Religious extremism and nationalism have been issues that have plagued our society for hundreds of years, and we have yet to adequately identify what about it has made it such a popular tool for religious extremist and nationalist groups when committing their heinous crimes and when getting people to do it in their name. Some time ago someone asked me how people could be so vulnerable to the recruiting methods of ISIS and also what made them so attractive to young recruits.

Of course, one of the biggest factors is social media. ISIS has managed to recruit people from all over the world thanks to social media, and interestingly the people that they have managed to recruit are all across the spectrum; people who were isolated and classified as “loners”; people who were well-rounded and good students; and people who would never have been thought to even be capable of joining terrorist organizations. Somehow ISIS managed to convince them that joining an organization that commits mass murder and terrorizes innocent people was what they aspired to do in life. They essentially brainwashed them in a matter of months.

It got me to thinking about why people are so eager to join these terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaida along with organizations such as the Shiv Sena, KKK and many others. What is it that makes them so attractive to those they are trying to recruit? One of the main conclusions I have come to, after looking at the main ideologies of these groups, is that they are completely political. The main goal of ISIS is to destroy the western world because they see the west as an evil, immoral and corrupt entity that needs to be eradicated. They also want revenge on the western powers for the injustices committed against Muslims over the past decade or so. They claim to want to create an Islamic caliphate yet we have received countless evidence that the people in ISIS don’t even practice Islam, although there are many who would debate that. The Shiv Sena, a right-wing political party, boasts of its Hindu nationalism and how they must get Hindus back on the right path when in reality, all they want is to justify discrimination against minority groups and, of course, promote anti-Pakistani sentiment. Even Hitler used nationalism and religion as justification for some of the practices he implemented in the Holocaust.

Nonetheless, these are political goals, not religious. But the reason terrorist organizations use religion and nationalism to draw people in is because politics is not something everyone can identify with or even understand. Politics are complicated and messy, whereas almost every human being can identify with religion, no matter what their educational or socioeconomic background is. Religion is something that organizations like ISIS use to draw people in because it is something that rallies people together. It is something that doesn’t require a lot of analysis because the people in charge tell recruits that their interpretation of religion is exactly what God’s word is, with no room for questioning. And those recruits accept it because they are told that God’s word can never be misinterpreted it.

Therein lies the power of religious extremist organizations: To further their political agenda by masking it with politics and nationalism. They go for the easy way out, knowing that many will blindly follow nationalism and extremism. Politics requires an explanation and in-depth understanding, whereas the religion that these extremist organizations preach about is anything but that. It is simple, straightforward and there is no room for any types of questions or doubts. One does not have to be particularly knowledgeable or educated to understand it because religion is something everyone can identify with (of course they get a rude awakening when they meet with real religious scholars but often they remain unaware that they are being lied to until it is too late). Nonetheless, political agendas have been the root behind nationalism and religious bigotry for centuries, and it is my sincere hope that we can see these issues for the smokescreens that they are. We must educate ourselves and those around us about the politics behind nationalism and religious extremism.