they met in Oslo to discuss "Root Causes of Terrorism" last summer. The main purpose was to provide professional input to a conference for heads of state in New York last autumn on "Fighting Terrorism for Humanity", at the initiative of the Norwegian Prime Minister. Politicians and others are still talking about fighting the causes of terrorism. It may well be worth recalling the researchers' main findings.
Disproved myths about causes
One of the most important results of the expert meeting was to dismiss some common notions of what causes terrorism. There was broad agreement on a number of points.
There is only a weak and indirect link between poverty and terrorism. Terrorists generally do not come from the poorest sections of the population. Usually they are at or above average in terms of education and socio-economic background. The incidence of terrorism is also not particularly high in the poorest countries in the world. Terrorism is more strongly associated with countries with a medium level of development, and often occurs in societies characterized by rapid modernization and social change. However, poverty is often used as a legitimation basis by social revolutionary terrorists, without being poor themselves. Poverty is a major social evil that must be fought on its own, not just because it is supposed to be a cause of terrorism.
State support for terrorist groups is not a primary cause of terrorism itself. States have most often made use of pre-existing groups. But state support has made the groups more dangerous and powerful.
Suicide terrorism is not caused by religion (or more specifically, Islam) itself. Many suicide bombers in different parts of the world are secular, or belong to religions other than Islam. Suicide terrorists are primarily motivated by political goals, usually to combat foreign occupation or local domination by another ethnic group. However, their "martyrdom" is often legitimized and glorified through religious ideas and values.
Terrorists are not mentally disturbed or irrational actors. Symptoms of psychopathology are not common among terrorists. There is no typical personality profile that characterizes most terrorists. They are usually relatively normal individuals. Terrorists often follow their own rationality based on extreme ideologies, but they are not irrational.
Prerequisites for terrorism
The term terrorism is applied to a large diversity of groups with very different origins and purposes. Terrorism occurs in rich as well as in poor countries, and both in democracies and in authoritarian states. Therefore, there is no single cause of terrorism, nor a common set of causes. But there are a number of preconditions that often provide fertile ground for the emergence of terrorism, and a number of reasons that can trigger outbreaks of terrorism.
Lack of democracy, civil rights and the rule of law is a prerequisite for several forms of terrorism. The most democratic and most totalitarian societies have the lowest incidence of oppositional violence. Regimes that are willing to exercise extreme repressive brutality can crush all opposition, while moderate repression tends to intensify the will to rebel. When the authorities show an inability or unwillingness to integrate opposition groups or new social classes, it can lead to them being alienated from the political system. Terrorism can appear to the opposition as a tempting alternative if they do not see other realistic alternatives to having an illegitimate regime replaced.
Failed or weak states lacks the ability or willingness to enforce control over its own territory and maintain the state's monopoly on violence. This creates a power vacuum that terrorist organizations can use to obtain safe havens, training camps and bases for terrorist attacks.
Rapid modernization in the form of high economic growth has also been found to be related to the emergence of various forms of ideological terrorism. This applies not least to countries where rapid oil wealth has led to a rapid transition from tribal societies to a globalized society. When traditional values and social patterns weather or seem irrelevant, new radical ideologies (often based on religion and / or nostalgia for a glorious past) may appear attractive to certain sections of the population.
Extreme ideologies of a secular or religious nature is at least an intermediate cause of terrorism, although people usually subscribe to such ideologies for more fundamental political or personal reasons. But ideologies often have their own dynamics, and serve to interpret events, dehumanize enemies and justify wrongdoing.
Historical traditions of political violence, civil war, revolutions, dictatorship or occupation can help lower the threshold for acceptance of political violence and terrorism, and prevent the development of non-violent norms. The role of victim of historical injustice can also be easily used to legitimize terrorism.
Hegemoni implies that local or international great powers possess an overwhelming dominance of power compared to opposition groups. Then "asymmetric warfare" could be a tempting alternative. Terrorism provides the opportunity to achieve a high political impact with limited funds. When foreign powers maintain illegitimate authorities, this is often perceived as puppet regimes that are to serve the political and economic interests of the foreign sponsors.
Discrimination on the basis of ethnic or religious origin is the main cause of ethno-nationalist terrorism. When minorities are systematically deprived of their rights to equal social and economic opportunities, prevented from expressing their cultural identity, or excluded from political influence, this can give rise to independence movements that use terrorism or other violent forms of struggle.
Experience of social injustice is an important motivating cause for social revolutionary terrorism in particular. Large differences in income distribution (rather than poverty itself) have in some studies been found to be strongly related to the emergence of social revolutionary terrorism.
Reasons for terrorism
Charismatic ideological leaders which is able to turn widespread dissatisfaction and frustration into a political agenda for violent struggle, is a crucial factor behind the emergence of a terrorist group or movement. The fact that there is dissatisfaction and experience of injustice is not enough – someone has to translate this into a program of (violent) action.
Triggering events are the direct causes of terrorist acts. Such "triggers" can be provocative actions on the part of the enemy (possibly the authorities), lost wars, massacres, controversial elections, police violence or other outrageous events that almost call for response or revenge. But even peace talks can trigger acts of terror from uncompromising groups on both sides.
Factors that perpetuate terrorism
Retaliation in response to terrorist acts is often popular in public opinion. But this often only leads to a spiral of revenge. Deterrence usually works for towards terrorists, because they are just looking to provoke overreactions.
Terrorist groups are often maintained for reasons other than those that originally produced terrorism. It is therefore not certain that terrorism will end even if the complaints that gave rise to it are met.
Terrorist groups can change purpose and motivational basis over time. Profitable criminal activities to finance their political and terrorist campaigns can, in turn, give terrorist groups a vested interest in continuing their actions long after they realize that their political cause has been lost. For some groups, the primary goal is to release imprisoned members, or they continue their underground struggle because the only options are long prison sentences or death. In several countries, an important contribution to ending terrorism has been to offer amnesty or reduced punishment if (ex) terrorists cooperate, or that the group has been allowed to participate in the political process if they break with terrorism.
Many terrorist movements will not be able to be stopped until something is done about the root causes and injustices so that fundamental rights are safeguarded. Insight into the causes and processes leading to terrorist offenses is necessary if we are to be able to identify opportunities for prevention, early intervention or ways to break vicious circles of terrorist revenge and retaliation. Such understanding does not imply acceptance or legitimacy of the use of terrorist methods.
