According to recent research, very few individuals are recruited to
extremist organisations for financial reasons. PHOTO | FILE | AFP
By TREVOR ANALO
In Summary
- High unemployment, which seems to be the main reason according to the government, has driven a number of youth into Al Shabaab. Very few though, according to this research, are recruited for financial reasons.
As the dust settles on the September 2013 attack
on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenyans, united in grief, wrestled
with the nature of the deaths visited upon the 67 people who were just
going about their business that fateful weekend.
But, what kind of person commits such acts? The economically desperate? Evil monsters?
The aftermath of terror has led many, especially
on social media, to view members of Al Shabaab and other extremist
groups as psychopaths or lunatics, who have lost touch with the
“civilised world.”
On the face of it, these arguments only serve to
minimise the political or social reasons that pushed the terrorists into
action.
Attacking strategic installations like police stations in northern Kenya, public transportation in Nairobi or the two-day siege in Lamu County and its surrounding areas where more than 100 people were killed, reveals a level of sophistication not normally associated with psychopaths.
Attacking strategic installations like police stations in northern Kenya, public transportation in Nairobi or the two-day siege in Lamu County and its surrounding areas where more than 100 people were killed, reveals a level of sophistication not normally associated with psychopaths.
There is a lot of detail that goes into planning a
terrorist attack, something that is hardly a typical characteristic of
in a mentally disturbed individual.
For decades, psychologists have studied the
individual characteristics of terrorists to explain why people willingly
engage in mass violence. One of the earliest studies on the psychology
of terrorism shows no conclusive evidence that terrorists are mentally
disturbed.
Research by psychiatrist W. Rasch, who interviewed
a number of West German terrorists in 1974, and psychologist Ken
Heskin, who studied the psychology of terrorism in Northern Ireland,
found no evidence that terrorists are diagnosably psychotic.
However extreme their views are from society,
there is a general consensus among psychologists that terrorist is quite
sane. In any case, psychopaths tend to be uncontrollable and could be
potentially dangerous to the terrorist group itself.
While it is not entirely impossible to have a few
psychotic individuals within the ranks of terrorist groups, most
mentally disturbed terrorists have tended to operate alone. An example
of a “lone wolf terrorist” is Anders Breivik who, driven by his hatred
for Muslims, set off a bomb in Oslo, Norway and then travelled to Utoya
island and murdered 69 people, mostly teenagers.
In the US, Nidal Malik Hasan, who ironically was a
US Army psychiatrist, opened fire and killed 13 people at Fort Hood
military base. Both of these individuals were found to be psychotic.
According to a study by the US Library of Congress
in 1999, attempts to explain terrorism in purely psychological terms
“ignore the very real economic, political, and social factors that have
always motivated radical activists”.
Rational individuals
Speaking to The EastAfrican, Anneli
Botha, a researcher on terrorism, said there are no special
psychological qualities that describe individuals or groups that resort
to terrorism.
“In the research I’ve done, terrorists are
actually very rational. They are not mindless people who just follow the
stream. They are committed, not under the influence of any drugs, and
they are strongly behind a they believe in,” said Botha, who works with
the Pretoria-based Institute of Security Studies.
And this is where governments fail when designing
counter-radicalisation strategies. Governments do not understand what is
driving Al Shabaab and other terrorist groups in the region, Botha saidTweet
On why young people who are of sane mind and
sometimes even educated, join terrorist groups, researchers seem to
agree that terrorism is political violence, and authorities can only
develop proper responses if they understand the social, political and
economic issues as well as an individual’s life history that push people
into mass violence.
In Kenya, as a new study by Botha shows, a lot of
factors push individuals with terrorism. High unemployment, which seems
to be the main reason according to the government, has driven a number
of youth into Al Shabaab. Very few though, according to this research,
are recruited for financial reasons.
Others join for religious reasons because they
feel the government’s perceived mistreatment of Muslims is endangering
their community and they think they have a duty to protect their people.
Ms Botha warned that copy-pasting policies just because they were successful in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan will not work.
“If we want to address this issue we must first
understand these groups and what drives them so that we can develop
effective counter-terrorism strategies,” Botha told The EastAfrican.
According to her, terrorist groups are diverse and
even within Al Shabaab itself, the branch in Somalia is vastly
different from the one in Kenya, and only by understanding this
difference, can governments in the region effectively tackle terrorism
using localised solutions.
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