Religious Terrorism

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Literature review
3. Discussion
4. Bibliography

Introduction
The modern world undergoes dramatic changes and human society evolves rapidly to the extent that traditional values seem to be dissolved in the ocean of new ideologies and movements. However, regardless all the changes, religions is still important and produce a profound impact on the life of society and even defines the current political situation in many states and affects international relations dramatically. It is an undeniable fact that religion inevitable affects the world change since it is able to profoundly impact individuals and evoke their activism. At the same time, nowadays it is also obvious that such activism can be both violent and peaceful. As a result, religion has a great power to define the behavior of individuals by means of ideological influence and often this may lead to very negative consequences. In this respect, it should be said that one of the most negative consequences of the negative impact of religious teaching used by some individuals and organization is the spread of religious terrorism. In actuality, this notion is not new but it is still merely researched since, traditionally, there was no distinctive categories of terrorism and terrorism was viewed as such regardless whether it was religious, political, or anything else. This is why nowadays it is particularly important to research the problem of religious terrorism, find out its historical roots, causes in order to understand its essence and find possibly more effective solutions because at the present days religious terrorism is growing in power and becomes one of the main branches of international terrorism, especially in the context of the opposition between rich, mainly civic countries, and poor ones, where religion traditionally plays an extremely important role.
Literature review
Basically, specialists (Beverly 1996, Sealing 1999) view the problem of religious terrorism in the context of the general development of terrorism in the 20th century, though many of them (Dear 1994) recognize the fact that religion was always in the epicenter of international and national politics and stimulated human activism which often targeted at violent changes of the existing system and rules. It is possible to remind the well-known fact that religion not simply provoked but, what is more inspired, military conflicts that led to serious contradictions between religious confessions and even entire civilization. In this respect, the medieval crusades may be viewed as an example of the negative impact of religion which stimulated the conflict between the Christian and Muslim worlds (Dear 1994) but not always researchers recognize the fact that, to a certain extent, these crusades may be viewed as precursors of the modern problem of religious terrorism and first terror attacks but at larger scale, as they provoked irrevocable contradictions between Western and Oriental, notably Muslim, civilizations.
However, researchers (Williamson 1995) underline that terrorism has really started to flourish during the 20th century. It is worthy of mention that many specialists (East 1995, Kortunov 1994) indicate at the opposition between two superpowers, the USSR and the US, as the main sources of terrorism at large, and religious terrorism, in particular. Notably, they argue that both superpowers trained terrorists, supported them financially and technologically and, then, used as tools in the struggle against their opponents. In such a situation, religion also played an important role since many military conflicts which were accompanied by terrorism in the 20th century were provoked by religious motives. Anyway, often religion inspired people to struggle against their opponents using all possible means including terrorism, even though the actual causes of terrorism could be not only religious but socio-economic or political.
At the same time, such specialists as Magnus viewed the development of religious terrorism rather in the context of the development of modern terrorist movements underlying that it is just a new attempt to ‘refresh’ ideology of terrorism and find new stimuli to attract a larger number of supporters as traditional ideologies are getting to be weaker and weaker so that terrorist activities are not widely supported.
However, it is obvious that religious terrorism practically always accompanied conflicts where the participants represented different religious views. In this respect, it is possible to mention the growth of terrorist organization in the Middle East which used religion as one of the main motives to keep the struggle against their enemies. For instance, it is not a secret that such terrorist organizations as Hizb’allah or Hamas operate in the framework of religious ideology (Magnus) being adepts of Islam and they justify their struggle by the protection of their religion and rights of its adepts being absolutely intolerant in relation to the representatives of other religions. Notably, Sheikh Fadlallah, the chief ideologue of Hizb’allah, states that “when Islam fights a war, it fights like any other power in the world, defending itself in order to preserve its existence and its liberty, forced to undertake preventive operations when it is in danger (1986).
Moreover, in recent years the growth of religious terrorism has been faster than it has ever been before. In this respect, it is worthy of mention that some specialists (Beverly 1996) underline that, to a significant extent it is the result of the world change. To put it more precisely, it is often argued that the end of the Cold War solved the problem of the opposition of two superpowers but at the same time it gave birth to the spread of international terrorism in which religious terrorism plays a particularly important role.
In fact, the roots of many modern terrorist organizations, including those using religion as basic ideology, may be found in the epoch of the Cold War. Moreover, even the terrorist number one, Osama bin Laden, according to some specialists (Sealing 1999) is the ‘product’ of the Cold War and, what is more, he was widely supported by Americans during the Cold War in order to resist to the USSR occupation in terms of mujihadin movement.
However, with the end of the Cold War the terrorist organizations became uncontrollable by superpowers and naturally, they continued their struggle but as the opposition of democracy and communism was out of date religion became an excellent ideological basis for terrorism (Beverly 1996). Also, the end of the Cold War le to the spread of national and cultural conflicts that led to both open wars and terrorism in different parts of the world and the main cause was the lack of either support or control from the part of superpowers for in the past any military conflict was practically impossible without ‘permission’ of one of the superpowers.
