THE ROOTS OF TERRORISM: PART 3

USPA NEWS - Undoubtedly, the print and audio-visual media has had and still has a major role in the growth of the phenomenon of terrorist violence. As the way of publishing news and details of crimes, screening violence and crime films, showing the criminal, in most cases, as a hero and focus on the human side of his character, and amplify the psychological effects associated with terroristic accidents. There is no doubt that all of this may create ideal conditions for individuals to commit crimes and stoke the flames of violence and terror, by joining terrorist groups.

Western media has played an important role in the spread of this phenomenon, as they intentionally or unintentionally provided a service to the “Takfiri” groups and extremist groups, by transmitting their data and threats through the media as well as via the Internet and social media, which directly contributed to spreading the ideology of extremist groups. At the same time, the West, through its ideological media, tried to link the phenomenon of terrorist violence with Islam and Islamic countries, ignoring the state terrorism practiced by Israel against the Palestinians and Arab countries, as well as the United States, which practices terrorism of various forms against many Arab and Islamic countries.

In the same context, it is necessary to differentiate between resistance and terrorism and not to confuse them. If terrorism targets innocent people and defenceless civilians, then the resistance is completely different from these hostile practices. Resistance is a legitimate work that is permitted by heavenly and positive laws. It is an expression of the people's will to get rid of colonial powers and restore their sovereignty, as well as it is the case of the Palestinian Arab people, against whom no one denies their right to resist, which is considered by the United States of America and other Western countries as terrorism punishable by international law.

On the other hand, we find that the Zionist entity is practicing tough and cruel terrorism against the Palestinian, including acts of killing and intimidation, as well as the building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands and the displacement of Palestinians.  Moreover, the arrests and the disappearance of the Palestinians in Israeli prisons for decades, where we note that all this violence Terrorist practices have not been called terrorism by America and the European countries. Add to that, the superpowers have supported and still support and sponsor the Zionist entity’s terrorism against a defenceless people who were robbed of all their resistance and capabilities and expelled from their homeland.

Since the end of the last century, the world has witnessed remarkable changes in the structure, shapes and nature of the roles of players in the international scene. The change in the political and economic structures and the internal ideological transformations of many countries of the world has directly contributed to the formation of new features of the global system, which has cast its consequences on many international issues. Therefore, the internal changes in countries and nations cast its shadow over the nature of the world order.
If the end of the last century brought with it the end of socialism and the rise of capitalism, then it also carried a clear growth of political Islam movements, those movements that call for the application of Islamic law in various aspects of life as Islam is a religion, politics and regime. However, all political Islam movements and groups aim to establish the Islamic state and Islamic society, but they differ in the strategy that must be followed to achieve this goal.

Some of these movements prefer to follow peaceful methods and means through political participation, whereas another prefers the revolutionary method by practicing violence. These movements are in fact not a result of chance or a result of the fate that the Islamic nation has come to so much as an expression of a complex product of a set of causes including the Islamic thought itself.

Hence, we cannot deny the various factors that contributed to the emergence of religious extremism and the violence that emanates from it. Arab societies have gone through long periods of ignorance, impoverishment, marginalisation and tyranny. Foreign colonialism played a fundamental role in that, stealing the wealth of Arabs, and perpetuating poverty and social inequality. The independence regimes were in a better condition, as dictatorial Arab regimes emerged and governed with a mentality of domination and despotism, those regimes that violated the freedoms that they heralded, stole money and wealth, and made them the preserve of their families and their parents. They also forced everyone who disagreed with them in thought and opinion into prisons and detention centres, and banished all those who opposed or criticised them, as most independence governments in the Arab world sought to fight religious thought and Islamic theses without justification.