Another day; another deadly terrorist attack on African soil. After the horror of this weekend’s ruthless killings in Ivory Coast, two female suicide bombers sent 24 more innocent souls to an early grave in Nigeria this morning. That’s after President Buhari had declared his nation had ‘technically’ defeated Boko Haram in battle, encouraging the return of foreign investors to a nation embroiled in spiralling economic woes. The rampage is becoming relentless.
I vividly recall watching Emmanuel TV on December 31st 2015 when Nigerian Pastor T.B. Joshua released an alarming list of predictions for 2016. One of the most striking was the impending rise in terrorist attacks in the African continent, spawned particularly by democratic infringements during elections.
“More African countries will be under siege by terrorists because of pros and cons in choosing leaders,” he said. “Mishandling of electoral processes will create a conducive atmosphere for terrorists.” Several months later and the warning bells are ringing at an alarmingly loud rate. Aside from the steady attacks by groups such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab in Somalia, 2016 has witnessed terrorists strike in the unlikely destinations of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, both countries who have recently emerged from elections late in 2015.
Violence broke out in Uganda this week in the wake of the disputed elections which saw veteran leader Yoweri Museveni return to power, leaving over 20 fatalities. Tensions remain high in other African countries with preparedness for elections oftentimes mingled with the fear of violence. Well did Joshua warn that electoral mishaps would provide a conducive atmosphere for terror to thrive!
In the midst of such tensions, Libya has become a hotbed for terrorist recruitment and empowerment. Since the brutal ousting of Gaddafi in 2011, the fight for power between rival groups has led to chaos in the North African country. With no discernible national authority to guarantee security, militant groups have infiltrated, using it as a hub to launch attacks and sell weapons in West Africa.
With economic challenges prevalent, rising anger amongst youth against corruption in government and the refusal of prominent African leaders to concede power, there seems to be no sign of these attacks abating. Indeed, the attacks in West Africa could be a harbinger of what’s to come as militant groups ramp up attacks to show that they are flag-bearers of jihadism and a warped perception of ‘change’ they believe can only be attained through blood. May God help us!
Godwin Ikechukwu – Port Harcourt, Nigeria
The Psychology of Terrorism
Allow me to add my voice to this important issue by highlighting a few ideas about the psychology of terrorism. In order to combat terrorism, we need to answer the following questions-
What causes ordinary people to become terrorists? What attracts people to terrorism? How do terrorist groups in the Middle East recruit and radicalize people from all over the world?
Why is one man’s terrorist activities another man’s freedom fighting ideology? These are just a few of the questions that face the world on a daily basis.
However, before answering these questions we need to define the term terrorism. Terrorism is defined loosely based on the Latin word Terre, which means to frighten. To be considered an act of terrorism, which is a political crime, an act must carry with it the intent to disrupt and should not be merely a common-law crime committed for greed or egotism. Terrorism is both an evil tactic and strategy; it is a crime against humanity and not a holy duty. You see, it’s how a person defines a concept which determines how he or she is going to operationalize it through behaviour.
Although terrorism represents a psychological construct with identifiable charecteristics, it is not charecterized by a unique set of psychological traits or pathologies. So there is need to understand the root causes of terrorism.
All behaviour is based on multiple contributing factors. Terrorism though not a normal behaviour is no exemption. We therefore need to understand the motivation behind terrorism through understanding human behaviour.
To effectively prevent terrorism from gainning ground in Africa and the rest of the world we have to understand the psychology of a terrorist. The intent of of a terrorist is to achieve certain goals through committing crimes against humanity. This is charecteristic of a frustrated mind which endeavours to instill fear in the lives of innocent citizens by means of their unlawful acts. It therefore goes without saying that to fight terrorism, we need to carefully watch every move of frustrated individuals. We need to find neans of changing their mind-set that there is more to life than terrorism.
My analysis of terrorism is in terms of means-end psychology. What I mean by this is that there are conditions under which potential perpetrators may find terrorism more or less appealing. It is thus vital to gather teams of experts to guide the continent of Africa and the world at large to give guidance for the war on terrorism. The machine gun alone may not help us combat terrorism. The social learning theory suggests that this behaviour e.g. aggression, is learned behaviour. This is why institutions in our environment responsible for such learning environments should be monitored very closely and its teachers arrested if found wanting.
Lastly, let me emphasise that when ever there is a terrorist attack we need to not only arrest suspects still alive but also thoroughly investigate the motivation behind it. The motivation behind terrorism is the relative deprivation hypothesis which is the idea that as a person goes about choosing their values and interests, they compare what they have and don’t have, as well as what they want or don’t want, with real or imaginary others. We should inculcate ideal and progressive ideas of competing with oneself and not with another person or group. To effectively do thus we need to monitor what is tought in religious organizations and schools. Otherwise, we will end up with terrorists who perceives a discrepancy between what is possible for them and what is possible for others, and reacts to it with anger or an inflamed sense of injustice. Our leaders can also do well to emphasize commonality between the their people as a way of uniting them and not how different they are.