Sometimes you have to fight things when people want to kill you, when people want to blow you up,

then you have to fight them. But that's not the case with the vast majority of people who could possibly become tomorrow's terrorists.

And that's where the fight for the world will be. It will be in the next generation of these young people.

The ones caught between, should we go the path of happiness as martyrdom?

Or should we go to the path of yes we can?

They're both very enticing path. I think one has a lot more to offer, but we have to show them it has more to offer.

And we have to show them now. And that's what they're asking for right now.

For over a decade, the French-American anthropologist, Scott Atron, has been listening to the hopes and dreams of young people from

indenited to Egypt. He's explored the human dynamics of what we analyze as breeding grounds for terrorism.

Why some young people become susceptible to radicalism and others in the same circumstances do not.

His work sheds helpful light on the question on so many of our minds as we watch horrific news of the day.

How could this happen and how could we possibly help transform it?

I'm Christa Tipet and this is on being.

Scott Atron holds appointments at the University of Michigan, the John J College of Criminal Justice in New York,

and at Francis National Center for Scientific Research.

He began his career working with the great anthropologist Margaret Mead.

In the early years of this century, he turned his attention to global Islamist terrorism.

Scott Atron tells some of this story in his 2010 book, Talking to the Enemy, Faith, Brotherhood,

and the Unmaking of Terrorists. I interviewed him the following year.

As we begin, I'm interested. I mean, you have spent a lot of time in recent years studying

the power of religion and sacred values in human life. And I did wonder was there any kind of religious

background to your life?

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