Perspectives On Terrorism

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2018 in the subject Earth Science / Geography - General, Basics, University of Ibadan (Faculty of the Social Sciences), course: Geography, language: English, abstract: Terrorism has become the norm in the world today such that hardly would a day pass without news of murder or assassination, homicide, genocide, kidnapping, hostage-taking, hijacking, skyjacking, bombing and attack across the world. While the acts of terrorism across the globe have increased markedly in recent times, in most parts of the world it continues to be a relatively rare event and concentrated in particular countries.

Terrorism is as old as humanity and the significant of terrorism usually change over time and space characterized by injustices, poverty and war. The damage caused by terrorist attacks in the international community has become more severe and the casualties are not limited to specific people or locations. For example, between year 2000 and 2016, there are about 150,000 terrorist incidents that have taken place for about 163 countries.

Although terrorism is undoubtedly a major concern for safety and security, there are other forms of violence which result into more deaths globally. For example, the global homicide rate is 13 times the global terrorism rate, with 437,000 people dying from homicides compared to 150,000 from terrorism. The report further stated that "Venezuela has the highest rate of homicide in the world at 111 per 100,000 for the decade starting from 2000".

Terrorists are evolving and they have acquired new methods which include suicide bombing and hostage taking/kidnapping. Suicide bombing is a new form deployed by the terrorists to achieve their political aims. The main attacks in Yemen are suicide bombings and the highest attacks in Libya are hostage-takings. Globally, there are estimated 15,000-20,500 kidnaps that take place each year. This shows that whilst terrorism is very deadly in many places of the world, there are other forms of violence which have a higher impact as well occurring across the world.

Africa has been home to different political violence and the current trend of rising terrorist groups across the region such as Boko Haram group in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in East Africa, Al-Qaeda in Algeria, Egypt, Mali and Mauritania. This shows that instability in the East and North Africa has raised a serious concern that West Africa could turn into an important conflict theatre and Boko Haram in Nigeria is a good example in such a scenario.