Moral and Political Aspects of Terrorism - Essay Example

Some several documentaries and films have been created to explicate the origin, as well as the issues that revolve around terrorism. Some of these documentaries include; The Weather Underground by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, The Power Nightmares by Adam Curtis, among others. These two documentaries extensively explore the concept of terrorism, how it came into being, its existence, and how it is perceived by people of different cadres. First and foremost, it is worth noting that the two documentaries concur that terrorism came into existence as a form of revolution against issues that were the masses assumed were against humanity and peaceful co-existence among people. In the documentary, The Weather Underground, Sam Green and Bill Siegel have explicated how a group of students revolted against some of the issues they felt the government was not addressing. The students, under an umbrella body known as Students for Democratic Society, protested against the unequal rights of the African American people and the Vietnam War (Green and Siegel). After realizing that their peaceful demonstrations were being taken for granted, they resorted to terror. For instance, the smashed windows of government buildings and even set blew some with bombs. While blowing the government buildings, they passed the word for people to vacate the buildings to ensure that no one was hurt (Green and Siegel). In this case, they respected the sanctity of life while agitating for their rights. This documentary plays an integral part in giving the history of American terrorists.

On the other hand, The Power Nightmares documentary explicates the rise and growth of Islamic terrorism and the perceived war on terror. Just like in The Weather Underground, Curtis’s documentary demonstrates that resentment and dissatisfaction with the state of things led to the rise of terrorism. However, according to Curtis, terrorism began with the Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian civil servant and the founder of the modern Islamist school of thought, resentment of the western society’s morals and virtues (Curtis). Having stayed in America and witnessed the rot in the western morals as perpetrated by individualism, he opposed Gamal Abdel Nasser’s westernization of Egypt. Therefore, he aims at saving society by restructuring it along Islamic lines. Additionally, he is convinced that his wish can only be achieved by creating an elite vanguard to facilitate a revolution. Consequently, he creates the Muslim Brotherhood of which he becomes the leader. He motivates other Islamists such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later becomes the mentor of Osama bin Laden (Curtis). They have a strong notion that westernized leaders can be killed to remove their corruption in society. Curtis also reveals the rise of disillusioned liberals such as Paul Wolfowitz and Irving Kristol in America. They were agitating for their rights after assessing the critical thinking of philosopher Leo Strauss and the failure of President Johnson.