By: Dr. Adnan Bozan

Violence, or what is referred to in political and legal discourse as “terrorism,” is not a phenomenon that emerges fully formed in a sudden moment within the human being, as if it were a fixed essence of human nature. Rather, in its deepest essence, it is a complex product of a long and intricate interaction between the individual and the structures of society, between consciousness and the unconscious, between distorted law and absent justice, and between upbringing and structural deviation in the surrounding environment.

From the perspective of legal philosophy and criminological sociology, serious criminal behavior cannot be understood solely as an isolated individual deviation, but also as a reflection of broader dysfunctions within the social structure. The individual does not exist in a vacuum; rather, they are formed within an interwoven system of values, symbols, institutions, and economic, political, and cultural pressures. Therefore, any analysis that reduces the phenomenon to pure individual will overlooks a fundamental part of the truth and falls into an oversimplification of human behavior.

The claim that a human being is “born a terrorist” lacks both scientific and philosophical grounding, because at the moment of birth, the human being is an open page, gradually shaped through upbringing, education, socialization, and the patterns of authority within the family, school, society, and state. Accordingly, severe behavioral deviations do not usually appear as sudden mutations, but rather as a cumulative trajectory that begins with exclusion and marginalization, passes through the loss of meaning and the experience of injustice, and eventually leads to an explosive manifestation of violence.

However, at the same time, one must avoid falling into an absolute social determinism that entirely removes individual responsibility. Within moral philosophy and positive law, the individual remains a responsible agent who retains a degree of choice even within the harshest environments. Yet this choice itself is inseparable from the level of available awareness, the fairness of opportunities, and the nature of the social system that surrounds and influences it.

From this perspective, the phenomenon can be understood as the result of an interaction between two interrelated levels:

First: a structural social level, represented by poverty, ignorance, weak education, intellectual closure, the dominance of sectarian, tribal, or ideological fanaticism, the accumulation of feelings of injustice or exclusion, and the absence of social justice.

Second: a psychological individual level, manifested in fragile identity, weak intellectual immunity, and susceptibility to violent narratives, especially when such narratives become psychological substitutes for meaning, belonging, and dignity.

In this context, violent extremism, in some of its forms, can be seen as a symptom of a deeper social disease rather than merely an isolated individual deviation. A society suffering from chronic educational crises, weak cultural institutions, intellectual closure, and distorted distribution of justice and opportunity is a society that directly or indirectly produces environments conducive to various forms of extremism.

However, this analysis must not be understood as a justification for violence or a reduction of its legal and moral gravity. Modern legal systems clearly distinguish between explaining a phenomenon by understanding its roots and justifying or accepting it. Violent acts against innocent people remain criminal acts, as they violate the social contract and threaten the very existence of human community.

Yet legal justice is not completed by punishment alone; it begins with prevention. Here lies the core issue: if the goal is to reduce violent extremism, the focus should not remain solely on its outcomes, but must extend to its roots. This includes reforming education, dismantling structures of ignorance, building a critical and rational culture, strengthening civic values, reinforcing institutions of social justice, and opening space for dialogue instead of exclusion.

A society that produces individuals capable of free thought, questioning, and critically engaging with authority and knowledge without fear is a society in which the likelihood of sliding into violence diminishes, because individuals find meaning for their existence within the social system rather than outside it.

It can therefore be argued that responsibility for this phenomenon is not unidirectional, but rather a composite responsibility distributed between structure and consciousness, between upbringing and choice, between law and culture. It is neither possible to hold the individual solely accountable for all forms of deviance, nor to exempt society from its responsibility in producing the conditions that allow such deviance to emerge.

The fundamental truth remains that as societal awareness rises, culture deepens, and justice expands, the space for violence and extremism naturally shrinks—without the need to reduce the phenomenon to a narrow individualistic explanation or a sweeping social absolution.

Thus, the central question is not simply: who is responsible?
But rather: how can we build a society in which a human being is not forced to become a distorted version of themselves in order to find a place in the world?