Moreover, researchers (Magnus) also argue that the rapid development of religious terrorism in the late 20th century resulted from the fact that many terrorist organizations experienced a profound crisis in their environment. Numerous internal conflict and the lack of support from the public led to the appearance of new terrorist organization that used religion as new ideology and which committed terror attacks in order to draw the attention of public and world community to such organizations and their position.
At the same time, as the modern world is solely controlled by the only superpower, i.e. the US, terrorism, including religious terrorism, becomes the only effective means of struggle against the opponents which may be either the official ruling regimes that cannot be overthrown or simply if the ideology of the terrorist organization does not match the position of the US (Sealing 1999).
In such a way, religious terrorism progresses on the ground of the low control from the part of the only superpower state, i.e. the US, profound socio-economic problems which put poor countries in the conditions favorable to terrorism and religion simply becomes its ideological basis.
It is also worthy of mention, that many specialists (Kortunov 1994) argue that the means of struggle of terrorist changed dramatically and nowadays, terror attacks targeting at a possibly larger number of victims are particularly dangerous. At the same time, the ruin of the USSR created excellent opportunities for terrorist to acquire weapon of mass destruction, though, it is stated that the major goal of the modern religious terrorists is to seed the fear among civilians, make them panic and dictate terrorist demands to the official state of any country or even international organizations (Kortunov 1994).
In such a situation, many researchers (Silberman et al 2005) appeal to the religious leaders to use the power of religion for positive activism. In fact, it is obvious that religion may have a serious destructive power if its philosophy and ideology are misused. At the same time, the authority of religious leaders is still quite high and their support of anti-terrorist actions is of a paramount importance.
Discussion
Obviously, the numerous researches dedicated to the problem of religious terrorism provide ample information about the essence of this problem. It is really important that many specialists attempt to find out historical roots of terrorism in the past and link it to the present moment. Furthermore, it is also important that nowadays the danger of terrorism is perfectly realized not only by political leaders but by ordinary people as well, and, what is more, this problem is thoroughly researched on the highest level. This is why it is possible to hope that in the nearest future the effective solution of this problem may be found.
However, the solution of the problem of religious terrorism is actually one of the major questions that still remain unanswered. In fact, the numerous researches agree that in recent years the end of the Cold War, growing socio-economic problems of developing countries and lack of ideological basis of the existing terrorist groups contributed to the rapid growth of religious terrorist organizations. At the same time, the roots and origin of religious terrorism may be traced in the past religious conflicts which may be viewed as the historical background for the present tension between different religious confessions.
However, when the solution of the problem of religious terrorism is discussed often this problem remains unsolved. In actuality, many researches argue the modern policy in relation to terrorism, especially the policy of the US since this country is the only superpower and it is believed that it is able to cope with the problem of terrorism. Though it is obvious that the modern religious terrorism have acquired international features and, consequently, it needs the cooperation of the entire world community. Otherwise, the efforts of a single country, even though it is such a powerful one as the US, are absolutely insufficient. Nonetheless, it is still quite doubtful that religious terrorism may be eliminated by means of military operations or some sanctions against state supporting terrorism.
More persuading are arguments of those specialists who underline that religious terrorism is based on certain religious beliefs and, consequently, this the major task of religious movements to contribute to the prevention of religious terrorism. To put it more precisely, it is really important to develop peaceful activism of adepts of different religions.
At the same time, it is necessary to underline that the struggle with religious terrorism should also involve the ideological domain but this aspect of the problem of religious terrorism often remains non-researched or insufficiently researched. This is why it is necessary to deeply research the effective ways of the solution of the problem of religious terrorism which should involve all possible aspects such as ideological struggle, economic and political pressure on terrorist organizations and states supporting terrorism, and, naturally, military operations should not be excluded though alone they cannot be efficient. Moreover, the possible negative consequences of religious terrorism also remain under-researched since there are little works analyzing the long-term effect of religious terrorism not only on victims but on terrorists and their supporter as well.
Finally, it is necessary to say that in order to solve the problem of religious terrorism it is necessary to fully realize its causes and eliminate them or, at least, minimize their negative effects since it is obvious that religions is only a spiritual basis of terrorism, while there is inevitably a material one which is basically socio-economic by nature. This is why the further research of the problem of religious terrorism and its solution should be more profound and involve the complex of problems which provoke religious terrorism, including the problem of poverty, cultural conflicts, struggle for scarce resources, etc.

Bibliography:
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2. Dear, Bruce. “Why holy wars start and how to prevent them doing so again”. The Times, United Kingdom, Januray 19, 2002.
3. East, Adam K. “The Anglo-American Support Apparatus Behind The Afghani Mujahidin” Executive Intelligence Review October 13, 1995.
4. Fadlallah, Muhammad Hussein. “To Avoid a World War of Terror,” Washington Post, 4 June 1986.
5. Kortunov, Andrei. Sources of International Crises after the End of the Cold War New York: Routledge, 1994.
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