Table of Contents
Religious extremists used to occupy society’s margins. Today, religious extremism seems to be everywhere — from ISIS’ brutal battlefields to lone-wolf terrorist attacks in the U.S., UK, France and Sweden, to name a few. According to the Global Terrorism Index, religious extremism has become the main driver of terrorism in the world. And if religious extremism is crossing geographic boundaries, it is also leaping religious boundaries — there are examples of extremism in every major world religion. The report found that in 2013 there was a 60 percent increase in the number of deaths due to terrorism over 2012, and that two-thirds of those deaths were attributable to four groups considered religious extremists: Boko Haram, the Taliban, ISIS (also known as ISIL or the Islamic State group) and al-Qaida.
In 2017 the report indicated a global decline in the number of deaths from terrorist attacks to 25,673 people, which is a 22 per cent improvement from the peak in 2014. In contrast, and more disturbingly the report indicates that the geographical distribution of terrorist attacks is increasing. With the rise of religious extremism has come the populist use of the word “fundamentalist” to indicate anyone who associates with religious extremism. In particular it has become synonymous with Muslim extremism. This is a dangerous blurring of two distinct terminologies. Originally, “fundamentalist” strictly referred to a swath of deeply conservative Christians, predominantly in the American South, who in the early 20th century reacted strongly against what they saw as the encroachment of dangerous new ideas, such as evolution, biblical criticism, and liberal theology.
They saw those trends as undermining the basics of the faith, and so they tried to lay down and enforce a core set of non-negotiable beliefs, known as “the Fundamentals. Experts caution that fundamentalism has different characteristics and histories in different faiths and use of the word should be used with caution. The association between religion and violence and various forms of repression is a paramount concern and a source of fierce debate today, and the term fundamentalist is often invoked as a one-size-fits-all explanation. But attributing every problem to religious fundamentalism does not do justice to the complexity of the issues involved, to fundamentalists or even to religion in general. It’s critical to gain and communicate a deeper understanding of fundamentalism.
127 our experts are availableright now
The truth is, religion is not a conduit through which people commit acts of terror on others. The perversion of it is what truly instigates terrorism. Religion don’t usually actually preach violence, because it goes against the practices and cultures that are instilled into you through religious teaching. However, when something becomes radicalised, it tends to become a lot more perverted which results in a divergence from the original intent. That is what we have today. A perversion of the Islamic or any other faith. Unfortunately, hardly anyone is looking at addressing the real problem.
What of Other Forms of Religious Extremism?
The fight against religious extremism has been portrayed to be a battle against Muslims with very little mention of other forms of extremism in the popular press, The Ku Klux Klan is an American group of white supremacists who claim to be affiliated with Christianity, yet very few people even mention their name. They have tortured and killed thousands of people, specifically blacks and other minorities, and yet there is very little mention of them.
So, is religion the root of the problem or are there social issues such as social exclusion, poverty, perceived failure of justice and repression which have given rise to extremism? What are governments, communities and individuals doing to combat it, if anything? Can the situation be rectified, and the issues of religious extremism be resolved and the potential threat to stability and peace be resolved? Or are we doomed to failure and an ever increasingly intolerant and violent world?
