Counterterrorism scholarship frames the terrorist as an incomprehensible pre-modern figure

Evidence

In terrorism studies, particularly scholarship supported by organizations such as the Rand Corporation, Rai shows, the Oriental despot cum terrorist is presented as someone prepared to die for his struggles, someone whose conviction and mindset are described as ‘incomprehensible and frightening’ and irrevocably pre-modern. For the Canadian context, we can trace the same discourses in popular books such as National Post journalist Stewart Bell’s The Martyr’s Oath96 (assigned as a text in a political science course at the University of Toronto) and the circulation of such narratives about the psyche of terrorists and ‘jihad’ as his obligation, by web-based, right-wing research institutes such as the Mackenzie Institute, a source cited by CSIS in its testimony. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 122

Categorization

• QUESTION: That The Martyr’s Oath was assigned in a U of T political science course is the kind of specific institutional fact worth verifying and following up.