CultureLab: How to catch the ‘jihadi bug’
he anthropology of terrorism makes for compelling fieldwork. In his quest to understand what makes people kill and die for a cause, Scott Atran - an astute analyst of social, psychological and cultural issues - has met with the Hamas high command in Damascus, Syria, interviewed the plotters behind the 2002 Bali bombing, unpacked the web of connections behind the 9/11 and 2004 Madrid train attacks and been forced to flee for his life from militants in Indonesia and Pakistan unsettled by his probings.
His main finding is that terrorist organisations tend not to be the sophisticated, well-ordered hierarchies that we commonly suppose, but loose networks of friends and family who die not just for a cause but for each other. Who gets radicalised is often quite random: “Someone gets the jihadi bug, and friends follow, gathering force from sticking together.” Understanding these social dynamics, Atran believes, is key to tackling terrorism.