Terrorism and Development

What’s the first best weapon to combat terrorism?

Good jobs-lots of them.

What’s the second best weapon?

Knowledge:  continuous, detailed analysis of the complex root causes of radicalization and terrorism that informs the fullest range of actions by governments.

Yes, we admit here to ‘committing sociology’ (an idiotic phrase if there ever was one).  For the record, we also regularly commit anthropology, and political science, and economics, and community development, and, especially, gender analysis.

It could be that truly understanding terrorism is too complex for many politicians, who are driven by the 24-hour news cycle, the latest polls and the bells of Question Period.  But more policing and spying is not going to effectively fight threats in Canada or anywhere else.

Make no mistake:  we believe that terrorist acts are criminal acts and should be punishable under the full force of the law.

We also support an important role for police and intelligence agencies in monitoring and responding pre-emptively to terrorist threats, provided they themselves are monitored by well-resourced Parliamentary oversight bodies and impartial and diligent judges.

These same security and intelligence organizations know, beyond a shadow of a doubt (and they specialize in shadows), that there is a socio-economic basis for radicalization and terrorism.

However, in the present political discourse, CSIS, CSE and the RCMP are silent on this matter.  Why?  Maybe it’s because of orders from above. Maybe it’s because they stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars and many new powers—too many, in fact—if they don’t affirm that the answers to this problem are all about, well, policing and spying.

But if their own analysts don’t understand that the causes of terrorism are rooted in poverty, inequality and resource scarcity, they are not doing their jobs right.

Anyone who has worked in the field of international development understands it.

From Mali to Kenya to Somalia to Nigeria, the bombs and atrocities have their origins in those who have been excluded from the benefits of development.

The toxic mix of hunger, injustice and hopelessness, corrupt leaders and deep-rooted ethnic and religious division are exploited by brutal elites and movements, driving conflict and violence, destabilizing states, and triggering the militarization of public responses.

The massive pool of unemployed and underemployed young men in underdeveloped parts of the world is a big, fat target for the ruthless recruiters of extremist militias.

Richard Rubenstein, author of Reasons to Kill: Why Americans go to War, says that we have to understand the needs of people who might join or support what looks like inexplicable violence.

He suggests that these needs include ‘an end to gross political, judicial and economic corruption—a demand that has fuelled violent puritanical movements since the Protestant Reformation—as well as needs for decent jobs; opportunities for morally fulfilling, socially useful work; satisfying personal relationships; secure, positive cultural identities; the right to make collective decisions and to decide one’s own fate free of foreign domination.’

Without an effort to deal with these needs, the fight against the Islamic State looks pretty much like the apocalyptic war the extremists want.  It will, Rubenstein says, ‘produce only pyrrhic victories, since unsatisfied basic needs will continue to generate violent extremism.’