BANGLADESH INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC STUDIES

ECONOMIC PROSPERITY, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND GLOBALIZATION THE POST-SEPTEMBER 11 WORLD

Author: Stephen F. Dachi

DOI Link: https://www.doi.org/BIISSj2002v23n3a3

ABSTRACT

While dealing with the question on whether or not poverty is the root cause of terrorism in general and the terrorist attack of September 11 in particular, the paper argues that the terrorist deviations of Islamic fundamentalists do not arise primarily out of concerns about poverty, but out of irrational fear that their religion and their views of traditional Islamic practices are in danger of being wiped out. It reveals alarm about secularism and modernization as a threat to their faith. They seek a return to their vision of a medieval Islam as the path to restoring the golden age of Islamic supremacy. The West can do little to assuage such enemies, because these theological problems are rooted in the terrorists' countries of origin and no amount of outside political action or economic aid is likely to be relevant to them. The central focus of the paper has been on whether there is a necessity to radically change present Western strategy for alleviating poverty. fostering development and building a more just and prosperous society, or the West needs simply to refine and intensify what it was already doing. While many in the West have advocated the former, the author argues in the paper the case for the latter.