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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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October
2004
Volume 7
- Number 1 |
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My perception on terrorism By Zhang Lizhong
Terrorists have clear motivations. One type of terrorist
group is ideologically motivated, such
as the Red Army once in Japan and Germany. The other type is
politically
motivated. Their agenda aim to seek ethnic independence, destroy
hostile country,
or achieve a specific political end. For instance, The Liberation
Tigers of
Tamil Eelam, founded in 1976, pursues an independent Tamil state. The
Hizballah(party of God), a group formed in 1982 in response to Israeli
invasion
of Lebanon, aims to the elimination of the
Israel. Terrorists may have different goals on agenda, but they use the same weapon: the weapon of fear. Knowing they are weak and unable to win by strength, they frequently choose civilians and innocent people as their target. Terrorists hope to generate fear among the public, and generate public chaos. The development of technology has greatly transformed the means of the terrorism, causing more damages and loss of lives. In 1975, David Fromkin commented in Foreign Affairs, “The transformation has enabled terrorism to enter the political arena on a new scale, and to express ideological goals of an organized sort rather than mere crime, madness, or emotional derangement as in the past.” (1) In recently years, there is an increasing danger of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) falling into the hands of the terrorists. The 9/11 tragedy, even short of high-tech technology like WMD, has greatly altered US perception of its security and has diminished the illusion of invulnerability. A terrorism attack with WMD will surely be more catastrophic. No wonder President Bush warned on the six-month anniversary of the 9/11 attack, “In preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, there is no margin of error, and no chance to learn from mistakes”. (2) The stakes are simply high. Ironically, the more developed the technology is, the more vulnerable we are to the attack of terrorism. Some scholars suggest that terrorism is the mere outcome of certain political system. John Lewis Gaddis, a professor at Yale, notes that “the persistence of authoritarianism anywhere can breed resentments that can provoke terrorism that can do us grievous harm”. (3) This argument is certainly true to some extent, but not complete. As a matter of fact, almost every country suffers from the terrorism in some way. Democratic countries are no exceptions. Like a tumor on the human body, terrorism is a vicious tumor in the society itself. It originates from and is deeply rooted in the society. Social turmoil, injustice, ethnic and religious conflicts bring about fear, hatred, resentment and violence among people and provide social soil for terrorism. The protracted conflict in the Middle East has been accompanied by many groups of terrorism in that region. It seems, as long as social problems remain unresolved, that terrorism will not disappear. Furthermore, economic globalization has been exploited by terrorists with the upsurge of international terrorism in recently years. The terrorists manage to establish huge, covert global network to finance, train followers globally. Terrorists are able to choose the safest shelter to stay, and choose best time to launch sudden attack in other places. Due to the fact that terrorism interweaves with social problems and regional conflicts, there is no easy or single solution to terrorism. Military option is useful when used against entities with specific location Yet, terrorists, unlike a state, don’t have fixed place. Indeed, rather relying on military option, perhaps we need to develop a comprehensive approach to address the social root causes of terrorism. We should not hesitate to take direct actions against terrorism, destroy its network and cut its financial sources. In the meantime, we should continue to make effort to address the root causes that breed more terrorists by focusing on the issues of the economic gap and poverty, regional tensions, democracy and ethnic harmony. And this comprehensive approach requires international cooperation. Footnote: 1. David Fromkim, The Strategy of Terrorism, Foreign Affairs, July, 1975, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19750701faessay5667/david-fromkin/the-strategy-of-terrorism.html 2. John S. Wolf, US Approaches to Nonproliferation, July, 2002, http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itps/0702ijpe/wolf.htm 3. Ronald J. Bee, Weapons of Mass Destruction after 9/11? Http://www.greatdecisions.org
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