Terrorist movements are led by educated young people, often trained in elite universities in the US. They use the dispossessed, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, as their shock troops.

Political Islam does not come from traditional religion. It is a relatively recent ideology that emerged in the late 1800s, about the same time as nationalism. But as nationalism has failed, political Islam has increasingly taken its place, nurtured by the crises of modernising nationalist regimes, military defeat, cultural humiliation and destruction of traditional ways of life.

These movements are political, not religious. Their first victims were nationalists – Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was killed by Islamic terrorists – and democrats, such as with the assassination of tens of thousands of people in Algeria.

These movements are similar to sects. They see the world in terms of the pure and the contaminated, a cataclysmic battle between good and evil. Terrorist groups destroy the personal identity of their members and the social institutions of communities, then rebuild in ways we also see in totalitarian societies. They feed on the destruction of traditional ways of life, and on humiliation and a sense that there is no path but destruction. They flourish among cultures that celebrate death through martyrdom and through the increasing importance of honour killings inside the family structure.

Wars serve to increase the importance of these groups. War accelerates social disintegration while integrating military-political sects into the global trade in arms and drugs.

The US and Australia cannot turn themselves into walled zones with military shields or naval patrols. The answer to terrorism, and to the exodus of refugees it generates, is economic development and democracy in countries that spawn international terrorism. This is the lesson from contemporary Iran, whose gradual democratisation and economic development have weakened terrorism by removing its economic, social and cultural roots.

When people are subjected to violence, they are robbed of their humanity. Often their first response, in turn, is to deny the humanity of the aggressor. In the process, they come to see the aggressor as all-powerful, manifested in behaviour such as refusing to go outside or turning their house into a fortress.

Part of overcoming the experience of being a victim involves recognising the humanity of the person who committed the crime. This does not condone the act but it turns an unknowable source of menace into a person. This is why victims of violent crime in Australia are increasingly seeking to confront perpetrators: recognising them as human reduces their power.

US President George W. Bush talks of a war between good and evil. But should we let terrorists become our Great Satan? Viewing terrorists as mindless (that is, we can't understand them) and all-powerful projects our fear on to them. We remain in trauma but project violence – as we saw in the firebombing of a Brisbane mosque last week. We remain victims while the social destruction that generates terror is further accelerated.