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What makes a terrorist? - 6/14/2017 3:16:13 AM

tweakabelle

Posts: 7522
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: Sydney Australia
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One of the more intractable aspects to countering terrorism has been getting into the minds of terrorists, understanding what causes an otherwise ordinary person to resort to desperate brutal acts. We are stumped by our inability to identify comprehensively the factors that cause mass shooters, lone wolf terrorists and terrorists generally.

There is a lot of talk about preventing radicalisation of at-risk males but precious little in the way of results. If we can agree that the causes of an individual’s ‘radicalisation’ can be many and complex, then we need to look deeper than simplistic one-word or single concept explanations such as “ideology creates terrorists” or “terrorists hate our freedoms”.

Mens advocate Steve Biddulph has studied the role of shame and humiliation in the male terrorist psyche. Biddulph’s examines not only terrorists but also to other acts of wanton violence by males, such as the mass shootings that are so common in the USA. Biddulph’s point of departure is the 2014 hostage crisis at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney where a lone deranged gunman held 18 people hostage in a siege that resulted in his death, and the deaths of 2 hostages. The motives of the gunman, Man Haron Moris, are the subject of debate. Monis claimed to be acting in the name of the reviled terrorist group IS, even though subsequent attempts to identify any links between Monis and IS were unsuccessful.

“The role of shame and failure is now being given far greater prominence in understanding men who commit harm. Terrorism specialists such as France's Olivier Roy believe that this sense of worthlessness, rather than any after-the-fact "radicalisation", is the driving factor for violent acts, and if we ignore this we will not solve the problem.”
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-role-of-male-shame-in-violent-incidents-like-the-lindt-cafe-siege-20170611-gwp0iy.html

More general causal factors must include the social, political, religious and liberty situations in a terrorist's background. All these factors undoubtedly play a part in creating terrorists. Individual terrorists are made not born. Biddulph concludes:
“If we do not acknowledge what male disintegration looks like and include this in a more accurate, albeit broader definition of mental illness and potential for violence, then we may see far more blood on our streets.
If we so easily lend the cachet of terrorism to what would otherwise be simply horrible acts by pathetic men, then that makes them much more likely to recur. These are the acts of damaged and heartless men, and they are entirely predictable and preventable once we know what we are looking for.”

Is this an area that we should be exploring to help us identify potential mass shooters and terrorists and hopefully to prevent them doing harm to others in the future? Is this an area that we need to devise strategies to prevent the radicalisation of at-risk males into terrorists? If violence by at risk individual's is "predictable and preventable" what should we be doing to intervene successfully?

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