Radicalization: the Terrorist Threat - Essay Example

Radical thinking is problematic and a threat to national security when citizens or residents of any country engages in violent actions as a means of promoting religious, ideological, and political extremism. For example, Martin Luther was said to be radical as well as Moses, Nelson Mandela, Jesus, and Mohammed among others. Additionally, most progress has been as a result of the outcome of radicalization and the set of minds that comes with it. In this regard, this paper aims at discussing various processes of radicalization, explaining if the processes always lead to terrorism.

Public awareness is one type of radicalization that is always determined by personalities and events. In a contemporary context, radicalization is always linked to Islam, but this is not to say that Muslims are terrorists. They do not necessarily advocate for violence, although, Ashour (2009), claims that Hamas and al-Qaeda teachings are associated with it. So far the most problematic Islamist group is al-Qaeda which is associated with recent radicalization that lead to terrorism in the United States and Canada, as well as other places that were associated with al-Qaeda influence. Public awareness radicalization has spanned all animal activists, environmental, left to right spectrum among others, but within religious and ethnic interests. However, radicalization occurs due to a number of influences and factors nor is it limited to any interest or ethnic group. Moreover, domestic radicalization is associated with extremist violent Islamist groups and has become a particular concern for security and law enforcement, Bott et al. (2006). For example, almost all the actual and planned terrorist attacks have been carried out by young Muslims.

Pre-radicalization is a process of ordinary life before radicalization. This is determined by an individual’s current environment and background. In this process, an individual identifies himself with the various radical movements. When a crisis event occurs, an individual progresses towards Salafi Islam, by regularly attending a mosque. Their personal behavior changes like smoking, drinking, and gambling among others as well as becoming involved in other social activism concerning Islam. Another process of radicalization is indoctrination where individuals focus on and strengthen their beliefs. This is where individuals who focus on worldview politics relate everything thing to Islam Salafi Teachings, Bott, et., al (2006).

After indoctrination, the individuals then politicize their new beliefs then jihadization where they start taking actions based on their beliefs. For example, a person can decide to relocate to those countries that are associated with conflict training in order to practice jihad and express his faith. One can also decide to search for words of encouragement from the internet before the attack, or buy explosives used to attack. Dearly (2010), explains that there are no extreme pathways to extremists because the above cases take a different form of radicalization. This is to mean that when an individual undergoes the process of radicalization it does not mean that they are terrorists or will commit acts of terrorism. Individuals take different paths of radicalization. There are those people who undergo various forms of radicalization but never commit any act of terrorism.

A popular explanation of a kind of radicalization which leads to terrorism is that one that leads to failure of integration and multiculturalism. This kind of explanation takes an assumption that a particular group of people takes a high risk of getting involved in terrorist activities, for example, immigrant youth who find themselves marginalized and trapped by conflicts of radicalization. Ashour (2009), contends that in the European experience, there are those native-born individuals who become radicalized to the point of getting involved with terrorist activities, and most often they are not different from their peers.