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The Sociology of Terrorism
'There's an inner thing in every man/ Do you know this
thing my friend? It has withstood the blows of a million years/ And
will do so to the end.
It lights the dark of this prison cell, It thunders forth its might.
It is "the undauntable thought", my friend/ That thought that says "I'm
right!"'
Bobby Sands, MP. (1)
'We should on all Occasions avoid a general Action,
or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into
which we ought never to be drawn.'
George
Washington, advocating the use of guerilla tactics against the British
government in the American War of Independence. (2)
‘Terrorists’
Using violence to achieve a particular objective is not a new phenomenon.
The list of those who have taken up arms to fight for ‘freedom’ is
endless and ubiquitous. Throughout history, there have been movements
of rebellion and revolution in which violence has been used to achieve
a political, social, and/or economic goal. All those who have used violence
inducing terror in other human beings could be described as ‘terrorists’.
The reasons why they have resorted to acts of terror may vary but what
they have in common is a belief that their, invariably, heinous methods
are justified because they have a ‘just’ cause. As the Kashmiri
militant, Maqbool Butt, pleaded before his execution in 1984: ‘My
only crime is that I have rebelled against slavery, oppression, poverty,
ignorance and exploitation of my people.’ (3)
As the boundaries of nation states formalised in the 20th century, the
most common form of terrorism is that perpetrated by a group of individuals
against a government in whose terrain they reside. They may be a minority
population who have different cultural and ethnic traditions and do not
wish to remain under the jurisdiction of the nation state in which they
are living. Since secessionists movements are generally resisted by the
de facto government, the only way for them to achieve their stated goal
is through force, often using the characteristic tools of terror: kidnapping,
extortion, assassination, suicide bombings, hijackings. However, although
their actions are violent, those who perpetrate them would not use the
pejorative term ‘terrorist’; rather they would call themselves ‘separatists’ or ‘freedom
fighters’ engaged in a ‘war of liberation’ (for example
the Basque separatists in Spain, the Kashmiris in India, the Tamils in
Sri Lanka, and the Chechnyans in the Russian Federation). Therefore,
to understand the sociology of terrorism, one must also analyse the compulsions
of those who call themselves ‘freedom fighters’.
In some cases, where such movements receive the support of a significant
proportion of the population, the situation can become one of more widespread
civil war, on occasion aided by one or more neighbouring countries, who
may also believe that the separatists have a ‘just’ cause.
If successful, those who have taken up arms against the previously legitimate ‘de
facto’ government will assume legitimacy, as happened in the American
War of Independence and the war against West Pakistan in 1971 when the
Eastern section seceded to become independent Bangladesh. Those who are
unsuccessful (for example, the Biafrans of Nigeria in the 1960s, the
Sikhs in India in the 1980s) will continue to be classified as terrorists
by the government. In addition to those with nationalist aspirations,
terrorists may also be a group of disaffected individuals engaged in
some form of social rebellion or ‘class war’ (for example
the Baader Meinhof in West Germany, the Red Brigade in Italy, or the
more anarchic Shining Path in Peru and Maoists in Nepal.)
However, although in the post-colonial era, there are still numerous ‘wars
of liberation’ being fought against governments throughout the
world, the distinction between what constitutes a war of liberation and
what is a terrorist movement is becoming increasingly blurred. (4) This
is not just because of an abhorrence of the violence which is used but
because of the general instability caused by shifting boundaries or a
vested interest in not relinquishing territory. So explosive are the
potentially divisive effects of ‘wars of liberation’ that
it is all too easy to classify any armed struggle against a de iure or
even unpopular de facto government as constituting terror.
Exceptionally, the Soviet Union re-emerged as the Russian Federation
and accorded independence to several former republics (excluding Chechyna);
the East Timorese movement against Indonesia was brought to a peaceful
conclusion by a referendum. But when the Marsh Arabs rebelled against
the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 1991 they did not
get the external support they felt they deserved as ‘freedom fighters’ and
consequently their rebellion was crushed internally as a terrorist movement.
In the present day, the identity of those categorised as terrorists has
come round full circle and there is now a situation where supporters
of the former government of Saddam Hussein are indulging in acts of sectarian
terror against the current Iraqi government. Likewise in Afghanistan,
the Taliban were the ‘de facto’ government between 1996 and
2001, but now they are the ‘terrorists’.
