Ways in Which Terrorists Have Utilized Religion, the Media and the Democratic Process - Literature review Example

Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2001 . Terrorism can be defined as the destruction of people and property aimed directly or indirectly to an established government, with an aim of attaining an imaginary or real justice (Weimann, 1997). The phenomenon has shaken many people and governments in contemporary society, essentially due to suffering and pain it inflicts on the affected people. Political analysts argue that wars associated to terrorism emerge from hatred generated towards ‘’oppressors’’ which results to a desire for liberation. While governments perceive terrorism as terrorism, the terrorist on the other hand perceive their actions as war against an oppressor, an enemy, and war for justice and freedom. In order to advance their common desired objectives, terrorist groups have utilized various approaches in attaining their goals. This particular essay seeks to evaluate the various ways in which terrorists have utilized religion, the media and the democratic process since 1990s in order to advance objectives. Religion is one of the central concepts that has propagated terrorism in modern society. Jake (2001), highlights that; religion has over history acted a as a tool to justify the action of people using terror against their own neighbors. Jake (2001) further argues that there is nothing new in terms of the link between terrorism and religion. Religious groups have constantly utilized terror in order to attain their millennia aims. For instance in historical occurrences such as Christian crusades , native populations were greatly terrorized by Christians , the Spanish Inquisition, the new world population and the Jewish Holocaust are just but a few historical events where religion influenced groups in inflicting terror against their opponents. Furthermore terrorism in the last two decades has also majorly been linked to religion. This can backed by the rise of religious groups mainly motivated by the religious rhetoric’s of mass destruction. Some of the popular groups include Hizballah, Aum Shinrikyo and al-Qaida. For instance at the start of the early 1990s the religious group Aum Shinrikyo took up a systematic program which involved developing and using weapons of mass destruction. The group launched an attack on the subways of Tokyo on March 1995. This particular move indicated how dangerous the world was especially in the hands of a religious group. New breads of progressively treacherous religious terrorists emerged through the 1990s. One of the very dangerous types being the Islamic fundamentalist; the Osama bin Laden al-Qaida group which advanced its activities through to the 21st centaury (Jake 2001). It can be argued that terrorists have used religion in advancing their aims. Choueiri, (1990) highlights that religious doctrines in many cases have influenced acts of terrorism. Evidently most terrorist attacks in since the 1990s can be traced to the Islamic religion. In order to advance their aim of waging war against their enemies, Islamic terrorists have justified their actions through reference to the Quran directive that an individual should defend his religion and even kill if it necessitates (Aref 2003). The application of the theological theory of Jihad, meaning a Holy war that justifies defending ones religion by destroying oppressors, has in many incidences influenced a psychological justification for terrorism in the recent decades. For instance when evaluation the roots of terrorism in the in the 1990, terrorism begun to expand essentially due to the religious ideologies , for instance the 1995 attack on Japan was religiously motivated with the aim of dealing harshly with those they perceive as "Great Satan." The September 11 attack on the other hand was also attributed to application of the theory of defending religion. Many wonder how it is possible that an individual would have such disregard of their own lives to the extent of sacrificing their lives in order to fulfill what they believe to be true and real, by placing bombs on their bodies, in order to destroy the enemy like in the September attacks. However in their reality, they do believe that they are fulfilling the recommended practice of Jihad, which is an endeavor to practice religion in the face of persecution and oppression and the promise of afterlife paradise has made many terrorists loose their lives as they endeavor to comply with religious doctrine. Islamic fundamentalism has also greatly influenced the use of religion to give backing to terrorist activities. The philosophy finds its roots on the conscious attempt to restate and revive the theoretical relevance of the Islamic religion to contemporary society. Choueiri (1990) outlines that for a person to be referred to as Muslim they have to believe in the fundamental believes of Islam, which are not studied philosophically or theologically but rather they are discovered practically. Islamic fundamentalism is thus grounded on the fact that knowledge is sampling preface of political engagement and social action. It is this type of ideology that has influenced the actions of many terrorist in attaining their aims. In despite of the fact many religious types of terrorist do not clear specify their aims, what is evident is that fundamentalists principles of Islam many influenced by Islamic fanaticism (wanting to live and practice the ways as Prophet Mohammed) are the basic principles used by most terrorist in advancing their aims. For instance verses in the Koran such as, Allah’s religion reigns supreme" (The Koran: 2:190-93), is basically a teaching that influences justification that it is right for terrorist to fight ensure the political supremacy of Islam in the world (Aref 2003). Another significant way that terrorists have employed since the 1990s to advance their aims is through the media. Internet’s great virtues such as absence of regulation, easy accessibity, huge potential audiences and quick information flow, among others have played an advantageous role towards various groups committed to the activities of terrorizing societies in order to achieve their objectives. According to Weimann (2007), active groups committed to terrorism activities have at present confirmed their presence through the internet. The Asian tribune (2007) for instance, revealed that their scan of the internet during the year 2003-4 exposed a number of websites that serves terrorists as well as their supporters. This affirms that terrorism as an activity on the internet is currently a dynamic phenomenon: terrorism websites emerge all over a sudden, repeatedly changing their formats, and then suddenly disappearing or in most cases changing online addresses while retaining the contents. Terrorists employ the internet to plan as well as coordinate various attacks. According to Weinmann, the Al Qaeda operatives for instance relied a lot on the internet to plan as well as coordinate the September 11 attacks on the United States. Weinmann (2007) reveals further that a number of encrypted messages sent in a password-protected area of the website were discovered by the federal officials from the computers used by Al Qaeda terrorist, Abu Zubaydah who was arrested. Abu Zubaydah was thought to have masterminded the attacks with his first messages found to be sent