Terrorist groups originating in the Middle East cannot be fully understood without examining the economic geography of that region.
Unfortunately, economic variables are routinely ignored in favor of analyzing political and religious factors. To begin, the popular, often stereotypical view of the Middle East (and to a lesser extent, North Africa) is that of a people made fabulously wealthy as a consequence of their access to the world’s most critical resource: oil.
Although the per capita GNP of some of these nations is high, the oil-produced wealth is not evenly distributed. The annual incomes of the 500 million people in countries stretching from Egypt to the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan range from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars with the vast majority of wealth concentrated in the hands of a few families. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (with a combined population of 27 million) are almost four times as wealthy as Afghanistan, Jordan, and Iraq (with a combined population of 55 million).
The tremendous disparity between the region’s highly visible “super rich” and the “dreadfully poor” , greater than the wealth gap between the haves and have-nots in Central America and Sub-Saharan Africa , has resulted in a hotbed of turmoil and instability. “Is it any wonder,” asks Paul Kennedy, author of “Preparing for the Twenty-First Century,” “that the badly housed masses … are attracted to religious leaders or strongmen appealing to Islamic pride, a sense of identity, and resistance to foreign powers and local lackeys?”
Teeming With The Unemployed
The streets of many Islamic cities are teeming with young men who have migrated from impoverished rural areas devoid of any hope of attaining economic mediocrity, much less financial prosperity. In Jordan, where almost three of four people are under 29 years of age, the “official” unemployment rate is 30 percent. This unemployed (and underemployed) youthful generation will increase dramatically as numerous countries in the region have exceptionally high rates of population growth. For example, the number of individuals in the Palestinian territory and Iraq are projected to increase from 3.3 to 7.4 million, and 23.6 to 40.3 million people respectively by 2025.
With few economic or social prospects, young people are highly susceptible to terrorist group recruitment, as such organizations simultaneously provide employment and profound meaning to otherwise empty lives.
A Sense Of Powerlessness
To internalize a terrorist political and religious worldview is to have one’s existence almost magically transformed from insignificance and powerlessness to that of all encompassing importance at the global, if not cosmic, level.
Unlike their more sophisticated and affluent comrades who hijacked the doomed airliners (these individuals comprise a relatively small number of terrorists), the poorly educated, revolutionary foot soldier has a naive, simplistic worldview. Interpreting all but local events in terms of two mighty opponents locked in a global fight-to-the-death makes him especially loyal and dangerous. While not all terrorists are willing to strap explosives to their chests, these thoroughly indoctrinated zealots can be counted on to do as they are told.
Although a protracted military campaign may intermittently halt terrorist activity, the frail and lopsided economies of the Middle East all but guarantee that an ever-increasing supply of poverty-stricken young men will respond to the inflammatory rhetoric of individuals such as Osama bin Laden.
The esteemed psychologist Rollo May noted violence is a symptom and not a disease; the real disease is powerlessness. A primary source of power in the modern world , even in those nations wherein events are typically interpreted in terms of religious and political factors , lies in access to economic resources.
The equation, therefore, is straightforward: economic deprivation breeds intense feelings of frustration and powerlessness which in turn produces violence directed at a target considered responsible for the situation. It doesn’t take much to convince poorly educated young men from the lowest socio-economic strata of society that the root cause of their misery is rampant global capitalism , the center of which is the United States.
Bryjak is a professor of sociology at the University of San Diego
