OhmyNews International, South Korea
Sept 3 2006
Fly the Flag for Martyrdom
[Opinion] As more terror arrests unfold in Britain, it’s time to
rethink this terrorism thing
The anti-terror raids continue in the United Kingdom. In barely two
weeks, close to 50 people have been detained, a few have been
released but many have already been charged under terrorism laws
passed after heated debate in the past year. It remains to be seen
what will become of the latest string of mass arrests.
If past experience is anything to go by, we should expect a raft of
commentary on the subject of terrorism reflecting the political
spectrum of views in the days to come. It appears though that, in
recent times, the venomous, usually violent and hysterical, attacks
on the Islamic faith in the wake of such events have waned, a
development for which we are all immensely thankful.
In many ways, the discussions of terror and its ramifications for
society have become a whole lot more cool-headed and encouragingly
plural in the diversity of opinions and remarks witnessed. But does
that mean it has become any more insightful, perceptive or rigorous?
I am afraid not. More and more the notion, preferred by the political
establishments of the leading Western nations, that terrorism is
wholly reactionary, that is: that its perpetrators are interested
only in rolling back winds of democracy now blowing across the Middle
East, sounds hollow to our ears, even mildly irritating. So also is
the assertion that the phenomenon is inspired by cultural conflict,
i.e. that Mr. or Mrs. Terrorist aims simply to "undermine our way of
life."
But I reserve my deepest contempt for a thesis popularized years ago
to dignify despotic regimes in the so-called communist world, such as
the Khmer Rouge, by Noam Chomsky and kindred intellectual spirits,
and now resurrected to deal with the "novel" species of terrorist
action. This argument can be summarized as follows: "for all causes,
roots, motivations, means and goals of terrorism, look to the
‘foreign policy’ of the West."
As applied to terrorism, I find this perspective one of the laziest
framework of analysis ever advanced for any phenomenon in the social
universe.
Surprisingly, the only rebuttal establishment figures seem to be able
to proffer is that terrorism "pre-dates the Iraq war," or as British
Cabinet Secretaries are wont to put it: "9/11 happened before Iraq."
As if "Iraq" or "Afghanistan" or indeed Palestine and Lebanon are the
only foreign policy issues someone bent on grievance can adjure for
the purpose of castigating "Western foreign policy." Critics of the
West if they are so inclined can go as far back as the colonial era
to unearth samples of possible Western wrongdoing. With regards to
the United States, they can mention the support of the CIA for the
Shah of Iran’s less than saintly SAVAK, which dedicated to rooting
out communists introduced some of the elements of repressive rule
still in use by certain members of the Iranian security agencies.
They can point to corporations in Germany and France that helped
Saddam acquire his deadly biological and chemical warfare capacity,
and thus, at least, were complicit in the murder of all those Halabja
Kurds, Marsh Arabs and Iranian infantry. They can point to Britain’s
longstanding security alliances with several Gulf States and her
continuing efforts to arm the House of Saud.
If you want to find fault with the foreign policy of the West, you do
not need a PhD in international relations. It is a layman’s job.
The perversity of the logic which assumes for western foreign policy
the complete cause of terrorism lies, in actual fact, in its complete
"emptiness." For a start, we have to admit that terrorism is not
limited to the Islamic variant. So that, Tamil suicide bombers cannot
possibly be reacting to "Western foreign policy." Joseph Kony who
professes himself a Messiah of the Jungles is an obvious East African
terrorist whose appalling deeds can clearly not be linked to "Western
foreign policy."
The Millenarian Japanese sect that poisoned the Tokyo subway had no
anti-western grievance to nurse, nor even a Western audience to
ponder the meaning of its acts. Having thus agreed that terrorism
across the world comes in different shapes and sizes, we are forced
to focus solely on Islamic terrorism to justify our stance that
Foreign policy is the causal agent in the dynamic of international
terrorism.
It is here that the logic completely falls apart. Why should it only
be "Western foreign policy"? Presumably, Russian foreign policy is
behind Chechnya? Indian foreign policy is behind Kashmir; and
Philippine foreign policy is behind the Abu Sayaf insurgency in the
southern archipelagoes, and its vicious manifestations in central
Manila? Yet all these nations will strongly protest that these issues
are matters of "domestic policy" and some will indeed balk at the
idea that some notion of "foreignness" is in operation.
Indeed, China, unlike Russia, so abhors that notion that the
Government simply refuses to acknowledge the possibility of foreign
influence on the Muslim Xingjian secessionists who have frequently
resorted to the deliberate civilian targeting we usually refer to as
"terrorism." Malaysia, increasingly the target of South Asian
regional terrorist movements, often adopts the same insular approach.
Are we then to conclude that the "foreign policy" of every country,
in so far as it involves Muslims is likely to incur the wrath of
international terrorists regardless whether that country designates
the matter as internal or external? When faceless Islamists blow up
resorts in Egypt, Turkey or apartment buildings in Saudi Arabia, as
they invariably do, is it of any use to devise a long chain of causal
linkages until "Western foreign policy" is reached?
And even if we were to accept that logic, that international
terrorists will avenge the lives of any Muslims endangered by the
foreign policy of any country, in what category should we place
Darfur? Here, we have a supposedly Islamic regime that kills other
Muslims, admittedly of a different color, in their thousands. Where
are the bombs going off in Sudanese chanceries abroad? What happens
when different Islamic regimes clash? As was the case with Iran and
the Taliban? How does our international terror "foreign policy"
analysts determine their loyalties, and, even more crucially, how
does that translate into violent action abroad.
I find the whole scheme of argumentation ridiculous.
But perhaps, we can narrow it down further and speak precisely of
Western-born Muslims who participate in terrorist activities against
the West. Surely, I would agree that these people are "radicalized"
by "Western foreign policy"? Why else would they do what they do?
