The Assimilated Terrorist: An Outsider No Longer

As father, husband, financial analyst and US citizen, Faisal Shahzad surprised some profilers, amateur and professional, with his attempt to explode a car bomb in New York’s Times Square. With instant communication and complaints raging over the internet, “Globalization is competing fiercely with assimilation,” writes Jesse Washington for the Associated Press. “Blind to the faults of Islamic society, they see another side to American freedom, and feel the widespread suspicion of Islam in the United States. And so they want to fight.” The internet has a global reach, with many who long to fight for a multitude of causes. Identifying the small fraction of would-be terrorists could be near impossible, researchers quoted in this article suggest, and Muslims are not alone in resorting to fanaticism. Ostracizing a few in what’s supposed to be a free and open society may only add to the alienation and willingness to engage in terrorism. – YaleGlobal