YOUTH, IDEOLOGY, AND TERRORISM

Adolescent Psychiatry, 2003 by Flaherty, Lois T

There are impatience and a sense of urgency. Radicals have no interest in waiting patiently for results. Thoreau (1849) argued that working from within to change the political system "takes too much time, and a man's life will be gone" (pp. 231-232). Just prior to the bombing of the New York City Police Department in 1970, Bernadette Dorn spoke for the Weather Underground, saying,

Our job is to lead white kids into armed revolution. . . . Ever since SDS became revolutionary, we've been trying to show how it is possible to overcome the frustration and impotence that comes from trying to reform the system. . . . Tens of thousands have learned that protest and marches won't do it. Revolutionary violence is the only way [quoted in Powers, 1971, p. 212].

There is often a sense that the time is ripe. Paine (1776) urged the colonists to begin their violent revolt against England immediately, saying that the risk of failure would increase if they delayed and citing evidence that augured a quick victory. He wrote, "Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters" (p. 22).

The prospect of violent change has its own appeal. Destroying entire buildings, disrupting social institutions, and striking terror into whole populations provides an unparalled sense of power, beside which the slow and incremental process of political change pales. Robespierre (1794) sounded the call to arms for the Reign of Terror, depicting the existence of the new French Republic as threatened by tyrants who encircled it from without and conspired from within to overthrow it and restore monarchy. He said, "We must smother the internal and external enemies of the Republic or perish with it" (p. 2).

In an astonishing juxtaposition of terms, Robespierre (1794) declared,

If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs [p. 2, emphasis added].

Factors Contributing to a Rise in Terrorism

Tolerance and passive support. There have been widespread concerns that terrorism is increasing worldwide. Arnold (1998) believes this is so and that it is due, at least in part, to tolerance and at least passive support for terrorism. He cites an erosion of the boundaries between violent and nonviolent behavior as an important factor. Our tolerance of borderline-violent protest-destruction of property, veiled threats, and harassment, for example-has led to social acceptance of more overtly violent behavior.