Understanding terror
‘[My goal is] conquest of the homeland
by force.’
Menachem
Begin. (5)
‘I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s
gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.’
Yasser Arafat
addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations, 1974.(6)
In order to comprehend the sociology of terror, it has to be recognised
that both internal and external compulsions can create a terrorist. In
certain situations, the conversion is prompted by an external state of
affairs lying initially outside the subject’s own mind or awareness.
Britain’s continuing presence in Palestine caused Menachem Begin
to resort to violence to further the cause of a Jewish homeland. At the
same time, the fact that the Palestinian Arabs were obliged to share
their land with an immigrant Jewish population, provided an external
stimulus which prompted varying reactions amongst the Palestinians; whereas
some accepted the change in status without recourse to militant activity,
others decided that the use of violent means was the only way to alter
or alleviate a situation which they found intolerable.
The same was true of the insurgency against the Indian government, which
erupted in 1989 in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In this instance,
the militant activists fighting for the state’s independence from
the Indian Union did not believe that they could defeat the Indian army.
Their objective was to draw the attention of the world community to what
they believed was a ‘just cause’ so that other countries
would intervene to assist them. In their opinion, political dialogue
had failed: only by resorting to an ‘armed struggle’ did
they believe they could make sufficient impact. They too refuse to call
themselves terrorists and have been known to condemn acts of terror (for
example the kidnapping and execution of tourists in 1995) when they exceeded
the norms of ‘legitimate’ violence permissible in a ‘war
of liberation’ i.e. attacks on Indian military personnel. But the
Indian government has branded them as terrorists and the Kashmiri ‘liberation’ movement,
like the Sikh insurgency in the Punjab, has been suppressed.
However, as happened when supporters of the Irish Republican Army, the
IRA, finally made it to the negotiating table in Northern Ireland, some
of the Kashmiris who initially condoned violence, have now conceded that
although ‘the gun took the issue of out cold storage’, the
next step towards resolution of their grievances has to be peace talks.
In Kashmir, as elsewhere, those who refuse to give up the armed struggle
are in danger of becoming institutionalised as perpetual terrorists,
with the result that ‘terrorist’ activity is no longer a
means to an end but becomes an end in itself and an intrinsic part of
their identity.
In addition to external motivation, there are internal reasons why people
are drawn to terrorism. Persuasion, by encouragement or force or by the
offer of monetary gain, can compel one person to resort to acts of terrorism
in circumstances, where left to himself, he might not have felt the same
compulsion; amongst these sets of individuals will be some who are more
responsive to persuasion than others. Those whose friends or relatives
are already involved in terrorist activity are also likely to become
drawn in by association. Young men who are orphans, homeless and poor,
or are ‘looking for a cause’ in an attempt to give meaning
to their lives, are likely to be more susceptible. Lonely students on
university campuses can also be attracted to radical groups, whose objectives
require the use of terrorist methods. In general, those who resort to
violence are men, but not exclusively. The case of an educated Palestinian
girl who became a suicide bomber was unusual although not exceptional.
The Tamil assassin of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was a woman. Inspiration
to take up arms can also be provided by leadership, such as that of Yasser
Arafat who dominated the Palestinian movement in its early days; charismatic
individuals can also become symbols of revolution even if the theatre
of action is different; the iconic status of the guerilla fighter, Che
Guevara, extended well beyond the confines of South America and endured
long after his death in 1967. In 2001 a militant cleric, Muhammed Akram
Awam, demanding the institution of the Sharia law in Pakistan, styled
himself as a supreme leader in the mould of Che Guevara. (7)
The psychological make up of the individual, both innate and fashioned
by his or her environment also determines who will become a terrorist.
Generalisations are difficult but common trends emerge: for all those
who have led a pitiable existence, some may still not resort to violence
(either because of fear of using a weapon or moral revulsion towards
doing so), but there will be others who, living in the same conditions,
will be prepared to take violent action to alter their lives. In view
of the desperate circumstances in which they have grown up or to which
they have been relegated, they may have scant concern for the sanctity
of life. Therefore there will be less regard for the consequences of
using violence against others, even if those they have targeted are ‘innocent
civilians’ with no direct connection to their ‘cause’ and
no role to play in alleviating their grievances.
