Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Author(s)
Citation
Issued Date
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2012
http://hdl.handle.net/10722/173835
To Mom
Declaration
I declare that the thesis and the research work thereof represents my own work,
except where due acknowledgement is made, and that it has not been previously
included in a thesis, dissertation or report submitted to this University or to any
other institution for a degree, diploma or other qualifications.
Signed: ______________________________________________________
Terence Hui-Yu Wang
Acknowledgements
There were many highs and lows throughout my PhD study. But each
time when the challenge seemed too overwhelming, the support and
encouragement of the following people helped me to believe, persevere, and
overcome.
I am deeply grateful to my insightful and helpful supervisors: Professor
Colin Evers for always taking an interest in and encouraging the pursuit of my
research; Professor Mark Mason for constantly supporting and believing in me,
even when I doubted myself; and Professor Li-Fang Zhang for always coming to
my aid in times of distress. A special thanks goes to Professor Shirley Grundy;
her warm, welcoming smile will always be remembered.
I would also like to thank my exceptional examiners Professor Cheng Kai
Ming, Professor Fazal Rizvi, and Professor Yusef Waghid for providing not only
their thoughtful and perceptive commentary, but also for stimulating a most
fascinating discussion.
I am also indebted to Ms. Jenny Wong for reading through my drafts so
meticulously and providing so many thoughtful commentaries and discussions.
Finally, my most heartfelt appreciation goes to my wife Christine and
children Charis and Nathaniel. Without their love and faith in me, the
accomplishment of this thesis would not have been possible or as much fun.
ii
Table of Contents
Declaration
Acknowledgements
ii
Table of Contents
iii
vii
List of Abbreviations
ix
11
13
17
18
19
22
23
25
27
28
29
31
31
32
36
iii
36
39
2.4 Conclusion
42
45
46
47
50
51
54
57
59
3.2.1 Organization
59
64
68
3.3 Conclusion
72
75
76
77
79
80
81
82
83
85
86
86
88
iv
90
91
92
93
93
97
4.4 Conclusion
99
101
102
102
104
105
108
109
111
113
114
114
117
119
120
122
5.3 Conclusion
125
129
131
131
134
134
135
138
140
142
143
145
148
149
152
6.3 Conclusion
155
160
160
160
162
164
166
167
169
171
173
174
177
180
References
198
vi
186
Table 2.2.1
187
Table 2.2.2
A Typology of Terrorism
188
Table 3.3.1
191
Table 4.1.1
195
Table 4.1.2
196
List of Figures
Figure 1.4.1
Figure 2.1.1
Figure 2.1.2
Figure 2.1.3
Figure 2.1.4
Figure 2.1.5
vii
180
183
Figure 2.1.6
183
Figure 2.1.7
184
Figure 2.1.8
184
Figure 2.1.9
Figure 2.1.10
Figure 3.1.1
189
Figure 3.2.1
190
Figure 3.2.2
190
Figure 3.3.1
192
Figure 4.1.1
193
Figure 4.1.2
194
Figure 4.3.1
196
Figure 5.1.1
197
Figure 6.1.2
197
Figure 6.2.1
197
viii
List of Abbreviations
ANC
CBRN
CIA
ETM
FLN
GWOT
IMRO
IRA
ITERATE
JWT
LET
LTTE
MET
MIPT
MNC
Multinational Corporation
MOT
NCTC
NGO
Non-governmental Organization
PEA
PFLP
PLO
POR
Principle of Reciprocity
RAND
ix
RWTID
UN
United Nations
UNODC
UK
United Kingdom
US
USDOS
WMD
WWI
WWII
CHAPTER 1
DAWN RISING ON A DIFFERENT WORLD
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of
cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of
truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life (Russell, 2009,
p. 103).
1.0 Introduction
Terrorism is the weapon of the terrified. It is founded on the
fundamentalist beliefs that justify extremist acts of coercive violence. If a life
lived under terror is not worth living, then the pursuit of wisdom both
epistemological (of knowing what one does not know) and practical (of
moderation), may be an essential pedagogical endeavor. This thesis argues that an
education that emphasizes mutual learning across cultures may substantively
cultivate a dialogical understanding of our moralities and histories, indeed, of our
very hermeneutics of the world itself. Becoming aware of the tentativeness of our
knowledge and appreciative of the necessary contribution of others towards
developing our freedom as moral beings may be the least paradoxical remedy to
our terrorist condition. In other words, through intercultural learning we can
expand our freedom from terror by softening the fundamentalism that lays the
groundwork of such extremist waysways that violate the norms of others
without regard to their vantage points.
