Middle East Politics

p MIDDLE EAST POLITICS

Why does Islamic militancy target the West

Abstract

The essay tries to explain why Islamic militancy targets the West . It provides a brief of the historical events leading up to the rise of extremism and militancy in Muslim societies . The policies followed by the West in general and by the US in particular are discussed which have contributed to the resentment and bitterness of Muslim groups around the world . The essay also discusses the failure of world bodies to resolve contentious issues pertaining to Muslims with

the help of political means . Finally the role played by the western media has been analyzed

Why does Islamic militancy target the West

In the present age , global terrorism has emerged as the most serious threat to governments and states around the world . Suicide bombings high pro murders , sabotage activities and countless other acts of terrorism have jeopardized the peace of the world . What is even more serious is the fact that in today 's age of globalization and information technology , acts of terror can not be contained in a region or geographical boundary . Technology is increasingly being brought to use by terrorists to achieve their goals . Moreover , an event occurring in one place is followed by aftereffects in another part of the globe thousands of miles away

Militancy and armed struggle , fueled by terrorism are not new phenomena Anarchists have been responsible for many assassinations around the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries . During the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries , there had been many militant organizations , but these were mostly localized , carrying out their armed struggle in their own specific areas . Examples include ETA fighting Spain for an independent Basque homeland and the IRA , which wanted Northern Ireland united with the Irish Republic (Lowe 262

However , it was in the 1970s that militancy and armed struggle began to act outside their own territories (Lowe 262 . This struggle gradually took the form of Islamic militancy and accompanied with terrorist activities , began to target the West . In the 1980s , it became clear that the chief target of these terrorist activities was the USA , which had emerged as the leader of the West and the sole super power after the Second World War . Examples include the attack on the American embassy in Lebanon (1983 , bombing in the World Trade Centre in New York (1993 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998 , and attack on the American battleship Cole in port at Aden in Yemen (2000 . The culmination of this campaign was the terrible events of 11 September 2001 when the World Trade Centre in New York was completely destroyed (Lowe 263

The roots of Islamic militancy targeting the West can be traced to the fall of Communism , when in 1991 the USSR collapsed and the Western Capitalistic bloc emerged victorious with the USA assuming the role of the world 's only supreme power . Politicians and analysts around the world were optimistic that the uni-polar world would...