In many ways, people may be familiar with the event of 9/11 as a terrorist attack and the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York City. In a real sense and earthened words, it is commonly said as the deadliest touch on the foundation of the American history of sovereignty in the mainland. Stories of terrorism have come to the modern world as a scared phenomenon of conflicts between or amongst states. In spite of the infamous nature of the attacks, it seems to both externally and internally explain a closer link between terrorism and the Middle East.
On the one hand, Hudson (1999) supposed this “terrorism as mentally ill” and extended further statement Crenshaw (as cited in Hudson, 1999) concluded from her studies that “the outstanding common characteristic of terrorists is their normality.” On the other hand, one of the most intense debates in Islam is that which relates to its political nature. In line with this argument, Cordesman (2017) demonstrated evidence showed that fellow Muslims are victims of violent extremism or terrorism in small areas, where it is primarily seeking power. In this paper, in the understanding of divergent ways in explaining about the radical Islam and the Muslim world and the Arab world, the widespread presence of ISIS and terrorism based on two “R” of politics which are region and religion will be used to investigate the factors that nurture Islamic terrorism in the world today.
Firstly, political movements based on Islamic values should be appropriate. The world embraces the differences in way of creating states and the history of making it. Islamic states are not exceptional. Robins (2009) this has a deep root and the use of violence against oppositionists in the Middle East modern history such as the attack by a Palestinian group on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympic 1972, Turkey in 1970s, Lebanon in late 1970s and 1980s, and Iraq in the 2000s by combatants of fringe Palestinian liberation groups, which become the biggest victims of regional terrorism before the event of 9/11.
Answering into the core of the political tradition, Rory (2018) developed an analysis that “Islamist political behaviour is inevitably shaped by the particular constraints imposed by the authoritarian or semi-authoritarian systems that Islamist movements usually operate within.” This is understood as a virtuous way that leaders of the Middle East subject a civilisation under the state-crafting. In comparison, the abolishment of the term limit with President Xi Jinping in China and the international communities claim the authoritarian regime and others such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. On this explanation, Chou (2018) wrote: “it also jeopardizes China’s collective leadership and rotation of power, imperfect but important meritocratic mechanisms nonetheless put in place during the reform period to ensure the country’s disastrous experiment with authoritarian populism never gets repeated.”
However, in lieu of clearing ways to the brighter sovereignty, the employment of the means of terrorism and the pursuit of political aims in many Middle Eastern countries has arisen an instrument of violent opposition politics. An extra curriculum of this scenario which many liberation groups have used terror as a political instrument, from the radical Zionists of the 1940s to the Irish republicans, the fringe of the extreme left Germany and Italy, to the Tamil “Tigers” in Sri Lanka and various Kashmiri groups (Robins 2009). Therefore, in the regional politics of the Middle East, the Islamic phenomenon should be considered as the preparedness to use such acts of violence as wholly legitimate objectives of the political aims.
Moving on the second “R”, religion is the product of belief and it is inherent in human rights. The intrinsically political Islam can also be seen as a liberal entity of religious rights, but it challenges the world to put the interpretation to much more hard-line views. The occupation history in the Middle Eastern world has a long story. Taking the Gaza Strip is a typical example. The battle between Israeli forces under the heavy pressure of the US within four months to occupy the desert peninsula, and proclaimed “the third kingdom of Israel” and dropped an idea of “annexing the conquered territory.” (Black 2018) This author also demonstrated comments of Moshe Dayan in 1956 that “for eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camp in Gaza, watching us transforming the lands and the villages where they and their fathers dwelt, into our property.
Why should we complain about their burning hatred for us?” In terms of physiological approach which it pertains an integral part of the universal belief with one’s existence, Hudson (1999) supposed “they characterize the potential terrorist as a frustrated individual who has become aroused and has repeatedly experienced the fight or flight syndrome.” Hence, the holy belief about God and Allah is viewed as the sole God—creator, sustainer, and restorer of the world. The will of Allah, to which human beings must submit, is made known through the sacred scriptures. Therefore, the faith-based code of conduct is a solid way to directs Muslim in all aspects of life. To obey the law, the Sharia law for crimes who are committed, it is known for its harsh punishments.
For example, the punishment for theft is amputating a person’s hand. Adultery can carry the penalty of death by stoning. While it is not supported by some of the internal Muslim communities and even the internal communities, it answers for the fight and the special sacred connection with the religious acts. In other words, it features prominently as part of the identity of Muslims and Robins (2009) stated this as “a ubiquitous presence” of the Muslim religion.
In conclusion, the remainder of the opposing ideology has put the world a halt to a connecting knot of globalization. The rich source of cultural expression, political values, and philosophical debates about civilisations is self-conscious. In the region, political Islam has been the ideology most capable of mobilising people with strong political regimes and pursuits. In terms of religion, the experiment with physiological approach and belief seems inherently tied to the promise of radical movements of the religious politics and religious belief. Subsequently, the region appears frozen in the polarised struggle between regime authoritarians and opposition (Islamism). Islamic terrorism continues to be debated and hitherto denied on the global scale.
Bibliography
Black, I. (2018). Enemies and Neighbours: Arab and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917 – 2017. Australia: Penguin Book.
Chou, M. (2018). CHINA’S POLITICAL MERITOCRACY UNDER XI JINPING. Retrieved from https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/chinas-political-meritocracy-under-xi-jinping/
Cordesman, A. (2017). Islam and the Patterns in Terrorism and Violent Extremism. Retrieved from https://www.csis.org/analysis/islam-and-patterns-terrorism-and-violent-extremism?fbclid=IwAR1b0lDIKnsmjEmvRwfg4uEbmezfqtWY4waiBTlv_axSlat5posjZYpBAbg
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Robins, P. (2009). The Middle East: A Beginner’s Guide. India: Oneworld Publication.
Rory, M. (2018). When Islamists lose: The politicization of Tunisia’s ennahda movement. The Middle East Journal, 72(3), 365-384. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy1.acu.edu.au/10.3751/72.3.11
The Digerati Politics 