In a world where our primal fears are constantly exploited by others to
control our decisionsfrom consumption to politicsthere is growing
desensitivity and criticism towards these methods. In such a post-terror world,
we all claim to combat terrorists in our own ways: some with guns, others with
money, and some still with books. This thesis investigates what terrorism is and
how it can be mitigated in a non-paradoxical way. Found particularly crucial is
the role of education in the perpetuation and mitigation of the terrorist condition.
Towards the vision of new horizons free of terror, this first chapter maps out the
entire thesis by: first, highlighting the pertinence of the issue of terrorism in our
present moment and problematizing its interrelations with counter-terrorist uses
of education; second, articulating the purpose of and questions asked in this
project; third, establishing the approaches taken towards responding to this
enquiry and the clarification of any ethical concerns about the research method;
and lastly, tracing the rationale behind the organization of this thesis, as well as
defining its conceptual scope.
1
Fundamentalism is on the rise and not just Islam. The incidents of political
violence and terrorist acts have increased across the world. Far from being at the
end of history, we could be at the start of another beginning (p. 224).
The emergence of the spectacle of terrorism as a new form of public pedagogy raises
serious questions about how fear and anxiety can be marketed, how terrorism can be
used to recruit people in support of authoritarian causes, how it is being produced in
a vast array of pedagogical sites created by the new media, how the state uses
mediated images of violence to justify its monopoly of power over the means of
coercion, and how the spectacle of terrorism works in an age of enormous injustices,
deep insecurities, disembodied social relations, fragmented communities, and a
growing militarization of everyday life (p. 12).
Throughout this thesis, double quotation marks will be reserved solely for direct quotes while
single quotation marks will be used to highlight the meaning of the word itself. Special emphasis
and words that are not common to the English language will be italicized.
Deconstructing the concept of terrorism can ease the paradoxical tensions between
the terrorist and the counterterrorist. After all, any superficial interpretation
and fearful overreaction can in fact serve to perpetuate a mutual cycle of terrorist
feedback rather than its mitigation. To fight something one must first
understand what it is; gaining a critical understanding of terrorism is thus of
particular pertinence in our post-terror world.
According to Azam and Delacroix (2006), this relationship is statistically significant, as the
amount of aid received by the source country directly decreases the number of terrorist attacks
originating from it (p. 331). However, from a microeconomics perspective, Krueger and
Maleckova (2003) provide a Robin Hood model of terrorism: that higher educational attainment
and greater wealth actually increases the participation rate in terrorism. Finding suicide bombers
tending to be more educated, younger and wealthier that the general population, they agree with
Laqueur (2003) that to remedy terrorism requires more sophisticated solutions than just increasing
wealth and employment in poor countries. As Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United
Nations, put it: The poor of this world suffer enough; one should not in addition brand them as
potential terrorists (Laqueur, 2003, p. 18). Nevertheless, the macroeconomic argument is the
more common account advocated by policy-makers.
Based on the view that terrorism will decline with economic growth, more
governments are trying to combat terrorism through soft power. While
conventional counterterrorism entails hard measures that enhance security and
proactively attack terrorists, their assets, and their supporters (Enders & Sandler,
2006), soft counterterrorism involves combating the hearts and minds of
terrorists through the provision of education and aid (Chertoff, 2008). In fact,
various governments have been implementing re-education programs to deradicalize and re-integrate terrorists. Too dangerous to be released and too
controversial to be executed or detained without trial, captured terrorists pose a
delicate problem for governments. With many of those detained in Guantanamo
Bay being Saudis, the Saudi government initiated an educational program in 2003
to: (1) deter potential participation in terrorism, (2) rehabilitate terrorist detainees,
(3) reintegrate them back into society, and (4) prevent the re-educated from
recidivism (Boucek, 2008). First, psychotherapy is employed to de-radicalize
detainees of their extremist beliefs and violent behaviors. They then attend
religious classes that teach the state-endorsed version of Islam: Wahhabism,
which emphasizes loyalty, honor, recognition of authority, and obedience to
leadership. Once extremism is renounced and orthodoxy embraced, these reeducated detainees are then reintegrated by being subjected to a powerful set of
socioeconomic incentives. Early release, a car, a home, employment, and even
marriage subsidies are offered (60 Minutes, 2009). State surveillance of the reeducated continues thereafter, ready to deal out punishment should they show
signs of recidivism. Socio-cultural forces like honor, familial hierarchies, and
social traditions are also harnessed to keep those released inline. The Saudi
program has become the de facto model for a growing list of states including:
the US, UK, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia
(Boucek, 2008, pp. 64, 68).3
Founded on the dominant discourse, such emergent uses of education truly
are novel developments in counterterrorism. However, there are areas of concern:
First, the scientific approach to terrorism and counterterrorism presupposes that
terrorist incidents and their identities can be easily and objectively recognized free
The Saudi program is particularly pertinent as it is gaining international esteem and increasingly
modeled by other governments in Asia, Europe, and North America (Boucek, 2008). Not only are
terrorist detainees deprogrammed through Religious Rehabilitation Groups in Singapore
(Dobson, 2009), according to Major General Douglas Stone, the commander of the US detention
facilities in Iraq, the American military has introduced a religious enlightenment education
program in 2007 for Iraq detainees (Pincus, 2007). Enlisting the help of moderate Muslim clerics,
the religious courses aim to bend them [Iraqi detainees] back to our will by waging war on the
battlefield of the mind against the ideology of al-Qaeda (Pincus, 2007). Given the apparent
effectiveness of the American program with curbing the recidivism of Iraqi detainees, General
Stanley McChrystal fully supported attempts to reintegrate Taleban members into the rest of the
population in Afghanistan (Evans, 2009). And in the UK, Members of Parliament have initiated
discussions on a reintegration programme to find a way out of violence for Afghans who had
joined the Taliban to find a way for them to return to civilian life (Norton-Taylor, 2010).
