I have a lot of time and respect for Kim Dae-jung. Maybe his Sunshine Policy was all a complete cock-up, but it was a welcome change, for a time, from the boring policies of previous Korean administrations. When DJ went to Pyongyang, I was naive enough too believe that things would actually get better in North Korea. I think a lot of us were.
Whatever people say, he did a lot for democracy in this country, and maybe its better to forgive a man his mistakes in his old age. But why did he have to come out a couple of weeks ago at a conference in Seoul and announce to the world that poverty is the root cause of terrorism? He said some things that I agree with, such as
“While the advanced countries are benefiting from most of the wealth, the poor countries are being left out,???? Kim said. “What is important is that the developing countries also enjoy the benefits of globalization.???? Kim said that about 1.2 billion people, or 20 percent of the world??s population, live on less than $1 a day. “This is a sad reality arising from poverty.????
This is all true, and not a good state of affairs for the world; things need to be done about this.
But to jump from that to say that poverty causes terrorism is just a logical leap that my mind cannot follow DJ in. Does anyone here think that Osama Bin Laden or any of the suicide bombers who died in those airplanes on September 11th, 2001, was dirt poor? Granted, some terrorists may come from a very poor background, but why don’t we take themm at their word when they tell the world why they do what they do? I can’t think of too many terrorist actions that were followed by announcements claiming responsility and asking the world to raise the minimum wage in a certain country.
Can anyone name any terrorist groups within living many that have as their aim the eradication or alleviation of poverty anywhere? There might be some, but surely you can’t say, as DJ did, that “Looking at the terrorism sweeping the world into fear and confusion today, it seems that in most cases its root cause is the grief and despair of poverty.”
DJ, you’re a good man and I like you a lot, but maybe it’s time to retire from public pronouncements and spend more time gardening with the missus.
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He does somewhat have a point. Poverty does not neccessarily cause terrorism, but it nonetheless contributes to lawlessness and the pervading sense of desparation will lead people to radical causes. Aside from nutjob’s like Bin Laden, most terrorists are dirt poor. Case in point, just look at the Israel/ Palestine situation. The Gaza strip area is one of the poorest regions of the world and it is unsurprising that suicide bombers emerge from refugee camps. Somehow, I don’t think you’d see as many terrorists coming from bourgeoisified middle class gated communities. If the Palestinians were wealthier than the Jews living in Israel, I honestly don’t think you’d see so many of them clamouring to drive them into the sea.
Jing as a matter of fact, the Israelis have done studies of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to identify a “suicide bomber profile” - and they are NOT poor guys from refugee camps, they are more middle class.
And look at al Qaeda - bin Laden could be porking Swedish prostitutes and going on shopping sprees like any other rich Saudi. Zarqawi in Iraq could be a doctor. And, if memory serves, several 9/11 highjackers could have been engineers.
Somehow I find that highly unlikely Tongyi, can you back up that assertion that Palestinian suicide bombers are mostly middle class?
I also do not believe that poverty is the root cause of terrorism as we see it in the world. If so, I would suspect to see a lot more coming out of places in India or sub-sahara Africa. Heck, if you want to take a look at Palestinians, the Christian Palestinians (or other Christians in Northern Africa and Middle East) have not signed up on this global terrorist thing either…
The arguments about the lack of any link between poverty and terrorism are disappointing.
Try to look at the big picture. Just because one individual involved in hideous activities is not poor does not mean to say that his or her beliefs were not in some way influenced by the economic conditions of his/her state and people, and their economic relations with the rest of the world.
So, what does cause terrorism? Enlighten me.
People with screwed up ideas are responsible for terrorism. Human beings are not controlled by vast social forces that force them to become suicide bombers.
Here is evidence Jing:
http://www.npr.org/programs/mo.....joyce.html
The highlights:
“Mr. SCOTT ATRAN (Anthropologist): There’s this knee-jerk reaction that people who do this have to be maniacs or cowards, uneducated or miserable or in despair, and none of this seems to be true at all…
“Mr. ATRAN: These people are fairly well educated, mostly from middle class and not acting at all in despair.
