Is Religious And Cultural Extremism A Global Security Threat?

IS RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL EXTREMISM A GLOBAL SECURITY THREAT?
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Is religious and cultural extremism a global security threat?
In post 9/11 world, the threat of terrorism became a reality to many people who perceived it as a distant threat. It prompted many governments to take drastic steps to address the previously perceived threat of religious extremism which had been lurking in the background for many years. Most governments legislated laws to address extremism and set up agencies specifically focused on containing and destroying extremism. NATO members also declared war on religious groups in the middle east and some parts of Africa. Though the steps were belated and largely ineffective in curbing terrorism, the nature of the problem can be traced to religious and cultural extremism which is the root cause of terrorism. The measures instituted to fight terrorism were reactionary and overlooked the root causes of the problem, and though the ferocity of terrorism may be waning, the threat to global security continues to spreadCITATION Eri18 \l 1033 (Schmitt, 2018). The root cause is religious and cultural extremism which earlier in the 20th century escalated to a full war that left over 60 million people dead. The new threat which is terrorism is an incarnation of the very issues that sparked the world wars; religious and cultural extremism. However, the root problem has evolved, and the definition of the ‘enemy’ has changed. In the early 20th century it was mainly the Jews in Nazi Germany because of their ‘origin’ and religious beliefs. The eugenics cleansing championed by Hitler escalated to a full-blown war and eventually became a global security threat.
In the 21st century, the reasons for cultural and religious extremism bear similar hallmark identifiers just like the situation that led to the world wars. Some people, individuals, and governments feel that ‘foreigners’ have invaded their country and they are threatening their ways of life and culture. Bad leaders misinform the public that their resources, jobs, culture and other things are threatened by the foreigners and they ought to be ejected from their ‘land.’ Such statements and their variants have become common in the media today, and they are often referred to as ‘hate speech.’ bad leader weaponizes information to aggravate locals to take action against foreigners who have visited and or come to do business or do other activities in good faith CITATION Kev16 \l 1033 (Shih, 2016). The locals having been corrupted by their leaders, resort to violence to eject ‘foreigners’ in their land to protect their culture. The leaders stand to gain from the conflict and controversy generated by saying reckless statement against foreigners and they often package the information in a way that instigates fear into the locals. Eventually, because most countries are democratic and each individual especially if he/she is a citizen is equal in the face of the law irrespective of his/her race, ethnicity and or cultural background, then the means to eject the people from the land is unconstitutional. The local’s resort to using violence to force the people out and in most cases the situations escalates to become wars. This the nature of the situation which prompted a white nationalist to drive a car into a crowd in Charlottesville because he opposed the idea of religious and cultural integration CITATION Joe17 \l 1033 (Brown, 2017). In some other cases, the eugenic-like cleansing is started seeking to drive particular tribes out of their land; a case in point the Rohingya in Myanmar CITATION Eng17 \l 1033 (Abdelkader, 2017). There are many other examples of these practices championed by bad leaders who have weaponized information to locals to eject foreigners in their land and in each case the problem is escalating and each of the cases it can become a security threat if not contained.
Cultural extremism also leads to supremacy battles between cultures. Some people perceive their races, ethnicities, and cultures to be superior to others. It was the same reason why the Americans fought the civil war since the unionists sought to assert their anti-slavery ideologies on the Confederates who largely depended on them for production. The ideological differences in the approach to slave ownership and their way of lives instigate the deadliest civil war in America. The case of Nazi Germany, some of the people who were exterminated with the Jews were Blacks who were accused of ‘potentially threatening’ the purity of the Germany race. The Jews were also perceived to be of lesser intelligence and importance than the Germans, and that is why they were exterminated. Early in the 20th century, the first nations in America suffered the same fate. Canadians and United States first nations were persecuted and killed because they were believed to be of lesser quality compared to the whites. The blacks in Africa have been classified as apes by some bigots and racists, and they defend enslaving the people because of their cultures, way of life and skin tone. One of the deadliest genocides in history is the Rwanda genocide in 1994 where over 800,000 thousand people were b...