of the values of the scientist.4 But who has made the right exegesis and by what
authority are such interpretations binding upon others? After all, disregarding the
norms of others marks the essence of terrorisms atrocity. Second, because the
recognition of terrorism and terrorists warrants more scrutiny, the practice of
indoctrinating terrorists with state orthodoxy appears paradoxically problematic.
The crucial role of education in the cultivation of terrorists is justly highlighted;
but what is often taken for granted is the consideration of what education and its
purpose are. To impose ones hermeneutics upon others is to fight terror with
terror, dogma with dogma; doing so merely perpetuates the cycle of physical and
symbolic violence. The point is, despite the objective veneer of scientific
approaches to terrorism and its pedagogical remedy, such a discourse is riddled
with controversy and inconsistency upon deeper scrutiny.
The critical
examination of the dominant discourse and re-education programs thus raises
questions of what terrorism and education are, and how can the latter be
conceptualized to mitigate, rather than perpetuate, the former.
Refuting the fact-value dichotomy, Putnam (2002) points out that evaluation and description are
interwoven and interdependent (p. 3).
The implications for understanding education and terrorism relationships have not
been well researched. Study of educations role in violent conflict has been limited,
and not well integrated in human security literature (Nelles, 2003, p. 13).
[To envision a] humane world where people can live in security and dignity.... In
such a world, every individual would be guaranteed freedom from fear and freedom
from want, with equal opportunity to develop fully their human potential. Building
human security is essential to achieving this goal. In essence, human security means
freedom from pervasive threats to peoples rights, their safety or even their lives.
Human Security has become both a new measure of global security and a new
agenda for global action. Safety is the hallmark of freedom from fear, while well-
being is the target of freedom from want. Human security and human development
are thus two sides of the same coin, mutually reinforcing and leading to a conducive
environment for each other (Volleback, 1999).
While sharing similar ends, the means for pursuing human security in this thesis is
unlike the more political economic approaches of the UN or Human Security
Network. The freedom from fear is considered here more philosophically,
focusing on the controversial concept of terrorism: how it can be understood and
addressed. In terms of recognizing the pervasiveness of terroristic violence and
the human right to live in security and thus, decency, education (in the broadest
sense of the word) is taken to be central. If the purpose behind the aims to end
poverty and increase the provision of aid can be more broadly understood as for
the enhancement of the freedom of individuals to make life choices they find
reason to value, then education can play a pivotal role in developing freedom,
including that from terror (Sen, 1999). After all, terrorism is one form of violence
that oppresses by limiting the autonomy of the coerced, leading to human
insecurity and the violation of the right to be free from terror. In short, the
purpose of this thesis is to enhance the possibility of the freedom from fear
through educative means by rethinking the interrelationships between terrorism
and education.
For this purpose, the thesis asks and addresses the following questions:
(1) In conventional terms, what is the significance and relevance of terrorism?
How is the research of terrorism commonly approached? And what are the
advantages and limitations of such approaches?
(2) Within the dominant discourse, how has terrorism evolved and how does its
history contextualize the emergence of the contemporary phenomenon? In
general, how is terrorism currently conceptualized?
(3) What are the fundamental essences of the concept of terrorism and how do
they affect the understanding of its methodology, legality and morality?
How might a more transculturally coherent ethical framework of terrorism
be constructed?
(4) What are the conceptual implications extending from such a reconstruction
of terrorism? From a broader socio-political framework, how are terroristic
dispositionsboth cognitive and behavioralreproduced and what is the
role of education in such reproduction?
