An international association of experts in terror and global fear and violence has come together to co-sign a treaty that outlines the real threat posed by growing numbers of volunterrorists.
The trend sees high school graduates, many affluent and privately educated, including tokenistic and inadequate periods of politically motivated violence in their leisure time abroad.
“A lot of people seem to think that something like a glorified holiday is helpful,” says Darwin Formby, who authored the declaration, “spending a week breezing through Syria persecuting Christians as part of your gap year just isn’t the act of community service that a lot of young people are being told that it is.”
“Many kids – and they are kids – are spending a few days with real terrorist organisations who really need the assistance and begin to help with destroying a school for girls, or killing a local sports team,” says Formby, “but these flying visits all take a lot of labour and energy that the local branches of a lot of cells just can’t afford to expend.”
Experts cite a lack of training and commitment as the central threat to the communities that volunterrorists would seek to destroy.
“Real terrorist groups doing real evil in the community are being forced to accommodate the whirlwind whims of rich kids who are looking to get a kick and a CV line out of exterminating ethnic minorities and violent religious dogma,” Formby says.
“These well intending kids are reducing the blood sweat and tears that people dedicate to violent extremism to a profile picture.”
