Recently, Wang Weiguang, a teacher of Political Science, from Xiamen University, gave students a lecture about terrorism, safety and life at 108, Chengzhi building.
At first, Wang illustrated the concept of Terrorism, and compared the definition between America and China. He suggested that the definition should be distinguished from war, common criminal offence, and the revolution. After that, Wang introduced the quantity of terror attacks, the methods of terror attacks,the weapons used and casualties from all over the world.
Then, Wang put forward his own opinion about terrorism and life. He stated that we feel unsafe under the fear of terrorism as that affects the political order and our psychological make-up badly, but in fact, the chance of being an immediate victim is very low, and casualties induced by Terrorism each year are limited. In his opinion, the reasons why we feel so fearful are related to the violence, uncertainty, indifference, and bloody characteristics.
Moreover, Wang mentioned that terrorism and political operations extend the influence of psychology. After the Cold War, the importance of terrorism was increased with the stable societies in western countries, and the decline of the traditional threats. In the meantime, the media has the advantage of publicity and often strengths the terrorism influence. Terrorism attracts the attention of the public by creating psychological and societial tensions which don’t cause the death of people.What’t more, Wang put forth to some questions to deal with terrorism, such as, should we show sympathy towards terrorism or oppose it? Should we eliminate terrorism? In order to learn more about public opinions on terrorism, Wang analysed many factors including the relationship between terrorism and religion, economic backwardness and split, political ideology, nationality, personality, psychology, mental condition, gender and age.
Futher, Wang concluded that there was no necessary relationship between any special condition of factors listed above. In Wang’s opinion, terrorism can achieve the purpose in some certain conditions. In the short term, the influence of terrorism is very obvious. Terrorism is a cheap, easy, fast and immediate way to give vent to the frustraction of terrorists when they think there is no other solution.
At last, Wang analysed the future of terrorism. He thought that terrorism was a way of violence and will last for a long time in the future. The complexity and vulnerability of modern society and the change of technology and weapons will make terrorism threats even more deadly so that the elimination of terrorism will be much harder. In the meanwhile, some methods could limit trrrorist threats, such as opposing terrorist violence, understanding and caring about their concerns, reflecting on the defects of ourselves and society, and making more of effort to solve their problems. We should reflect on our own responsibilities and restrict hatred and the obsession of violence and to solve problems, we should all oppose the terrorism and violence.
In the course of the lecture, students actively asked relevant questions. Obviously, the lecture was a great success!