(5) Is the use of education as a soft counterterrorist tactic problematic to the
reproduction of terror? How can education be conceptualized to be
conducive to not only social reproduction but also to social change? What
are the implications for rethinking educational theory and practice for the
expansion of the freedom from terror?
(6) What pedagogical discourses are central to resolving the miscommunication
and misrecognition across cultures? How can educational principles and
8
Hence, I see science as an applied philosophy of an empirical method, but one that, nevertheless,
is founded on certain reasons and values that are not themselves particularly scientific.
6
As Emanuel Derman puts it, when imposing human beings into economic models, we are
trying to force the ugly stepsisters foot into Cinderellas pretty glass slipper. It doesnt fit without
cutting off some of the essential parts (Malkiel, 2011).
7
As Ariely (2010) concludes from his experiments, social norms can lead to behaviors extraneous
to, perhaps even counter to, those presupposed by the rational choice model. For example, in one
of his experiments, students passing by different booths on campus were found to take about three
times less candy per person on average when they were offered for free than when the candy were
charged at a penny a piece.
8
Globalized terrorism is the contemporary understanding of terrorism as a practice novel in
terms of its organization, modus operandi, and selection of victims. As the dominant discourse of
terrorism, it is constructed in Chapter 3; the liberal principle of toleration will be evaluated in
Chapter 6.
10
I have spent approximately 12 years in total living in Hong Kong thus far, most of it as a teacher
and PhD student. A little more detail about some of my experiences during the thesis-writing
process has been provided in the preface.
12
See Figure 1.4.1 for an outline of the central enquiry pursued in this thesis.
Habitus is defined by Bourdieu (1979) as a system of durable, transposable dispositions both
mental (doxa) and physical (practice) (p. vii).
11
13
This academic consensus definition has been proposed to the UN; and despite
not being formally adopted, it is one of the more widely acknowledged stances on
terrorism currently in international politics (Definitions of Terrorism, 2007).
Moreover, Schmid and Jongmans (2005) definition is widely referenced by
academics and politicians touching on the subject. Such a notion of terrorism,
then, forms the basis for the initial chapters of this thesis, allowing for the
construction of a typology of terrorism that ranges from the interstate, oppressive,
revolutionary, to globalized forms. The construction of globalized terrorism as
the contemporary discourse forms the basis for its critique in Chapter 4.
Crucial to the two halves of this thesis is the fourth chapter, entitled The
Essence of Terrorism. By deconstructing the discourse of globalized terrorism,
this chapter reconstructs the core elements of terrorism into methodological, legal,
and moral essences. Doing so allows the clarification of a number of crucial
complications: First, the terrorist practice can be more objectively described
while separated from the common ethical controversy. Second, the legal
distinction between the justifiability of war versus the indefensibility of
14
15
16
CHAPTER 2
CONTEMPORARY TERRORISM
DISCOURSES
To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, lawdriven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at,
controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by
creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to
do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction
noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered,
assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden,
reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility,
and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under
contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from,
squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first
word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted
down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged,
condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown
all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is
government; that is its justice; that is its morality (Proudhon, 1923,
pp. 293-294).
2.0 Introduction
The anarchistic apology captures the mentality underlying terrorism, the
discourse of which at the moment focuses on the revolutionary. The broader
concept of human security centers on the concrete measures that can make
manifest the vision of allowing all to live in security and dignity. Freedom from
the fear of terrorism is one important dimension within the project of human
security and the central theme of this thesis. But to take up such an emancipatory
task first requires careful thinking about the notion of terrorism. There are many
variant definitions of terrorismnone of which are uncontestedbut one is
particularly influential in terms of its formulation, guiding political and academic
debates. This definition is from Schmid and Jongman (2005) which states that:
17
and debate. This thesis, differing from most terrorism research, aims to critique
the concept of terrorism itself as it appears in academia and politics. But one must
first ask whether terrorism warrants the amount of attention, effort, and resources
that have been dedicated to it post-9/11. For if it is not, one ought to question the
necessity of the growing industry of national security and counterterrorism,
within which education is a key sector (Nelles, 2003, p. 12).
The definition in major terrorism databases usually follows that of the USDOS, which defines
terrorism as premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant
targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.... (United States Department of State, 2004,
p. xii)
19
The likelihood of any given person being killed in a terrorist attack is far smaller
than the likelihood that the same person will clog up his arteries with fatty food and
die of heart disease. But a terrorist attack happens now; death by heart disease is
some distant, quiet catastrophe. Terrorist acts lie beyond our control; french fries do
13
The MIPT-RAND began recording domestic terrorist incidents since 1998 while the US
database since 2004.
