CONTEMPORARY TERRORISM: A WORLD SYSTEM PERSPECTIVE

A trajectory view of the world system perspective reveals a fundamental engagement of protest against the ways we have thought or come to know the world around us. This realization only serves as an expression of the real protest concerning the deep inequalities of world system which have become politically central in our current times. This paper draws theoretical resources from the world system perspective and capping it with the terminal current unitary world and the place of terrorism in such system. Peripheral analysis of the world system was undertaken to expose the place and roles of nations globally and domestically in the development of contemporary terrorism. Lopsided economic structure, injustice, poverty and deprivation were identified as major factors facilitating the use of terrorist’s strategies by poor nations (referred to as semi-periphery nations) and individuals in drawing attention to their plights. A review of the western economic mechanism (Globalisation) and how it engenders terrorism in the present world was undertaken. An excursion was also undertaken to explore the various instances of global terrorism and the Nigerian situation as well as the analysis of the fundamental reasons behind terrorism and the modern-day tools for terrorists with a view to advancing some antidotes towards addressing global and domestic terrorism and its implications for national development. The paper concludes by advocating that irrespective of the divide we find ourselves we must all return to the pristine foundation of rational humanism and the reinstatement of mutually beneficial relations between the human world and the natural world.