Terrorism Sociology Paper - Essay Example

His second theoretical proposition with respect to terrorism is that peer influence can motivate a person for joining a terrorist group (Victoroff p.10). Newman (2006) on the other hand pointed out that the root causes of terrorism can be permissive, direct or catalytic conditions such as poverty, demographic factors, social inequality and exclusion, dispossession, and political grievances (Newman, p.750). It is a fact that low education and poverty are some of the major reasons of terrorism.

It is easy for terrorists to convince poor or lowly educated people with their ideologies. Such people might not possess the intelligence to segregate between the good and evil. Victoroff’s psychological dimensions with respect to terrorism and Newman’s permissive, direct or catalytic conditions with respect to terrorism are two sides of the same coin. Both of them cite same reasons for terrorism in different manner. It should be noted that defective insight, adherence to convention, emotional detachment from the consequences of actions, low education, poverty etc are interconnected in one way or another.

Low education leads towards poverty; poverty leads towards defective insight and defective insight lead towards adherence to convention. In short, Newman and Victoroff have identified almost similar reasons for the wide spreading of terrorism. Peer influence is cited as the second major reason for terrorism by Victoroff. He has quoted Bandura’s (1973, 1998) social learning theory of aggression to substantiate his argument. Teenagers living in hotbeds of political strife may directly witness terrorist behaviors and seek to imitate them or, even more commonly, learn from their culture’s public glorification of terrorists (Victoroff p.18). Terrorists are getting wide social acceptance at least in some fundamental societies.

For example, in Afghanistan and in some parts of Pakistan, Islamic fundamentalists consider terrorists as heroes. For them, Islamic terrorists are saviors of their religion and belief. “Religious terrorism is motivated either in whole or in part by religious imperative, where violence is regarded by its practitioners as a divine duty or sacramental act”(Sparago, p.3). It should be noted that jihad or war against enemies of Islam is considered as a sacred act by many of the Islamic fundamental groups.

In short, in communities in which terrorists are considered as saviors, people often get attracted towards terrorism because of peer influence. Newman made these points clearer. The so-called Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are in fact “people who detest modernity—the secular, scientific, rational, and commercial civilization created by the Enlightenment as it is defined by both its virtues (freedom, democracy, tolerance, and diversity) and its vices (inequality, hegemony, cultural imperialism, and materialism) (Newman, p.753-754). It is a fact that democracy and globalization are unacceptable political/economic principles in Islamic world.

Islamic dictators in Middle East and other parts of the world educate their people that democracy and globalization have the power to destroy the fundamental principles of Islam. In their opinion, westerners are using these