14
See Figure 2.1.1 and Figure 2.1.2.
15
See Figure 2.1.3 and Figure 2.1.4.
16
These tendencies are also arguably beneficial to the argumentative cause of both policy advisers
and policy makers. Although I also emphasize its significance, I hold that it is not the threat, but
the troubling concept of terrorism that is significant.
20
The historical evolution of terrorism will be further elaborated in Chapter 2.3 while a critique of
the databases will be carried out in Chapter 2.1.2, the next section. If one reconsiders the practice
of terror beyond the acts perpetrated only by non-state actors, or only in political contexts, then the
practice may indeed be much more pervasive.
18
This is made evident by the signing of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts
of Nuclear Terrorism by the UN member states in New York on April 13, 2005.
19
The more moderate concerns vary from the relatively pessimistic (such as Lia, 2005 and
Laqueur, 1999, 2003) to the more optimistic (such as Hoffman, 2006 and Enders and Sandler,
2006).
21
informative and pragmatic at this point.20 The PEA can thus assist in dispelling
some of the relatively unsubstantiated speculations.
Sandler and Enders (2007) corroborate Hoffmans (2006) theory that the
decline of terrorism incidents from the 1990s to 2002 is primarily attributable to
fact that fewer states have been sponsoring terrorism since the end of the Cold
War. With the fall of Communist states and increasingly efficient security
operations, many leftist groups lost momentum and faded into obscurity (Sandler
& Enders, 2007). Drawing on statistics from the USDOS between 1980 and 2001,
and excluding 9/11, Pape (2003) estimates that on average less than one person is
killed per terrorist incident. While the escalating preoccupation with terrorism
post-9/11 may play into the hands of the terrorists (and some politicians), there is
some cause for concern given the increasing lethality of international terrorism.
Again drawing from the two established databases, there is significant increases in
both fatalities and injuries caused by international terrorism despite the general
decline in incidents since the mid-1980s.21 This inverse relationship between the
decline of international terrorism incidents and the increase in casualties, while
counterintuitive, can be explained by the fact that terrorists have become more
effective at causing casualties. The disparity between the rate of change of the
frequency of international terrorism incidents and its resulting casualties can be
better represented by comparing their linear averages since 1968.22 The evidential
change in the lethality of terrorist incidents marks its contemporary evolution. Lia
(2005) predicts that the lethality of transnational terrorism will remain high due
to globalization, which leads to the internationalization of an increasing number of
conflicts (p. 17). Sandler and Enders (2007) similarly argue that while domestic
incidents outnumber transnational incidents almost eight to one, the latter poses
the greatest risks to the developed world, whose assets (people and property) are
vulnerable worldwide (p. 289). And Hoffman (2006) had argued pre-9/11 that
religion-motivated terrorism was increasing in frequency and lethality. 23 In short,
the PEA to terrorism reveals that such practices are evolving to become less
frequent but more lethal. But as scientific as the PEA is to terrorism, it is still
founded on a problematic framework marred by arbitrariness.
The issue of the modus operandi of contemporary terrorists is further elaborated in Chapter
3.2.1.
21
See Figure 2.1.5, Figure 2.1.6, Figure 2.1.7, and Figure 2.1.8.
22
See Figure 2.1.9 and Figure 2.1.10.
23
The issue of religiously motivated terrorism will be furthered discussed in Chapter 3.
22
23
For instance, over the 27 years between 1977 and 2003 where direct comparison is
possible for incidents of international terrorism reported by the State Department
and the RAND/MIPT consortium, the two sets of data... track one another
reasonably closely, or more formally speaking, they are positively correlated
statistically with a less than 1% probability that the correlation observed arises by
chance (p<0.01).... [There is]... confirmation that the ITERATE data-set is also
essentially in line with RAND/MIPT... (Bellany, 2007, p. 103).
But the reason for the coherence between the databases may largely be due to
their subscription to the same general conception of terrorismechoing the
24
See Table 2.1.1 for a comparison of the oft-cited databases in terrorism research.
26
By comparing the USDOS and RWTID26 data for international terrorism, I have
suggested that globalized terrorism, while generally decreasing in frequency since
the mid-1980s, has been increasingly effective in causing casualties. Though my
arguments generally corroborate some impactful research analyzing the political
economy of terrorism,27 I am also somewhat skeptical of a purely empirical
approach to the study of terrorism. In other words, statistical analyses using such
databases can provide some useful insights into the phenomenon of terrorism, but
they should hardly be taken as objective facts in the scientific research of
terrorism. Furthermore, there are other dimensions of terrorism beyond statistical
patterns of incidents and casualties which are pertinent to terrorism discourse.