Surely, only a blind fool (where blind is metaphorical) will argue
that "Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine and Lebanon" play no role in
the decisions these people make to commit mass murder?
Perhaps I am very thick, but I remain unconvinced. I still do not see
why it should be those particular contexts, alone, that trigger such
would-be terrorists. I am not persuaded that they cannot similarly be
enraged enough by the massacres, of Muslims, going in Darfur to mount
attacks on Sudanese Chanceries in Britain, Germany and France. Or on
the offices of the Arab League — which opposes international
peacekeeping missions to arrest the humanitarian disaster. After all,
have we not seen U.N. offices blown to smithereens in Iraq?
If these people are citizens of Western countries but identify so
strongly with Palestinians as to be willing to violently renounce
their citizenship in the cause of what, in any other circumstances,
will be a foreign pursuit, then I do not understand their
unwillingness to identify with any other cause save that cause is in
some way linked to "Western foreign policy." After all, let’s bear in
mind that their motivation is to "avenge Muslim suffering."
And yet, how many travel to Xingjian to fight the Han? How many are
flooding to Azerbaijan to confront the Armenian and how many to
Ethiopia to protest the latter’s incursions into Somalia?
But there are even lower depths of ludicrousness to which we can
sink. We can decide to ask why it is that only Muslims feel so
outraged by "Western foreign policy" to want to "do something about
it." When France destroyed the Ivorien airforce for the alleged
killing of a French Soldier; when Britain descended upon Sierra Leone
to restore a an overthrown Government, when Australia backed the
Apartheid Regime of Botha in South Africa, when the United States
invaded Granada to thwart perceived Communist designs, when thousands
and thousands of Western foreign policy goals clashed with the views
of so many around the world, people naturally protested and in
certain parts of the world conflicts broke out.
Yet, African-Americans, Britons of Latin American origin and
Surinamese Dutch who invariably joined such protests often aligned
themselves with other civil society movements within their countries
of origin in the West. Is the Muslim case different? Is it a case of
Muslim identity, alone of all identities, superseding national
citizenship? If so, why?
And yet again, why should it be only specific "foreign policy"
issues? What about "world poverty," "climate change," "social
inequity," "economic recessionism," "the AIDS crisis"? Are these not
also concerns?
But even granting the dubious premise that Middle Eastern foreign
policy is of a different moral caliber, one is still at a loss why
every grievance must be directed at the West. What about such issues
as the plight of Palestinians in Arab refugee camps where they are
denied even the most basic of rights? What about the appalling
conditions in which foreign immigrants, many of them Pakistani
Muslims, live in Qatar and Dubai? What about the suppression of the
Shiite Muslim faiths, often so violently, in Sunni-dominated
countries, and of the Ahmadi and Sufi Muslim faiths in almost every
Middle-Eastern country?
When Muslim Kurds explode anti-personal bombs in Turkish resorts, are
we to twist our way backwards until we reach Kemal Atakurk and his
supposedly semi-Western reforms before having something meaningful to
say?
Do all these play as mush a part in radicalizing British and Spanish
Muslim youth as does Israeli projectiles in Qana?
I believe that the sooner we ditched this wholly worthless debate
about "foreign policy" and begun a more sophisticated dialogue the
better.
Terrorism is not an ideology. Terrorism is a political instrument
adopted by non-state actors to exert influence in a world in the
throes of techno-social transformation, where notions of state
monopoly over violence, resources and identity should have been
discredited long ago. The means to conduct terrorist action is the
only true determinant.
Those who have access to the infrastructure will use it because
terrorism is cost-efficient. It is symbolism, destruction, propaganda
and psychological warfare rolled into one. It impacts like a Frigate
mounted with radar-guided missiles at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Martyrdom-inspired terrorism is, of course, an advanced version, even
more potent. It leads its victims on the path of self-doubt, assuring
them that their cause –their will to resist — cannot possibly match
the martyr’s in moral power, nor can their claim to life contend with
the Martyr’s contempt of death. Remember how Khomeini withstood
Saddam, despite all the latter’s armament? He unleashed the Martyrs,
that’s how.
If we seek causes and roots, in my view not an entirely useful
exercise, then we should open our eyes to "structural" events
underway across the globe.
Stronger currents of globalization — long fanned by the Hajj and
other doctrinal injunctions — pervade the Islamic reality than it
does any other international social situation. That just-described
globalization implies a wider reach for Islamic political aims and
means. That is not an acknowledgement that the Islamic world has a
monopoly over grievance. Or that whatever ails the Middle East does
not ail other regions. The notion that the complex problems in this
part of the world — complex in the way that all international social
problems are — could all be wished away by the simply sanitization
of Western Foreign policy is as empty a plea as saying that we should
all simply stop being mean as a way of ushering in a new era of
universal peace.
As mentioned, Islam is cosmopolitan by its very nature, thus Muslim
grievances will be magnified beyond proportion by key actors in the
Islamic world, because they have the means to do so; and those that
desire to employ terrorism to further their political designs will
manage to do so much more easily than can your average anarchist in
Padova who similarly wants to blow up the world because (s)he is
repulsed by all the social inequity, greed and decadence currently
choking the planet. It is a question of infrastructure. It is a
question of the achievable. It is a question of politicking.
We should learn to see terrorism as a criminal enterprise and attack
it as ruthlessly as we will any other such criminal activity that has
the capacity to cause so much devastation. Else, we will soon
discover that groups, of all sorts, similarly claiming to hold some
grudge against East, West, North and/or South, are embarked
forcefully on the terrorism business, and succeeding mightily in
fueling useless disputes amongst their victims over their motives.
Terrorism is what it is; let’s deal with it.