on the September 9, 2001.To safeguard their anonymity, the al Qaeda terrorists employ the use of internet in public places sending their messages using the public e-mail. Apart from the Al Qaeda terrorists, the Hamas activists of the Middle East employ chat rooms in planning their terrorism operations and exchanging e-mails in order to coordinate their actions across Gaza, West Bank, Israel and Lebanon. Through the use of the internet, instructions in form of maps, direction guides, photographs as well as technical details on how to apply explosives are often concealed using steganography, which entails messages being hidden on graphic files. On other occasions instructions are delivered while concealed in the simplest codes. For instance Mohammed Atta’s last message to other 18 terrorists who conducted the September 11 attacks was reported to read:”The semester starts in three weeks time. We so far have 19 confirmations for various studies in the faculty of law, urban planning, fine arts and engineering.”The reference to these faculties was in fact the codes for various buildings targeted for attacks. Other than using the internet to coordinate and plan their operations, terrorists have employed the internet as a media to advance their aims through psychological warfare. Terrorism by itself, as been viewed as a form of psychological warfare, and undoubtedly terrorists turned to it through the use of internet. According to Weimann (2007), there are many ways they are able to do so including delivering threats thus distilling fear or helplessness, and circulating shocking images of their current actions for instance the dreadful murder of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist by his subjugators and whose video was played on a number of terrorist websites. The internet as an unrestricted media is therefore able to carry stories, messages pictures, or threats despite their legality or possible impacts-its uniqueness is well suited enabling even small groups to magnify its message therefore exaggerating its significance.Al Qaeda for instance uses a number of multimedia propaganda and sophisticated communication technologies to come up with more refined forms of psychological warfare. The internet also acts as an immense digital library used by terrorists in data mining. The World Wide Web on its own offers almost billion pages of various information. Terrorists, for example are able to acquire a lot of information on various targets from the internet. Such details include transportation facilities, airports, public buildings, ports, and even details on counterterrorism measures. Weimann (2007) highlights that the Al Qaeda network currently operates with the aid of very large databases having details of potential targets such as the United States. They employ the internet to acquire intelligence on their targets, mostly important economic nodes and up-to-date software that permits them to know about structural weaknesses in certain facilities and predicting the failure impacts of attacking on certain systems. Weimann (2007) points out that terrorists have been able to spread their propaganda using the media through accessing pre-recorded video tapes, audiotapes, photographs,and announcements. Through these, they have been able to carry out remarkable scare campaigns and since the September 11 attacks of the United States, they have also been able to festoon their websites with several announcements of looming large attacks especially on United States targets. According to Lutz et.al, (2010), democratic processes have also been able to offer greater opportunities for various terrorists groups to carry out various attacks. This is because democratic systems form permissive environments that enable terrorist networks to scan as well as operate more easily. Lutz et.al, (2010) confirms that there have been several indications confirming that terrorism is more likely to occur in societies that are democratic. Such societies are portrayed as politically open, and that their abilities to obstruct terrorist groups before they act are limited since they are more often than not having very weak intelligence gathering capabilities. Other than this, their check points in which identification papers are to be presented are normally infrequent with somewhat weak controlled borders that provide good opportunities for both in-filtration and ex-filtration. There has been several indications for instance in Western Europe where political openness has been known to facilitate terrorism activities. Democracy for instance, made West Germany susceptible to terrorist incidents that were carried out in the country. Another case can be seen from violence that was initiated by Basque nationalists which intensified when the democratic system was formed than it was during the establishment of dictatorial regime. Undemocratic regimes, by contrast, have more advantages handling possible terrorist groups. Democratic states can also offer favorable grounds for tourism for reasons other than their domestic politics. And due to weaker security forces, a more open press, fear of civil liberties, such nations are often preferred by dissidents for various attacks in opposition to their home regimes (Robert & Michael, 2006). Expatriate dissidents often target various diplomatic personnel, corporations, businesses as well as tourists from their home nations. International attacks in developing nations, in actual fact, are quite frequent. The United States, for instance had few cases of attacks on its own soil with major attacks against him mainly occurring aboard. According to Lutz et.al, (2010), there are no indications from past experiences that terrorism has gone down as a result of democracy. Lutz et.al, (2010) argues that democratization during the 19th century, for instance, resulted into an increase in terrorism. Given various experiences in addition to observations, there is always a general assumption that democratic states continue to be more susceptible to terrorism activities as compared to the non-democratic nations. From the above analysis, terrorist have utilized religion to justify their actions and further prolong their aims of destruction. Religion has contributed to advancing of terrorist activities through aspects Islamic fundamentalism and religious doctrine. In addition the media essentially the internet has been great contributor to promotion of terrorism in the world. Also democracy which is evidently the most influential political ideology in contemporary society has furthered the activities of terrorism. What is evident form the above analysis is that since the 1990s to the current year terrorism is still a big threat to humanity. This is because terrorist still have the same supportive aspects such as; religion, the media and democracy that influence their activities. References Aref , M, 2003, Religion and terrorism: an interfaith perspective, Greenwood Publishing Group,. Choueiri, Y.M,1990, Islamic Fundamentalism, London: Pinter Publishers Jake, G, 2006, Terrorism and religion , Sage. Lutz, B.J and Lutz, J.M, 2010, Perspectives on Terrorism: Democracy and Terrorism Robert , H & Michael, C, 2006, ‘’Terrorism in the 1990s’’,Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 3(1). Weimann, G, 1997, ‘’www.terror.net: How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet’’, Asian Tribune 10 (208). Read More