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ATHENS ORACLE

The official student news site of Athens Drive High School

ATHENS ORACLE

The official student news site of Athens Drive High School

ATHENS ORACLE

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Does western society need to reform its views on terrorism?

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, there have been a total of 20 extreme attacks committed by the jihadist terrorist group, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria). Most recently was the attack in San Bernardino, Calif.  Dec. 13, 2016, and just a month before was the second attack on Paris by the terrorist group. This caused more uproar about immigration and security, along with an added amount of racial tension. Concerns about the safety of one’s country and livelihood is common sense and understandable, but the way Western society perceives these terrorist attacks needs to change.

This is not to say the west need to let these attacks keep happening. The problem is that there is a lack of education regarding terrorism, most notably regarding acts made by ISIS. As a Western society, it seems that people tend to ignore any issues going on in the world until it is happening to them. Nov. 13, the same day Paris was attacked, jihadist attacks claimed the lives of 26 people in Baghdad. The day before, 43 died in Beirut, and a month prior, 100 Turks that participated in a rally in Ankara were bombed.

Unfortunately, in order to hear about these attacks, you most likely have to take to social media and see it on your Twitter timeline. Terrorist attacks go extremely underreported in the Western world when they do not happen to us; a majority of Eastern Europe and the Middle East is completely left out of the terrorism debate, despite experiencing the most violence. One of the main reasons those fleeing Syria are doing so is because of ISIS – these are not just attacks that happen once or twice a year. These are attacks that happen daily, bombings and shootings destroying the lives of hundreds of families.

The west has a track record of being extremely self-centered. ISIS has a track record of using the attacks on their own countries as a tactic to fuel anger and conflict. There has been an abundance of mosques and funerals in Iraq bombed and gunned down, resulting in an estimated 714 deaths in October 2015 alone. These attacks are not just a homegrown problem. Considering America is responsible for the formation of Al-Qaeda and ISIS in the first place, due to America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, it has become an epidemic.

When world powers like America and France turn their heads away from the state of Islamic countries, and only use the attacks on them to push an agenda rooted in racism, that is  when the west becomes responsible. Nobody seems to overtly care about the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees living in poverty or are just homeless until ISIS comes along again — and countries like America use it as an opportunity to point fingers.

 

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