The important psychological triumph of an act of terrorism is to have
attracted attention beyond the narrow confines of a limited geographical
space, ever hopeful that this broader publicity will assist in achieving
their goals, which sometimes may extend no further than the release of
comrades in prison and a demand for money. Although, for obvious reasons,
the convention at government level is not to give way to demands made
under the threat of terror, the vastly increased media coverage possible
in the 20th and 21st century has brought more acts of terror into the
public domain and given the terrorists the limelight they are seeking. (8) Access
to lethal weapons, including those of mass destruction, makes the threat
of the use of violence even more deadly. Horrific as is an act of terror
perpetrated by a man with a gun to the head of a political opponent,
journalist or aid worker, a thousand times more so, is the threat to
detonate a nuclear bomb in a city inhabited by thousands. To date, this
is a nightmare scenario enacted only on screens in the cinema, but it
is rapidly gaining the potential to become a reality. .
In order to understand the motivation, one must therefore look not only
to external stimuli but also to what makes those external stimuli so
compelling. Those most likely to resort to violence are at the bottom
of the economic and social scale. Those who feel frustrated politically
due to the repressive nature of regimes are also more inclined to use
violence than those who have freedom of political expression. Where the
quality of life is miserable, there is a greater likelihood that people
will become terrorists because they have less to lose. The prisons in
Israel are well-known to have been a breeding ground for terrorists including
suicide bombers. ‘When a man’s life is so degraded, he does
not value it nor the lives of others’ is a much cited ‘truth’ amongst
analysts seeking to determine the psyche of a suicide bomber.(9) Refugee
camps are also regarded as a natural breeding ground for terrorists on
the assumption that when a man has lost everything, he has nothing more
to lose. Consequently progress in alleviating social and economic deprivation
as well as ensuring freedom of political expression is essential to counter
the will to resort to terrorising fellow human beings.
Religious terrorism
‘Our Muslim brothers throughout the world.. ..they are asking
you to participate with them against their enemies, who are also your
enemies – the Israelis and the Americans - by causing them as
much harm as can be possibly achieved.’
Osama bin Laden. (10)
In the late 20th and early 21st century, the momentum behind acts of
terrorism has been revitalised by the use of the Islamic religion to
induct recruits to fight against the perceived enemy. The Afghan response
to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s was
predicated on religious fervour. The Soviet Union was portrayed as a
godless society and the Afghans (and Muslim sympathisers from neighbouring
countries in the Middle East and North Africa who either assisted or
contributed financially) were encouraged to fight a holy war or ‘jihad’ against
the infidel. In their struggle, they were indulging in violent activity
against their co-nationals defending the de facto Afghan government.
However, the justness of their cause was accepted not only by their Muslim
sympathisers but also by western governments; as a result, they were
never referred to as terrorists (except by the Soviet Union) but always
as ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘mujaheddin’ ( ‘soldiers
of the holy war’).
But the introduction of a world-wide jihad by the Al Qaeda network as
justification for acts of terror has complicated the sociological interpretations
and made resolution much harder, firstly because the objective of the
terrorist is less clear (what did the 9/11 suicide bombers believe they
were achieving by attacking the World Trade Center?); secondly, because
the use of religion, dependant on faith, provides a compulsion which
neutralises reason. If a man, especially one who is poorly educated,
is instructed to perform an act of violence to secure his place in Paradise,
then he is less likely to undertake a thorough assessment of the rationale
behind his action.
Furthermore, these terrorists are no longer a group of disaffected individuals
waging war within their respective nation states. Instead the acts of
violence have become more indiscriminate in terms of location with the
population of the United States and Britain as the main targets but embracing
other nationalities as well (for example, in Spain and Bali) and also
including, by accident rather than design, fellow Muslims.
What is also unusual is that the perpetrators, such as those who undertook
the terrorist attacks on ‘9/11’ in the United States in 2001
and on ‘7/7’ in London in 2005 were not subject to social,
political and economic deprivations as have been, for example, their
counterparts in the Palestinian refugee camps; their material circumstances
were also much more comfortable than their parents or older relatives.
