Unit 6: Radicalization and Terrorism Shaping International Politics

Introduction

Radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism have been posing great challenges both at the national, regional and international levels. After the tragic incident of 9/11 and the ensued Global War on Terror, we have witnessed a gradually increasing focus on these concepts and how to cope with them. In order to address these phenomena, it is essential to make sense of them by having a closer look at the drivers of radicalization and push and pull factors.

Radicalization, Violent Extremism and Terrorism

Definitions, Conceptualizations, and Push and Pull Factors (Drivers)

Radicalization refers to a process of ideational transformation. The individual distinguishes his/her own position against any alternative explanations of the reality and adheres to a rigid “us” and “them” dichotomy. How an individual is radicalized is a major puzzle within this context. This process can proceed either through propaganda activities via pamphlets, social media, messaging applications, biased news coverage, or through relatives, friends, etc. Therefore, it would be valid to argue that structural factors (push factors) and individual ones (pull factors) can accompany each other in an individual’s journey to radicalization. It should be noted that it is impossible to attribute radicalization, violent extremism and terrorism to a particular set of thought or a particular ethnic/religious/sectarian etc. community. Radical ideas can be derived from any form of ideational discourse. The line between radicalization and violent extremism, and terrorism needs to be drawn in order to avoid interchangeable use of the terms. Once radical actors engage in violent acts, the ideational transformation is already completed and these acts fall under the heading of “violent extremism”. it is clear that all three concepts with strong parallels and links among them refer to quite a complex set of problems with social, political, economic, security-related, legal, administrative etc. dimensions. Therefore, in order to tackle them, multidisciplinary, cooperative, comprehensive, flexible, inclusive and longterm methods, tools, and measures are required.

Reflecting this broad range of required tools and expertise, the concept of preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) is defined as “a broad range of noncoercive and preventative activities that are united by the objective of counteracting the drivers of violent extremism specific to the locations in which these initiatives occur.

History

In this section some most “famous” terrorist groups will be introduced briefly in order to have some ideas about the evolution, change, and continuities with respect to different terrorist groups across the globe over time.

Zealots : The Jewish Zealot movement is regarded as the first terrorist organization and thus, predecessor of all the terror groups. It emerged as a reaction to the Roman Empire’s rule in Palestine during its Imperial period, and its increasingly oppressive measures against the Jews and gradual loss of their autonomy within the Empire.

The Assassins (Al Hashasin) : The word assassin is widely believed to be originated from the terror group active in a wide area from Iran to Syria and Egypt, led by Hasan-i Sabbah, acting with an ideological motivation derived from İsmailiyya branch of Shi’ism. Hasan-i Sabbah was widely regarded as both the propagandist of its strict sectarian stance, a military and ideological leader of its organisation, and a strategic mastermind behind selection of critical targets and capturing almost unconquerable castles and cities in order to hide its militants.

Jacobins and the “Reign of Terror” in France : The French Revolution and the ensued Reign of Terror, particularly referring to the peak point of the state terror carried out by the Jacobins from July 1973 to July 1974 following their acquisition of power as a result of the fall of the Girondins represents a major turning point. It was not only the first well-documented record of state terror in the modern era, but also inspired many other regimes in the future by its methods, discourse, and demonization of political rivals.

Anarcho-Terrorism in Russia as a Key Turning Point for Modern Terrorism: The anarcho-terrorism in Russia in the 19th century is widely regarded as the predecessor of many modern terrorist organizations. Their “success” in assassinating quite high level officials, even including a tsar himself, namely Alexander II, and even more importantly their use of dynamites which opened up a new page within the context of the methods of terrorism made them a very important case in the history of terrorism.

Different Manifestations of Contemporary Terrorism

Ethnic Terrorism

Among various motivations and ideological backgrounds of radical and terrorist groups, ethnically-motivated discourse occupies an important place. Nevertheless, from the Zealots to ASALA and from IRA and ETA to PKK, it should also be noted that religious, ideological, sectarian etc. motivations were also sometimes used at the same time by terrorist groups as well as the use of different motivations over decades to varying degrees.

