Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists?|5 Minute Video

What makes someone become an Islamic extremist? Is it poverty? Haroon Ullah, a senior State Department consultant and a foreign policy professor at Georgetown University, shares what he found while living in Pakistan.

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Script:

What drives somebody to end up being a spiritual extremist, even to the point of ending up being a suicide bomber? Like many people I presumed that there were 2 bypassing answers: hardship and ignorance.

The poverty line goes like this: grinding poverty from which there appears to be no escape promotes seething animosity against who those have more. If your option is to pass away a martyr or die a beggar, martyrdom is the clear winner.

The ignorance lines goes like this: the poor have no opportunity to get a good education and thus are susceptible to easy manipulation. Clever individuals use their superstitions and prejudices. When the extremist gets this oblivious bad individual in his grasp, brainwashing is simple.

Since there’s plenty of hardship and lots of lack of knowledge worldwide, that’s a lot of individuals to draw from. This is how the source of terrorism is described.

I went to Pakistan and really lived in the world from which extremists recruit. And I found something much various than I anticipated. Poverty had little to do with who ended up being an extremist; illiteracy even less.

Many of those that I satisfied who sign up for spiritual extremism– and are prepared to murder and die for their cause– are from the middle class; and numerous had a university education. These are not poor people and these are not uneducated individuals. They are well fed and well read.

So, if hardship and lack of knowledge do not drive individuals to extremism, what does?

Places like Pakistan are submerged in turmoil and corruption. Islamists promise clear cut solutions to every issue: here’s how things will change if you follow these rules.

Another is a desire for change. The old corrupt order, the narrative goes, should be toppled which can only take place through violent action. Again, it is Islamists that action in– with a pledge to develop a brand-new form of government.

Then throw in a strong sense of victimhood– we are not accountable for the sorry state of our country; others have brought us down– and you have a poisonous brew that numerous willingly imbibe. These, of course, are the very same easy responses that demagogues and autocrats– from Lenin to Mussolini to Hitler to bin Laden– have actually always offered their fans.

I saw this played out one day while living in Pakistan. After one of the many assassinations of a major figure there, I was sitting with two middle class moms and dads.

They informed me that throughout supper with the household a few days earlier, their son noted how the individual who was killed “been worthy of to die.” Why? Due to the fact that he had actually spoken up on behalf of religious minorities. They were stunned. How could their child, who had been educated and well raised, think that? This story is all too common.

So what to do about this extremism?

The first step is to leave this incorrect narrative that this is primary and very first a poverty or education issue.

For the complete script, go to https://www.prageru.com/videos/why-do-people-become-islamic-extremists

source

Why Do People Become Islamic Extremists? What makes somebody become an Islamic extremist? Creative individuals play on their superstitious notions and prejudices. Hardship had little to do with who became an extremist; absence of education even less.

These are not poor people and these are not ignorant people.