Thursday, November 1, 2012

Weekly Reflection 28 October 2012

Recently, I've been doing a lot of research for my World Politics class about al Qaeda, and I've discovered the structure of the organization is nothing like I had thought.  To my best understanding, al Qaeda operates primarily as a funder of suicide bombings.  For the most part, the people who act as suicide bombers share the ideals and sentiment of al Qaeda before they are recruited - that is, al Qaeda does not recruit uneducated people and convert them into radical Islamists who want to destroy the world.  In fact, the major players in the attacks on 9/11 were all Western educated men.  

I think this is important to know in order to avoid Orientalist discourse.  Within terrorist organizations like al Qaeda, followers aren't uneducated Muslims huddling in huts in rural Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.  Often, it's just the opposite - the core hijackers of 9/11 were studying and working in professional jobs in Hamburg before they were involved with al Qaeda.  Terrorist organization members justify suicide bombings as a way to combat an enemy too strong or large for a single person to take on.  While I don't agree whatsoever with this reasoning, I think it's important to take note of in order to analyze and understand terrorism in a politically correct manner.

2 comments:

  1. Alex, you may also want to reflect on the effect Orientalism can have on collective identities - what it might be like to be treated like an inferior because you are from a certain part of the world, look a certain way, or belong to a certain religion. That might help explaining why educated, financially stable young men would retreat into a fundamentalist ideology. Alienation and radicalization tend to go hand in hand...

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  2. This is really interesting. I did not know this about al Qaeda and I never would have guessed it. It really makes me think about professor Hardig's post on orientalism and my own subconscious assumptions. It reflects American/western stereotypes and I think it's important that people know the truth. Part of the issue with the MENA region is our misunderstanding of it.

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