In addition, they enjoyed freedom of political expression and movement.
Rather their motivation appears to have been fuelled by a feeling of
alienation and hatred, embellished with the false assertion that ‘Islam
is in danger’. Osama bin Laden’s demand for Jews and non-Muslims
to leave all Muslim countries may be so wide sweeping as to be unrealisable,
but its appeal amongst those who feel downtrodden is extremely compelling.
In the present day, the character of ‘terrorism’ has altered
so dramatically that it has become impossible to predict where and who
the next targets will be. Sadly the western response is equally obtuse.
As commentators have frequently derided, to instigate a war against an
abstract noun fails to look concertedly at the causes of such deep hatred,
nor to differentiate between the primary and secondary players.
Conclusion
To comprehend terrorism we have to understand what causes it. All acts
of terror have to have some motivation; there has to be some objective;
no one is born a terrorist; circumstances induce such behaviour. Political
injustice is a major stimulant. Poverty, social deprivation and inequality
as well as ignorance also assist. An individual can be turned into a
terrorist if he is less educated because he needs only to be presented
with certain ‘truths’, which childlike, he adopts in order
to provide the required motivation. Once that truth has been accepted
(for example, that the United States is the ‘Great Satan’),
a terrorist will go unquestioning into battle. The use of religion as
a convenient clarion call to inculcate the view that the perpetrators
of acts of terror are engaged in a holy war avoids the need for political
debate; it also means that the terrorist will more willingly sacrifice
his/her own life and therefore be in a position to inflict maximum damage.
In such situations, the terrorists are deaf to their own religious scholars
who insist that terrorist activity in the name of Islam is an evil perversion
of their faith.
It is no coincidence that repressive regimes which indulge in terror
at a state level also incite acts of terror against them. The insurgency
in Kashmir gained its largest number of recruits in the early 1990s following
severe repression by the government of India of a mass political movement
( a mistake the Indian government later admitted). Israel’s repressive
methods towards the Palestinians have polarised Arab-Israeli relations
and drawn sympathy for the Palestinians from Muslims world-wide. Thus
to eliminate or reduce acts of terror, the first step is to understand
the cause. Dialogue with terrorists may appear to legitimise the use
of indiscriminate violence, but understanding the sociological compulsions
of terrorism is critical.
Footnotes
1 Bobby Sands, MP (1954-1981). Citation from his poem, The Rhythm of
Time (Bobby Sands Trust). A member of the IRA and sentenced to 14 years
in prison, he died in HM Maze Prison on hunger strike in May 1981.
2 George Washington (1732-1799),Commander-in-Chief of the Continental
Army which fought for independence against the British. Later 1st President
of the United States.
3 Maqbool Butt, a militant activist in the valley of Kashmir who was
caught by the Indian authorities and executed in Tihar Jail, 1984. see
www.geocities.com/jklf-kashmir/maqbool
4 Recent ‘wars of liberation’ have been fought in Acheh
against the Indonesian government, in Assam, Jammu and Kashmir against
the Indian government, in Chechnya against the Russian Federation and
throughout Africa.
5 Menachem Begin (1913-1992), as quoted in http://www.ou.org/chagim/yomhaatzmauth/begin.html
Leader of the Zionist underground group Irgun, he was reponsible for
bombing the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in 1946, killing
91 people. He was 6th Prime Minister of Israel
6 Yasser Arafat, (1929-2004), leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation
(PLO) and Chairman of the Palestinian Authority. He was called ‘an
inveterate terrorist’ by his critics but hailed as the embodiment
of the Palestinian cause by his supporters. BBC obituary, 11 November
2004.
7 ‘Pakistan’s “Che” sets deadline for Islamic
state, The Times, January 17, 2001 Che Guevara (1928-1967). He was executed
in Bolivia.
8 An exceptional case was the Indian government’s agreement to
the demands of a group of militants who hijacked a plane en route from
Nepal to India in December 1999.
9 ‘The threat of international terrorism to world peace in the
21st century’, International Conference, New Delhi, India, December
1998.
10 Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, 23 August 1996, as quoted in
Holy War Inc, Peter L. Bergen, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001, p. 103.
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