Osama Bin Laden The Most Notable Extremist in Recent Times

Osama Bin Laden The Most Notable Extremist in Recent Times
In the past 50 years, there have emerged extremists whose beliefs and activities have had a huge impact the world over. For people to be regarded as extremists, they must behave in a manner that overtly and strongly supports liberal or conservative ideologies (Frimer et al., 2018). Extremists also tend to be more fascinating and therefore easily attract huge attention. Their words also tend to have more influence on people and in most cases, they espouse violence. Some of the most notable extremists in the past 50 years are Osama bin Laden and Robert Mugabe.
The most notable extremist in recent times is Osama bin Laden, who until his death was the leader of one of the most notorious terrorist groups, the Al Qaeda. The religious extremist was born in 1957 in Saudi Arabia (Garbus, 2015). Upon completing his college studies, nin Laden went to Afghanistan and joined an extremist group known as the Mujahideen that was fighting the Soviet occupation. While there, bin Laden formed Al Qaeda in 1988 alongside other Islamic Jihad leaders. He had since inherited a huge fortune from his father which provided him with the political muscle to fund terrorist activities (Garbus, 2015). One of the worst attacks that he orchestrated was the 9/11 attacks that targeted the World Trade Center (WTC). That attack placed him on the international radar, which subsequently led to his assassination. Bin Laden was killed by the U.S. Navy SEALs in 2011 in Pakistan.
Robert Mugabe was a Zimbabwean political extremist whose actions and quotes will forever remain etched in the annals of the country’s history. He was born in 1924 in Kutama (Atkins, 2004). In 1957, he moved to Ghana and during his stay there, he learned Marxist ideologies, which were instrumental in shaping him as a political extremist. He returned to Zimbabwe in 1960 and became actively involved in the agitation for freedom. In 1961, Mugabe led a group of other leaders in threatening open warfare against the white government (Atkins, 2004). He was a gifted orator who could mobilize people with remarkable ease. He was instrumental in the clamor for independence. Ultimately, he led the country to independence. Even as the president, he did not abandon his extremist inclinations. He carried on with his outspokenness against racism and other forms of white dominance, which was phenomenal. At one time, he issued the controversial decree to have white farmers ejected from their lands. He died in 2019 several months after being forced to relinquish power. His extremism quotes are still fondly remembered.
Significant Extremist Organizations
In the recent past, there have been several organizations whose extremist tendencies have had negative adverse effects. Two of the most significant extremist groups in the past 50 years are Al Qaeda and the Abu Sayyaf group. Al Qaeda was founded in 1988 by bin Laden in collaboration with other like-minded religious zealots such as Zawahiri (Riedel, 2010). One of its fundamental purposes has been the forceful and violent removal of external secular influences in Muslim countries (Byman, 2015). Al Qaeda believes that foreign alliances’ main agenda is to make war against Islam and finally destroy it. This...