Ideologically Motivated Terrorism

As stated before, radicalization, and terrorism cannot be attributed to a particular religion, ideology, nationality, sect, or any other sort of identity and/or mindset. Both rightist and leftist ideologies, at their extremes, can lead to radicalization and even terrorism. Several groups, such as DHKP-C in Turkey, Baader Meinhof in Germany, and Red Brigades in Italy can be mentioned under this category.

Terrorism with Religious Motivations

As stated before, radicalization, and terrorism cannot be attributed to a particular religion, ideology, nationality, sect, or any other sort of identity and/or mindset. Both rightist and leftist ideologies, at their extremes, can lead to radicalization and even terrorism. Several groups, such as DHKP-C in Turkey, Baader Meinhof in Germany, and Red Brigades in Italy can be mentioned under this category.

Radicalization, Terrorism , and the Cyber World

The relationship between the increasing visibility of radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism and new means of mass communication has been a hot topic especially in the last decades when access to the virtual world has become an indispensable part of everyday life. How this new phenomenon helps such groups to raise their profile, to recruit people, to fund their activities, to plan and carry out attacks for propaganda purposes deserves a great deal of attention. On one hand, the Internet and more recent innovation of social media tools help people become more connected, offer the chance to be more aware of what is going on in the world, make both social and economic interactions easier, provide a window for the people who were earlier isolated and had no chance to be heard globally etc. However, on the other hand, mostly because of the very same features of the virtual world which makes life easier, it also provides quite a bit of advantages to the criminals as well as radical or violent extremist groups.

The Internet, Social Media, Cyber Crime and Terrorism

Within the context of radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism, the Internet, social media, messaging and video apps are used for several key purposes, such as propaganda, recruitment, planning attacks, training, and collecting financial resources for attacks. Terrorists in particular and cybercriminals in general have been involved in acts such as piracy and malware, capture of bank accounts, human, weapons and drug trafficking using dark web and deep web over both widely used official currencies and cryptocurrencies.

Women and Youth as Objects and Subjects of Radicalization and Terrorism

So far we have seen that radicalization, violent extremism, and terrorism, in different ways, affect each and every part of the society regardless of age, gender, social and economic status, and occupation. Anyone could be either or both the object and subject of such movements. An individual can be a target, a victim, a rehabilitator, a perpetrator or a mastermind. Women, however, as a unique part of the society, can play all these roles in spite of the broadly accepted idea that they can only play passive roles and they are only the victims of the process of radicalization and the impact of violent extremism, and terrorism.

For violent extremist and terrorist groups, the youth constitute an important part of their human capital, recruitment pool, and active fighting organization. The youth is widely regarded as a vulnerable part of the society in the face of radical and extremist propaganda. The drivers or push and pull factors mentioned earlier are felt more deeply by the youth most of the time, not only because of the more sentimental approach the youth can adopt, but also because they can feel the impact of sociopolitical and economic problems more than the elder since they are mostly in a much more active relationship with the society.

The Challenge of Rehabilitation and Reintegration: The Challenging Balance Between Security and Human Rights

Another key topic in the literature is how to deradicalize, disengage, rehabilitate and reintegrate people who were previously radicalized, joined such groups, planned and/or organized terror attacks. Within this context, provision of counternarratives and counter-messaging, and devising effective rehabilitation and re-integration (R&R) programmes are some important instruments to be discussed.

De-radicalization is a cognitive process with the goal of cutting the link between its target audience with radical ideas. Disengagement refers to the process of making the individual abandon the active organization in which he/she either took part in violent acts or not. Rehabilitation is again a cognitive process which can be reinforced by social, cultural etc. activities aiming at regaining an individual in a way that it can move to the next step, namely reintegration to the society. At the final stage, the individual, withdrawing from his/her earlier radical thoughts and/or belief in armed struggle, re-joins the social structure he/she once belonged to and becomes once again able to have a healthy communication with the people from different ethnic/religious/sectarian/ideological backgrounds.