Terrorism has been taking place among the world population since time immemorial. In most cases, it is taken to cover any violent activities that a person or people do against others. For this reason, it is treated as a crime against humanity. Due to some aspects associated with terrorism, in most cases it is taken as a means of exhibiting discontent with what has happened or how things are done. This makes terrorism to be more of a forum of presenting grievances to organs or governments by use of violence since the government would not tolerate any form of violence. Tackling how terrorism occurs, it involves unleashing of violence to innocent people or property as a means of exhibiting power, revenge or grievances. Though terrorism occurs among the people, it has some root causes and this paper deals with the major causes of terrorism in the world while alluding to some real examples of what has been claimed to cause terrorism in the world.
There are many causes of violence which include: culture, politics, economy or even religion. Over the world history, these causes have unleashed unimaginable terror and violence to the people of the world making terrorism a part of their lives. However, this paper focuses on culture as the major cause of all terror activities in the world. In support of this cause, the paper presents some major reasons below (Amy, 2011).
Unto the second reason, most of the violence is associated with the Asian people. Since time immemorial, these people are known to be the most dangerous terrorists in the world. Taking a look at their cultural background in the past, these people believed that they are the only people (especially men) who should give orders and receive none from anybody else. This cultural setting motivated them to unleash violence to their subjects since there was no law mitigating such actions (Arnold, 2002).
The other reason would be cultural laws and traditions. This is mainly supported by the fact that many laws that are even in use today originate from the cultural laws. Some laws encouraged violence and use of force to show agitation and as a means of petitioning for a certain fight. This is what has led to many terrorists claiming that they are fighting for their rights and are not ready to shun violence or use any alternative means of agitating for their rights. Take for example the case of terror attacks launched on American embassies in east Africa and September 11th attack on US. The terror group claimed it was agitating for their rights and fighting for justice against the Americans. If these people were brought up thinking of alternative means of resolving differences, would they result in unleashing terror? (Barber, 2001)
In summary of this cause being the root cause of terrorism, it is clear that culture is the root of terrorism. It is the root to any economic structure, political organization or even religion. For this reason, terrorism associated with these other causes still has a connection to culture.
However, this may not come at great ease since most of the societies do not fully support cultural diversity. A good example is the religious divide that still exists among the Christians and the Muslims. This has been seen to promote terrorism to a certain level and this divide cannot be fully covered. Another example is the fight for supremacy among the different peoples of the society. This cannot allow cultural diversity to thrive well hence hinder erosion of some cultural aspects that might promote terrorism (Rex, 2000).
Trying to predict the future of terrorism in the world, culture still remains to be the most important throughout the immediate history. This is mainly because cultural diversity still remains a new aspect of the contemporary society. Since people from different cultures are not yet ready to fully accept and support others, the divides still persist and terrorism will still be around making it to span on until cultural harmonization occurs (Rex, 2000).
In conclusion, culture can be claimed to be the root cause of terrorism. This is because culture is the mother to all other causes of terrorism ranging from politics to religion. The best remedy for this cause of terrorism is to come up with a means of promoting cultural diversity which will in turn cause cultural harmonization. With culture harmonized, the people will appreciate one another can gradually terrorism will become a myth.
References
Amy Z, 2011. The Causes of terrorism, retrieved from http://terrorism.about.com/od/causes/a/causes_terror.htm
Arnold, E 2002 The Violence Formula: Why People Lend Sympathy and Support to Terrorism. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Barber, R. 2001. Jihad vs. MacWorld Terrorism’s Challenge to Democracy. New York: Galantine Books.
Rex A. 2000. Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why. The 1999 Government Report on Profiling
Terrorists, Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press.
