Nurseries of Terrorism?
Since this is a literary festival, let me start on a literary
note. I begin with the term nurseries of terrorism. This is a
powerful metaphor; it sets up a vivid picture in your mind; you
can almost see universities taking in human saplings and growing
them into powerful agents of destruction.
This image differs from the more conventional image of the
university as an oasis of calm and reason. A place of thinking
and debating and writing; all nonviolent acts carried out by
mild-mannered, innocuous professors and students.
How did this come about? Why would one even think about
associating universities with terrorism?
I can think of a few incidents in Pakistan that may have
inspired this problematic juxtaposition. The one that comes most
readily to mind is also the most recent. It is the incident in
Mardan where a student mob killed a fellow student on charges of
blasphemy. This was surely an act of terrorism and it was
carried out by university students inside a university.
It would be better, however, to frame the issue in a wider
geographical perspective than that of Pakistan alone. The link
between universities and terrorism dates back at least to the
attacks of 9/11 when it began to be noted that the perpetrators
were all well-educated youth, with some even educated in Europe.
Since then, such a link has been talked about in other incidents
of so-called Islamist terrorism in the West and noted as well in
the composition of recruits joining the once-rampant but now
defunct ISIS.
Is there really a link? Let us look at the empirical evidence on
this point.
Empirical work on terrorism and education
I will talk about the results from one recent study. This is a
careful statistical study of the educational backgrounds of
jihadists. The title of the study, published as a book in 2016,
is Engineers of Jihad: The Curious Connection between Violent
Extremism and Education. The authors are Diego Gambetta, a
sociologist, and Steffen Hertog, a political scientist, both
associated with the London School of Economics.
The database for this study consisted of 497 individuals known
to be members of extremist Islamist groups that employed
violence in pursuit of their aims. They comprised 35 different
nationalities.
This study reports four related findings. The first and most
dramatic finding is that engineers are "massively
overrepresented" in this sample of jihadists. Some 43% studied
engineering at university/college level.
A second finding is that engineers are as overrepresented among
Western jihadists as among those from Islamic countries. This
suggests that the reason why highly educated Muslims chose to
become jihadists was not necessarily a lack of economic
opportunities. The authors write, "Radical Islam cannot be
reduced to the effects of high labor market expectations
combined with failed economic development." Even in Western
economies where job opportunities were plentiful, some highly
trained Muslims chose to enlist voluntarily in extremist groups.
A third finding is that engineers tend to be overrepresented in
rightwing groups but not in leftwing groups. This is true today
as well as in earlier periods when leftwing extremism was more
common, as in the 1960s and 1970s when groups such as the
Baader-Meinhof Gang and the Red Brigade were active.
What accounts for the connection between engineering and
membership in extremist organizations? The authors argue that
choices among academic disciplines reflect personality traits.
In particular, those who have a need for "cognitive closure" are
more likely to choose engineering and, of radicalized, prefer a
violent or extremist path. This is the fourth finding.
Those who study humanities or even pure sciences tend to have
"less closed views of knowledge than do students in
engineering." Students of science and humanities ask questions
and are comfortable with answers that are contingent,
context-specific and admit of ambivalence. Engineers rely
strongly on answers that are precise, sharp, and known. They are
attracted to "corporatist, mechanistic and hierarchical" visions
of society and prefer well-regulated daily routines. All of this
comprises a preference for cognitive closure.
Where does this leave us?
Based on the findings of the Gambetta-Hertog book, one could
argue that there is some connection between violent extremism
and higher education but it arises from pre-existing personality
traits. It is not engineering that creates radicals but certain
personality traits that guide students into certain disciplines
that then reinforce those traits.
Where do these traits come from? Some may be genetic. Some may
be formed in environments such as homes and communities and high
schools. In this framework, universities are a station through
which such individuals pass, a place of transit and not of
origin.