Benjamin (2008) argues that examining only terrorism-related deaths does not
help explain the geopolitics of the threats and dangers. Statistics only indicate the
plots that succeeded and not the terrorists grievances or ideological ambitions. It
is thus necessary to further develop the significance of terrorism beyond the
confines of statistical analyses, some issues being: the evolving understanding of
the nature of terrorism, its fundamental conception, and the role of education in its
social reproduction and change. Such a project warrants further analysis of the
essence of the phenomenon of globalized terrorism. And any investigation of its
evolution warrants a discussion, however brief, on the premodern and modern
history of terrorism (in Chapter 2.2) and the major traits marking the postmodern
species of terrorism at its current evolutionary stage (in Chapter 3).
The RWTID is often cited due to its unparalleled accessibility online and unbroken length of
data run (Bellany, 2007, p. 103).
27
See Pape (2003) and Enders & Sandler (2006).
27
Terrorism as a strategy does not rely on liberated zones as staging areas for
consolidating the struggle and carrying it further. As a strategy, terrorism remains in
the domain of psychological influence and lacks the material elements of guerrilla
warfare (Merari, 2007, p. 25).
Similar to Merari (2007), Laqueur (2003) views guerrilla warfare as not only the
liberation of territories but also having the intent to establish an alternative
28
On this issue, Habermas identifies a third strategy intermediate to guerrilla and terrorist tactics:
namely the territorially-anchored, yet indiscriminate forms of terrorism employed by Palestinian
guerrillas (Borradori, 2003).
29
See Table 2.2.1 for a comparison of the common characteristics of common forms of military
tactics. However it does not offer definitive demarcations between the different forms of political
violence. The legality distinguishing terrorism from war will be further discussed in Chapter 4.1.
30
See Table 2.2.2 for a two by two matrix summarizing the typology of terrorism according to the
dynamics of violence.
31
The issue of fundamentalism in extremist practices, including terrorism, will be further
elaborated in Chapter 3.1.
29
terrorism has been foundational to the building of empires. It entails the fearinspiring method of coercive violence employed by the authorities in order to win
a war.32 Revolutionary, oppressive, and interstate terrorism have all been
practiced since antiquity, wherever there are people governed and governing. And
fundamental to these subspecies of terrorism is the coercive incitation of
insecurity by exploiting the fear of its potential targets (Robins & Post, 1997).
Whether he holds power or is fighting it, the terrorist seeks to broadcast that
psychosis. The only difference between them is that anti-state terrorism seeks to
destabilize authority, while state terrorism seeks conversely to stabilize it and to
destabilize the population at large (Chaliand & Blin, 2007c, p. 203).
The problematic distinction (or rather indistinguishability) between war and terrorism will be
the focus of Chapter 4.2 and 4.3.
30
In the year 66, for instance, the Zealots assassinated a number of political and
religious figures. They also attacked buildings used to store archives, including loan
documents, with the aim of winning the support of a working class crushed by debt.
We know that the sicarii used daggers to cut their victims throats and that they
often acted in the midst of a crowd, for instance, in marketplaces. Such operations
reveal their desire to foment a sense of vulnerability within the population at large, a
classic tactic of terrorists to this day (Chaliand & Blin, 2007h, p. 58).
The Zealots sought political change by instilling fear in the authorities while
coercing public support through an ultraorthodox piety. Similar synergetic
fusions of religious-political ideals with coercive fear are exemplified by the
Islamic Assassins, or Hashshashin. During the eighth to thirteenth centuries the
31
From that standpoint, the case of the Assassins is not fundamentally different from
that of al Qaeda today. From his sanctuary in the mountains of Afghanistan, Osama
bin Laden led a campaign against the West similar to that of Hasan against the
Seljuks, with sometimes very similar tactics.... The propaganda drives and
recruitment and training of terrorists in both cases were very much alike, often
undertaken among the same social classes and in similar topographies (rural or
mountainous regions with populations hardened by warfare). Like Hasan, bin Laden
could not hope to topple his adversaryin his case, the West or the United States
with a simple terrorist attack, whatever its nature. Nevertheless, like al Qaeda today,
Hasans organization knew how to exploit the Achilles heel of the governing
(Seljuk) powerunrest linked to succession disputes and power strugglesto
weaken his adversary and benefit his own movement. Today, al Qaeda exploits
certain weaknesses of the Western democratic system, as well as the mentality of the
massesin particular the desire of Westerners to live in absolute security
(Chaliand & Blin, 2007h, p. 69).
