Terrorism Is A Social Problem

There is no evidence that young terrorists are mentally ill,there was no evidence that terrorists have personality disorders, are brainwashed by radical imams in mosques or Islamic religious schools (madrassahs), or enticed by the thought of scores of virgins waiting in heaven.radicalism was a social problem, rather than a mental health or criminal problem, and that young militants need superheroes to lead them away from the paths of jihad and terrorism.There are no cells, let alone sleeper cells, and no brainwashing. If someone wanted to get involved in a bombing attack on the promise of 72 virgins waiting in heaven, he'd be thrown out. That is a sexual fantasy of Western society. Most terrorists are married with several children.Militant terrorism is born in the streets, schools and barber shops.The men played football together and married into their friends' families. Rather than plotting in cells, plans for bombings were hatched at weddings and festivals.

They link up over the internet, a perfect medium for terrorism. "Men bond very fast over the internet.It dispenses with the need to be the alpha male you get when two men meet in person. Women, too, can get more easily involved over the internet.It's about fairly flat, fluid and informal networks of friends, families, neighbours, schoolmates, workmates and soccer buddies. They self-radicalise in groups, sometimes triggered by encounters with people who have been to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they go looking for Al Qaeda, increasingly in cyberspace. Radicalism is mostly about a social process, a path to violence, not ideas.
There is no evidence that these people are mentally ill, or have individual psychopathies. It's a very important message to give to the people who are not psychiatrists who believe that that is the problem. They believe that religious fundamentalism is the problem, that it is growing and that there is an increase in fundamentalist imams, and that they in turn radicalise a certain percentage of people. The solution would therefore be to use moderate imams to dampen down the fundamentalists and reduce radicalism.