Terrorism and Poverty

First thing first, my deepest condolences to France and her people. My heart is with them in this trial time.

In the wake of such terrorism, let's talk about what breeds such thoughts and actors. Hopefully, let's also talk about how to discourage such thoughts and prevent such actions.

It has been asserted, over and over, that terrorists themselves are not from dire situations. Many of them are from well-off, if not outright wealthy, families; many of them are exquisitely educated. This assertion has appeared over and over, as a mysterious puzzle over why such well-to-do people join such organizations and commit such action.

In fact, this reminds me of a related, but much more obviously racist puzzle: both indigenous Australians and Whites occupy Oceania. However, the former lived for thousands of years as hunter-gatherers, with barely any artifact to show; meanwhile, the latter, in the span of a few centuries, created a modern, literate, and very productive society. This would, naturally, lead to an assertion of how Whites are superior to those "missing links" between chimpanzees and humans. It's almost laughable, except that it caused deaths of millions; genocides are never laughing matters.

The whole assertion about the supposed divorce of poverty and terrorism, in my opinion, attempts to guide people toward such racist (well, this is discrimination based on religion, so religist?) conclusions. After all, well-to-do Christians don't seem to go around blowing up innocent people, right? Ergo, this must mean that Islam is bad.

Obviously, like all thoughtful deception, this lovely misdirection fails to cover quite a few glaring very strange behaviors.

First and foremost is this: if the problem is with Islam, why do those Muslims bother to travel all the way to the impoverished areas to organize? Seriously. There are sizable Muslim populations everywhere. Why not just setup an attack right from the belly of the enemies? Why bother traveling, with so many difficulties and risks, to Syria and Iraq and such?

Secondly, why do (organized) extremism only seem to flourish in impoverished areas? I mean, sure, the terrorists strike Western world here and there. However, the vast majority of them are from Africa and Middle East. Even within the US, the most obvious extremist groups can be found in poorer areas, i.e. the rural and the South. They may strike their neighbors, but they never seem to take root there.

Both of the points above can circle to this: the individual terrorists (especially the leading ones) may be well-to-do, but the environments that foster them are always poor. This is the clearest link between terrorism and poverty.

The question becomes: if poverty does not furnish terrorists (at least not exclusively), why do terrorism still require poverty to thrive?

Now, let's talk about people in general. Generally speaking, people are quite decent. They may do wrong, but, generally speaking, they know wrongness, and they either restrain or cover it up. It's call common decency, you know. And, a part of dignity is to uphold such decency.

Terrorists don't seem to have such decency. Or, at least, their decency is extremely low. As such, should persons be among normal (as in, not desperate) people, generally speaking, two things happen. Either decent people convert them over, or they destroy the decent people. The former case results in the millions (if not hundreds of millions) of people low in empathy but nevertheless non-violent and upholding social standards. The latter case, obviously, goes kaput.

But what if terrorist mindset meets with poverty and constant social unrest? Such situations fail the people, render them desperate. Desperate people bend much easier and are more open-minded to alternative social arrangement. Now, terrorists have 2 new choices: they terrorize the weak and court the strong. Weakened by hunger, split by internal struggles, stricken down by calamities to themselves and their close ones, people in such situation may be bullied into submission. Meanwhile, some of them may even support the cause of terror. After all, what have social standards and common sense done for them? And, remember, terrorists always blame it on others. If others have wronged you, what decency do you owe to them?

And thus, poverty provides the environment for terrorist seeds to grow. The seed may come from wealth, but it needs poverty to sprout.

How can we solve this problem, then?

Confucius once instructed 3 steps to grow a people: first, gather them; second, make them rich; third, teach them common sense. This order should be upheld strictly.

Here is my opinion on Afghanistan and Iraq situations: US invaded the 2 countries, hold political power over them, and I have yet to see their products anywhere. In fact, for progress, we occasionally hear of their "social progress," most notably women rights. And such is a recipe for disaster.

Now, I don't mean to belittle women rights. They are important. However, let's look at the situation from a poor man perspective, and I mean literally poor man. He sees his lot of life changes little; he still lives in poverty. Worse yet, previously, at least he once debased himself in front of his own people; now he debases himself in front of people of different countries and races. Where is his dignity now? Worse yet, his known world order was turned upside down. Women now parade over his head. And he got none of them (remember, we are talking about societies where women were considered as property to men). All he sees, thus, is lots of changes, uncertainty, shame, and quite little prospect of betterment. Lastly, the little betterment he enjoys may not mean that much. After all, when you are hungry, homeless, illiterate, what good does election do?

When a significant chunk of the population are impoverished and insulted (by the invasion of their country, obviously), one can't exactly blaming them for exploring alternative arrangements. Unfortunately, among those arrangements are racism, sexism, militarism, and whatever-discrimation-based-on-religion-calls. What do you get when you combine all of these above?

Remember Confucius' sequence: gather people, give them wealth, then teach them decency. Decency fights terrorism. Wealth (i.e. financial and food security) nourishes both decency and will-power. Without wealth, without food, without shelters, don't talk about social progress.