Terrorism and globalisation

Since September 11, 2001, there has been a major perceptual change around the world. All of a sudden we have become acutely aware of our vulnerability. However, the roots of this vulnerability are still not discussed by our political leaders and are rarely mentioned in the media. More than a year has now passed since the terrorist attacks on the US, and in that time the broader context of the new international terrorism has been discussed in many careful studies by scholars and political analysts. And yet the Bush administration persists in portraying terrorism as the result of evil forces operating in a vacuum. In doing so, it perpetuates a climate of fear among the American electorate that prevents any substantial discussion of the US’s serious social, economic and ethical problems.

There is no simple defence against terrorism. This is because we live in a complex, globally interconnected world in which linear chains of cause and effect do not exist. To understand this world we need to think systemically – in terms of relationships, connections and context. Understanding terrorism from a systemic perspective means understanding that its very nature derives from a series of political, economic and...

To view the rest of this article - you must be a paying subscriber and Login