WS MoreOrLess: Are 95% of Terrorism Victims Muslim?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is the short edition of More or Less, first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
You're listening to More or Less on the BBC World Service and I'm Tim Harford. Loyal listener Mark has been in touch with a question.
After the Charlie Hebdo shooting, I heard an imam interviewed on the World Service, and one of the things that struck me was that he said that... 95% of victims of terrorism are Muslims, unfortunately. Is this the sort of statistic that you might be interested in investigating?
Well, it is, Mark, and thank you. We started to look to find out where this number comes from. Ruth, Ruth is our producer. Ruth, you found it in a US government document.
Yes, a report from the National Counter-Terrorism Centre published in 2011, and it said that in cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82% and 97% of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years.
So the imam in Paris wasn't far off then?
Well, the problem is that qualifier. In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, we don't know whether that's most cases or just a few. And we don't know whether they're representative of other attacks or not.
Ruth, of course, does not give up easily.
I don't. So I went to the Global Terrorism Database, which has been going for 40 years and is now the official source of data for the US government. It's run by a group at Maryland University. And let's just stop for a minute to think about what their job involves, because it is a bit depressing.
It can be trying, right? I mean, essentially, we spend all day reading articles about devastating violence, and it can sort of do a number on your view of the world. But it's also fascinating and it's also something that we think is important.
That's Erin Miller, a criminologist and statistician at the Global Terrorism Database. Every day, she and her colleagues sift through thousands of media reports to determine where attacks have been happening.
But wait, what counts as terrorism?
Did an imam mean that 95% of terrorism victims worldwide are Muslim?
I mean, saying that something is terrorism or isn't terrorism, I mean, this is something that politicians do all the time purely for their own convenience.
It is. So the Global Terrorism Database has a particular methodology. They label an attack terrorism and put it into this database if it's intentional, violent or threatening, and the perpetrators aren't governments.
So the alleged hack by North Korea of Sony Pictures?
If it was in fact by North Korea, it wouldn't count because that would be a state act. And anyway, it's non-violent.
OK. And what else? Because if someone pulls a knife on me and demands money, well, that's an intentional, violent, non-governmental act. So there must be some other criteria that go into the definition.
That's right. There are other criteria, other considerations. Is there a political, economic or religious goal? Here's one. Is it an attempt to send a message to a wider audience, not just to the direct victims? Or is it outside the context of legitimate warfare activities?
So all this goes into making up the definition of terrorism. Let's go back to the claim that 95% of terrorism victims are Muslim.
It's a really interesting question. It's very difficult to know for sure and to put a specific number on it like that.
The tricky thing is Erin and her team rely on media reports and she says they don't often contain information about the religion of victims.
But we do have some information that could be useful for considering this type of question. So take, for example, the most recent 10 years of data that we have from 2004 to 2013. The top three countries, the three countries with the most attacks in the world, actually comprise about 50% of all attacks and 60% of all deaths from terrorist attacks. And they are Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. So they're majority Muslim countries. And we know that about 80% to 90% of them are domestic targets. So the nationality of the target
Where did the 82%–97% statistic about Muslim terrorism victims originate?
is the same as the nationality where the attack took place.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:17
2
Did an imam mean that 95% of terrorism victims worldwide are Muslim?
2:17–4:13
3
Where did the 82%–97% statistic about Muslim terrorism victims originate?
4:13–7:51
4
How does the Global Terrorism Database define and record terrorism incidents?
7:51–9:32