Russian academic on Islamic terrorists' motives

MOSCOW, July 25 (RIA Novosti) - "Islamic terrorism is an infantile disorder of maturing Muslim societies," Dmitry Furman, chief research associate of the Institute of European Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences) wrote in the daily Izvestia newspaper.

"Each Islamic terrorist outrage increases the world's perception of Islam as something alien, but this is absolutely wrong," Furman said. "Islamic terrorists are also people and their motivation has the same aspects as that of other religions."

According to Furman, Islamic radicals are horrified by the invading Western civilization and the disintegration of their traditional way of life. Their fear of the future is aggravated by envy and an inferiority complex.

"The present-day Islamic world has failed to score any impressive successes," Furman explained. Muslim countries owe their wealth mostly to oil-export revenues that are regarded as a godsend. Democracy faces serious problems in the Islamic world, with most regional countries under authoritarian rule.

According to Furman, Islamic terrorists' envy of the West resembles Russia's anti-Americanism (which regularly takes on the form of hysterics) to some extent. A rocket launcher was fired at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during hysteria in connection with the Yugoslav war. "That incident was a grotesque version of Islamic terrorists' actions," Furman said.

Islamists consider terrorism an unusual means of self-expression that highlights their intense emotions. Such emotions are typical of nations that feel "inferior" in today's world, envious of successful countries, as well as angry and resentful. These feelings will never disappear because progress cannot be stopped. Someone will always be left in the lurch, envying more successful persons and states.

Prosperous societies have already outgrown such attitudes. The world recalls Japan's Kamikaze suicide pilots, the Chinese Hongweibing (Red Guards), and even German Nazis ever more vaguely. Islamic terrorists will also fade away. "We must comprehend their motives in order to expedite this process," Furman said.