Terrorism Fueled by Culture and Religion, not Poverty

Some have thought that terrorism is in part the result of the extreme poverty in the Arab world. This theory has a certain amount of plausibility, but there is a lot of poverty in the world without there being terrorism. There are stronger correlations with culture and religion than with poverty.

MEMRI translates an article from a Saudi columnist:

"The relationship between the phenomenon of terrorism in our society and culture is like the relationship betweenthe cause and consequence. A thorough study of this phenomenon shows that the … real reason behind the mobilization of a handful of young men by this deviant group is purely cultural. This means that these youths were brought up in a special cultural atmosphere which finds its roots in astereotyped understanding of religion. This understanding serves as a basic incubator to this group. This may explain the reason why some youths belonging to rich families and others who are well positioned in the state's civil service hierarchy are implicated in terrorist crimes."

"In my opinion, [any] delay in fighting this ideological cultural battle against terrorism will drag our country to abyss of instability. We need more than ever to … expose the phenomenon of terrorism and dismantle the cultural and ideological incubators which feed this phenomenon and mold it socially and culturally."

Terrorism cannot be reduced to economics, though it would be wrong to disassociate the two entirely — economic factors are relevant, but they aren't the primary cause or the principle issue we should be looking at. Terrorism is being fueled much more by cultural and religious factors than anything else. There is plenty of blame to go around, both in the West and in the Arab world, but what are we going to do about it now?

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• War on Terrorism
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