Radicalization usually the result of 'non-religious factors'

[rug]

Experts say extremists typically motivated by emotion rather than politics

By Alexandra Kazia, CBC News
Posted: Apr 5, 2013 5:04 AM ET

The revelation that two young Canadian men were involved in an al-Qaeda-linked attack on an Algerian gas refinery has prompted many people to wonder what would drive Western youth to such extreme action halfway across the world.

Earlier this week, a CBC News investigation found that two of the people involved in the January attack — which led to the deaths of 39 foreign hostages, one Algerian security guard and 30 militants — were Xris Katsiroubas, 22, and Ali Medlej, 24, who had been high-school friends in London, Ont.

Experts say a person can be radicalized as a result of personal factors that may be unrelated to the act of extremism.

“The political connection isn’t what matters at all. It’s the emotional connection,” said Dr. John Horgan, director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at Pennsylvania State University.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/04/f-why-youth-would-become-radicalized.html?cmp=rss

[Jim__]

1. Certain aspects of the story would be more convincing if they tied them back to the current actors.

By losing “everyday contacts and connections and even love that anchor most of us into our everyday lives,” an individual can arrive at a point where they are almost a blank slate and wish to receive new ideas and let in new people, McCauley said.

“That break in connections does not produce political radicalization, but it produces an opportunity for major social change in many different possible directions,” McCauley said.

I can accept that. Does it have anything to do with Xris Katsiroubas or Ali Medlej. If not, can they give an example of where this type of radicalization did happen? Irish Catholics going to northern Ireland to join the fight for freedom? I'm sorry, that's not a very good example. Even Irish Catholics in America were moved by the fighting in Northern Ireland, and many of them felt very close to it even though they had never set foot in Ireland.

The one thing the article seems to ignore is that young people may be radicalized when they realize how unfair conditions in the world are. They may actually set out to make a real change to those conditions. Old people understand that the world is largely a boiling cauldron of shit, and that unfairness, murder, rape and political exploitation are the rule rather than the exception and are not radicalized when they encounter another case of it.

The radicalization of young people may be the single greatest hope for humanity.

[rug]

2. Yeah, that would improve this article.

Katsiroubas and Medlej are more of a launching point than the subject.