“JOYCE: Atran summarizes these findings in today’s issue of the journal Science. He notes that the government of Singapore recently published a similar report on Asian terrorists linked to al-Qaeda that found the same trend…
“Mr. ALAN KRUEGER (Princeton University): I think there’s very little connection between economic circumstances and support for terrorism or maybe even an opposite relationship, from what most people suspect.
“JOYCE: As for the bombers themselves, Krueger says terrorist literature indicates they are more likely to come from the ranks of middle-class college students…”
There are dozens of other articles that say exactly the same thing if you type “suicide bomber profile” into Google.
That was hardly evidence. That was hardly anything.
We are not talking about anybody’s “profile.” If you say that, it just shows that you fail to see the big picture. Try moving beyond one person.
Deflet wrote: “Try to look at the big picture. Just because one individual involved in hideous activities is not poor does not mean to say that his or her beliefs were not in some way influenced by the economic conditions of his/her state and people, and their economic relations with the rest of the world.”
This is true. Equally so, just because Kim DJ says that terrorism is caused by poverty doesn’t make it so either. We need to make a stronger case for it than that if it is to be proven correct.
Granted, some terrorist groups might be formed by the shared experience of living in poverty, or might be motivated by the desire to equalize the distribution of wealth, but does that prove that poverty lies at the heart of all terrorism?
Again, as I said in my post, why don’t we listen to the terrorists themselves and let them tell us what motivates them? Might they have a better understanding of why they do what they do than we?
See this article at Wikipedia for a bit of a primer about terrorism. I am by no means an expert, but from what little reading I have done terrorism is more about things like unequal power distribution, feelings of desparation and hopelessness (which can - but by no means must - be related to things like economic inequality), and ideology.
One thing we must recognise is that most dirt poor people in the world do not engage in terrorism. Why is this?
One thing we must recognise is that most dirt poor people in the world do not engage in terrorism. Why is this?
Some dirt poor people can be recruited as terrorists, but I think you’re right insomuch as the leaders and agitators in terror movements are almost always middle- or upper-middle class, not poor. They will enlist the poor to do their dirty work, but creating a terrorist fantasy ideology (whether it is advocated by Al-Qaeda, the Tamil Tigers, the Basque ETA, or the Ku Klux Klan) involves an opportunity cost that the poor cannot pay.
So why do some people choose to do it and some people not to? There are of course a range of factors. And to eliminate any would be extremely foolish. To say economic factors had nothing to do with it would be as foolish as saying that it was primarily the result of economic factors.
How much choice does anybody have? How much is conditioned? Why do I have my opinions?
I tend to read things that reinforce my own point of view. Anybody who claims otherwise is fooling himself.
Everybody is biased and stupid. Poor people are bad and rich people are bad. Happy now?
It is an old argument that had a hayday during the ideological/philosophical/social debates since the rise of Communism in eastern Europe and especailly in the 1950s and 60s. Walter Cronkite said the same thing shortly after 9/11.
It’s all academic chatter…..wealthy breeds “decadence, corruption, and tyranny” and poverty breeds terrorists and criminals.
The thing I hate about how they talk about the subject is that it tends to destroy the idea of free-will.
They excuse the acts of a small percentage of people raised in poverty by saying “you can’t really blame them.”
An odd thing, however, is that the same basic premise (that socio-economic factors create a deterministic social life pattern) does NOT lead these guys to excuse the actions of the rich and powerful…..
Interesting….
Anyway…..a saying by Judge Judy has stuck in my mind in relation to this point
Can I put in a vote for Islamofascism as the cause of most of your terrorism today? Islamofascism springs, of course from Islam so I figure that has to accept some of the blame as well.
Oh, and delusional wankers who believe any of that tripe to begin with get some blame too.
See! It is really very easy.
Check out this BBC News link:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm
This is what I think about the “war on terror.”