Paris (France), September 12: Multilateralism is the path to be favored and the United Nations plays an essential role in the fight against terrorism, French socio-economist Jean-Baptiste Meyer has told Xinhua when commenting on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"The breeding ground for terrorism is less made up of so-called sanctuary states than of global and transnational networks stemming from planetary problems. This is why multilateralism is essential as the path to be favored and the UN appears as an essential forum," said the professor and director of research at France's Population and Development Center (CEPED).
Meyer noted the existence of a link between social situation, immigration and terrorism. He said that immigration does not generate terrorism, and the vast majority of migrants condemn terrorist violence though Islamist terrorists generally come from migrant populations.
Citing an in-depth sociological study carried out in the late 2000s which confirms that the majority of Islamist terrorists who have operated in Western countries are local residents and often even citizens, Meyer added that "according to some authors this radicalization appears to be the result of an intense social malaise, of a citizenship that cannot be found in the current globalized context and linked to the uprooting of this population in modernity."
"There is a global phenomenon here, which must be interpreted globally: unequal globalization induces global social problems, of which, migration and terrorism are partly the products," he said.
The professor believed that it is necessary to tackle the global societal problems which lie at the root of terrorism.
"Security responses can provide a temporary solution by neutralizing existing identified and localized groups or elements. But they leave intact the sleeping ones that unfair situations constantly create and which can awaken and organize themselves without being known by the best observers," he said.
Source: Xinhua