Despite the resemblances, two particular differences distinguish them: First, alQaeda justifies through fatwas the targeting of all their enemies, which basically
blankets all Americans and their allies (Blanchard, 2004). Second, al-Qaeda
inhabits a world globalized by unprecedented technological advancement and
proliferationwhich potentially grants destructive capabilities far grander than
what the Assassins could have imagined or intended.33 In a sense, contemporary
globalized terrorists are genocidal in (and only in) victimizationjustifying the
targeting of an entire nation. In short, the examples of the Zealots and Assassins
have highlighted the historical tradition of religious-political fundamentalism in
fuelling extremist actions. Terror has remained faithful to a discrete selection of
victims for propaganda by deed in both premodern and modern times.
32
tool of the modern states political apparatus (Chaliand & Blin, 2007d, pp. 9192).
The French Terror prefigured a system to be found in all the great revolutions,
especially the Bolshevik Revolution: the exploitation of ideological fanaticism, the
manipulation of social tensions, and extermination campaigns against rebellious
sectors (Chaliand & Blin, 2007g, p. 102).
Stalin drew on his policys sole means of enforcement: terror. Under Lenin, the
apparatus of repression had served the party; under Stalin, it was the party that
served the apparatus of repression (p. 206).
34
The harvest was confiscated and people starved to death.... One document is an
order from Moscow to shoot people who steal food. It is signed by Stalin in red ink
(Fawkes, 2006).
The Russian government, some scholars such as Mark Tauger,34 and ironically the
Ukrainian parliament argue that the famine was naturally caused by a poor harvest
and that Stalin was only partially responsible, but the Stalinist regimes
responsibility for not only failing to alleviate but exacerbating the tragedy of an
entire population under their rule is undeniable (Coplon, 1988).
Oppressive terrorism in modernity, if one collectively sums up all global
victims resulting from state terror and genocides since the Russian Revolution,
has quite literally exterminated lives on the order of hundreds of millions.
Documented examples of oppressive terrorism are many, testifying to its
unprecedented scale and modern efficiency: Leninist-Stalinist Soviet Union,
Hitlers Germany, Maos China, Pol Pots Cambodia, the Ottoman Empire in the
Balkans, Yahya Khans East Pakistan, Macias Nguemas Equitorial Guinea,
Mengistus Ethiopia, Saddam Husseins Iraq, the Kims North Korea, Suhartos
Indonesia, Krstics Bosnia, Amins Uganda, Akayesus Rwanda, al-Bashirs
Dafur, and many others less infamous. While such astronomical numbers of
engineered deaths are difficult to grasp and contrasts sharply with the mere
hundreds of thousands of victims at the hands of revolutionary terrorists during
the same period, the quantitative difference is nevertheless besides the point
concerning the freedom from terrorin any direction. Whether due to oppressive
or revolutionary terrorism, fear, violence, coercion, and death mark the
experience. Furthermore, revolutionary terror has been evolving rapidly in recent
decades to exploit the insecurities of liberalization in a globalized world with
increasing effectiveness. Such globalized terrorism will be more deeply explored
in Chapter 3 after examining the revolutionary terrorism in the modern era.
34
Mark Tauger is currently an associate professor in history at UCLA and his commentary on the
Ukrainian
Famine
can
be
viewed
on
his
website:
http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/soviet.htm
35
36
From the terrorist perspective, the great technological breakthrough was the
invention of dynamite.... Dynamite radically changed terrorist technology and was a
major factor in the rise of anarchist and populist movements in France, Russia, and
elsewhere, including the United States (p. 180).
37
[T]he central theme of Russian terrorism remains the struggle against tsarist
despotism.... In opposition to state terrorism that enjoyed total impunity, they
offered true, immanent justice, which they proposed to deploy against those who
embodied such terrorism, whom they condemned as the hangmen of the people.
Legitimate questions can be raised about their moral right to take such action, but
they cannot be condemned as indiscriminate murderers (p. 134).
On February 2, 1905, Kalyayev waited, a bomb under his coat, for the arrival of the
Grand Duke. When the latters carriage approached, however, Kalyayev noticed
that the intended victim was accompanied by his wife and two young boys, his
nephews, the children of Grand Duke Pavel. In a spur-of-the-moment decision,
Kalyayev refrained from throwing the bomb so as not to hurt Sergeis innocent
brood (Merari, 2007, pp. 27-28).
His comrades approved Kalyayevs just inaction despite the failure of the mission.
On February 4, running, Kalyayev threw his bomb straight at Grand Duke Sergei
from a distance of four paces; Sergei was killed. Kalyayev was arrested and taken to
the Butyrki prison. A few days later he was visited by Sergeis widow, Grand
Duchess Elizabeth, who gave him an icon and told him that she would pray for him.
