In the title of the fifth of his 2004 Reith Lectures, “Climate of fear,” Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka succinctly summarized the mind-set of the zealot: I am right; you are dead. Although such deadly dualism is rare in Australian political discourse, my two decades as an elected representative and my training in academic psychology have convinced me of the need to understand and to prevent the development of such sentiments, even when they fall short of violent expression. I will attempt to canvass some of the questions we need to explore if we are to develop a comprehensive understanding of the processes by which any individual or group or a state can develop “a self-righteousness that can only be assuaged by homicidal resolution” (Soyinka, 2004). In particular, I will examine the importance of the perception of difference and fear-based identity formation in generating fanatical ideas and violence.

On September 11, 2001, nineteen al-Qaeda adherents – apparently motivated by political grievances – hijacked and then crashed four commercial aircraft into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, callously murdering almost 3000 people. What followed was the propulsion of the term “terrorism” to an unprecedented level of international prominence. As Selden and So (2004) observed, “[n]o word in the contemporary … political lexicon is more frequently invoked or more emotionally charged than ‘terrorist’” (p. 3).