The phenomenon of terrorism took a lot of time and effort from researchers and specialists in the Arab and Islamic world in their claim of trying to fathom and search for its roots. Yet, little effort has been made in terms of deconstructing this phenomenon and refuting its current symptoms in order to reach an earnest scientific diagnosis that leads, by extension, to effective processes and alternatives in handling it.
There are many examples of this, including the fact that there are no real statistics about the magnitude of the phenomenon in many States and parts of the Arab world, and the truth is often lost between exaggeration and minimization, and in both cases, the matter is not as much related to a search for solutions and alternatives as it may be directed towards certain goals that go beyond the idea of addressing the issue and that are neither directly nor indirectly related to this.
The majority of research centers and specialized studies centers in the Arab world are preoccupied with carrying out studies that have a predominantly historical character, in other words, they research history books in pursuit of proving what is already proven, by virtue of the fact that terrorism does not need evidence or proof to confirm its existence among us and its threatening to the future of everybody.
Truths are lost in the midst of history books and the landmarks of reality become absent amidst the corridors of the past, and no one bothers to subject this phenomenon to a real scientific dissection that contributes to the understanding of its dimensions and to addressing the gaps it comes through.
Things seem to be different for the West, about which we could tell what we want in terms of attitudes towards the fight against terrorism and even as to the contribution to its spread, but certainly there are people who watch over research on this phenomenon, its deconstruction as well as seeking to understand it in its details. Among this is a recently conducted research by a French institution that revealed common denominators between about one hundred terrorist organizations leaders in the Arab and Muslim world, which is a remarkable research in its content and results, and reflects a desire to understand what is behind the phenomenon.
This study revealed what it called the phenomenon of “Tourism extremism,” where terrorists make a tour among various organizations traveling from an organization to another based on subjective utilitarian calculation, such as friendship or family and kinship considerations and other factors that contribute to polarization and recruitment, away from intellectual and ideological calculations, which some believe to be the basic engine of terrorism and extremism organizations.
This study also revealed a fact that is not new, but important, for researchers and specialists who follow the issue of terrorism and extremism organizations, which is that more than half of the leaders of these organizations have nothing to do with studying religious sciences. About 57% of them are graduates of scientific disciplines such as engineering, medicine and other specialties, which is not wrong, but the problem is that they engage in the field of fatwa and religious science and seek to be well noticed on the political scene from a false allegation or illusion that they are more capable and more knowledgeable than others regarding religious science, and that they have a “right” in the application of the law of God, and other allegations that they promote and by so doing deceive the gullible and the frustrated and many other segments.
This study also revealed the role of what is delusionally described as “non-violent” organizations, in the generation of terrorist elements, and confirmed that these organizations contribute to creating an intellectual environment that favors radical thought, and work like a bridge from the traditional religious context prevailing in the Arab and Muslim societies, or what is implicitly known as innate or community religiosity, and take these elements to another square through sowing ideas of skepticism in the communities’ values and orientations and the prevailing ideas about religion and religiosity, not to mention questioning the existing religious institutional frameworks, and making fun of their symbols and accusing them of ignorance and flatness and of being proponents of the existing power and ruler, and so on. These allegations are specifically received in the hearts of young people, by virtue of their age attributes, which characteristics make them closer to rebellion against parental authority, whether represented by the family or the ruler, and to the unbridled desire for violating these rules and breaking the value constraints that are imposed on them.
At this dangerous age, extremism and terrorism organizations work, focus and are active at directed socialization, and seek breeding generations that are hostile to their communities, instilling in them values of insurgency and conflict with the power, and make them perceive authority in stereotypes which are always negative, so much so that they put that power as an obstacle between them and their goals and their obedience to their Lord!!
For my part, I personally think that terrorist organizations are only a natural progression of tampering with religion and religiosity by organizations that are falsely described as non-violent. The intellectual premise of terrorism is produced by those organizations, and the seeds of hatred and social antagonism arose in their bosom and on the tongues of their leaders, and then the danger does not lie in translating those ideas into action, through taking up arms and aiming at bringing change by force, but the basic problem is in the genes and the seed bearing the epidemic of terrorism.
The idea of separation between violence and nonviolence in terrorist organizations, then, is an absurd idea, just like the idea of the good terrorist and the bad terrorist, or the classification of extremist groups as terrorist and moderate.
