Beyond terrorism
Hilary Peters reflects on what motivates a terrorist
After every terrorist attack, the media are flooded with experts trying to rationalise events. ‘Who would do such a thing?’ ‘How can we understand them?’ ‘How were they radicalised?’ ‘Is it connected with Islam?’ ‘What can we do to prevent more attacks?’
These well-meaning questions do not go to the heart of the problem. We need to look beyond the generalisations and consider our own basic needs. Among the most basic, I believe, is to know who we are, to feel that we are someone of worth. It is a question of identity.
If we feel unloved, misunderstood and unheard, and that feeling persists and is reinforced by the way we see ourselves and the way others see us, it is conceivable that we might do something drastic. That could be suicide. It could be murder. It could be something less dramatic, but one way or another, I feel, we seek to make ourselves known. A brutal killer with much publicity surrounding their crimes may consider that at least people have heard of them. Murderers are often the most respected (or feared) inmates in a prison. They have status.
Terrorists may well be motivated by hatred and fear, but I think there can be other motivations underlying them. A terrorist, no matter how repulsive their actions, can still be a hero to someone. They are remembered precisely because of their atrocities
Some key questions are: ‘How do I see myself?’ and ‘Who am I?’ They tend to be hidden questions because we hide them from ourselves. The reason for that may be because we want to create an image of ourselves with which we are comfortable. If others are impressed with their image of us, that is a bonus. It makes our self-image more convincing.
In my view, one way to boost our image of ourselves is by having an enemy – someone we consider to be very different from ourselves. Denigrate and dehumanise the enemy and our self-image is strengthened. The enemy embodies all that we most strongly reject in ourselves. So, a terrorist outrage is not just a battle in a war between East and West, or Islam and Christianity, or barbarism and civilisation, or evil and good, or decadence and purity. Basically, it is a battle to survive, fought by people who have evaded or who are not even aware of the question: ‘Who am I?’
But I think we ask it, subconsciously, a lot of the time. If we like the answer, we are content. If we do not, we are very far from content. If we could ask ourselves that question, ‘Who am I?’, rather more consciously, we might perceive more how we help to create that image of ourselves. If we could drag that question out into the open, we might better understand some of the roots of terrorism.
If we could teach people to ask themselves that question openly, and think more kindly of themselves when they consider the answer, then perhaps they might think more kindly of others and act more kindly towards them. If we could all find a constructive role in the world which strengthens us individually and collectively, perhaps acts of terrorism would not be so common. The essential thing, though, is not just to find a meaningful part to play but to know and understand fully that we are playing it.
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