Religion is not Terrorism

             with love, Ariance Valentina Hia (016201200120)

           In yesterday’s class, we discussed about culture and terrorism. The term of culture is used to define who we are, how we act on something, how we response situation, the style of thinking, and our attitude. Culture represents us as human. Terrorism is term that used to define any action that use violence or threat or force to intimidate, coerce, frighten people to achieve goal that much relate to political purposes. 

          When talking about terrorism, it could not be separated from culture. First, culture can be a factor that may shape terrorism. According to the lecturing session from Dr. Jonathan Matusitz and Congresswoman Sandy Adams on “How Culture shapes Terrorism”, all human beings are sensitive to threats any values or culture (include language, religion, group membership, and homeland) that identify themselves. The possibility of losing any of these can trigger defensive, even xenophobic and reactions. It might lead to terrorism which basically terrorism is about some people try to defend their basic values of life. If I may take a brief conclusion, this is why culture can shape terrorism. Second, culture is as the target of terrorism. An effort to defend some values or culture by using violence will directly threat other culture. Third, culture can be used as a tool to combat terrorism. Culture with its values of life may help to prevent the development of a terrorist mentality in human being (from Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe).

         In the discussion session, there is one question that attracted me. The first question from my friend is about “Is terrorism based on culture? Take an example the case of Boko Haram”. In my opinion to answer that question, yes it is true that terrorism based on culture. Culture is not always talking about something that can be directly seen by human eyes, but it is also about the character of the human being itself. Any characters of human being determine how the human acts which could lead to be terrorism. In case of Boko Haram, many people only focus on the background of people of Boko Haram. If we can be more critical, Boko Haram appeared as how their life there has shaped minded of the people. It is not about the religion who teaches them to be a terrorist. It is more about how the people response towards any teaching or doctrines.

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