36
Nechayev is often considered a founding father of modern terrorism, both revolutionary and
oppressive, for his doctrine advocating its use. Proudhon (the apologist for anarchism) and
Kalyayev (a celebrated revolutionary terrorist) were his disciples.
38
The lengthy statement Kalyayev made at his trial, on April 5, 1905, explained the
position of revolutionaries who sought vengeance for state terrorism:
We are separated by mountains of corpses, by hundreds of thousands of broken
lives, by an ocean of tears and blood that is flooding the entire country in a torrent of
outrage and horror. You have declared war on the people. We have taken up the
challenge.... You are prepared to say that there are two moralities, one for mere
mortals, stating, Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and another, political,
morality for the rulers, for whom it permits everything.
Kalyayev was sentenced to death... and was hanged on May 10 (Ternon, 2007, p.
161).
As with all historical generalizations, there are notable exceptions: the Irish
Republican Army (IRA) and the Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agnoiston (EOKA, or
National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) were liberation groups that relied more
extensively on terrorism.37 The pioneering feat of the IRA inspired the
subsequent adoptions of terrorist practices by guerrilla movements for national
37
Chaliand and Blin (2007f) highlights the IRAs exceptionality for being one of the earliest
success stories of modern revolutionary terrorists and an inspirational blueprint for the subsequent
national liberation movements erupting among the European colonies following WWII.
40
liberation including those in India, the Balkans, and Algeria. While the Indian
liberation movement also led to its eventual freedom from British colonialism, it
was relatively benign when compared to the terroristic practices in the Balkans or
Algeria. The International Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO)
committed the most deadly terrorist attack of the first half of the twentieth
century by bombing the Sveta Nedelia cathedral in Sofia that killed over one
hundred people (Chaliand & Blin, 2007f, p. 191). And similar to the IMRO but
unlike the IRA, the Croatian resistance, the Ustase:
41
2.4 Conclusion
The PEA to terrorism research, while objective methodologically, is
subjective conceptually. To inform political decisions that seek support from
empirical evidence, it remains a salient approach to a phenomenon that is not so
easily recognized, let alone quantified. Nevertheless, I begin this enquiry with
this very methodology, arguing that terrorismas defined by the political
economists and the USDOSis increasingly lethal despite its gradual decline in
frequency since the 1980s. The hermeneutical art of recognizing terrorist events
38
The methodological, legal, and moral distinction between war and terror will be more fully
problematized in Chapter 4.
42
43
discourse of globalized terrorism and its distinction from war are of immediate
concern.
44
CHAPTER 3
GLOBALIZED TERRORISM
3.0 Introduction
There is something profoundly novel about the terror that we witness and
experience today. And yet, it remains essentially faithful to the tradition of
fomenting fear and unfreedom. This thesis premises that the aims of human
security and development, summarized as the freedom from fear and freedom
from want, are justifiable. Without food, water, shelter, or health care, the
impoverishedthat is, those deprived of the freedom to develop the capabilities
they find valuablestruggle daily on the brink of survival. Meeting such
essential goals of human development provide the means for expanding the
freedom of agents beyond the constraints of meeting basic needs. Yet at the same
time, lifeeven a longer lifewithout human security is to live a life of
uncertainty, fear, oppression, disempowerment, and injustice. Thus, human
freedom is constrained not only by a poverty of human development but also the
lack of human security. Interdependent and inseparable, human development and
security can be significantly hindered by coercive exercises of power such as
terrorism. It is being argued in this thesis that education is not only important for
economic development but also plays a profound and pivotal role in human
freedom by affecting the dispositions for terroristic practices. From Chapter 2,
what I am claiming is that the PEA to terrorism should be complemented by
historical and philosophical analyses. However, the reverse is also true:
Historical and philosophical theories of terrorism ought to be grounded in critical
observations, observations that are not robotically and arbitrarily restricted to a
45
Chapters 4 and 5 will mainly focus on the deconstruction of the essence of terror in an attempt to
establish a more coherent and less arbitrary theory of socio-political terrorism.
46
within the latter half of the twentieth century. Laqueur (2003) suggests that
terrorism has become indiscriminate after WWII and now global since the 1990s.
Meanwhile, Chaliand and Blin (2007b) argue that contemporary terrorism has
evolved in staggered increments following the Six-Day War in 1967.
Contemporary terrorism, to which I refer to as globalized terrorism,
share similar fundamentals with its other subspecies: the self-justifying struggle
for power, mediagenic propaganda hyperbolizing fear, and practice of extremism
driven by fundamentalist ideologies. However, globalized terrorism can also be
distinguished from its predecessors: notably by being increasingly indiscriminate
in victim selection, destructive in methodology, religiously fundamental (once
again) in ideological motivation, transnationally decentralized in structure, and
globally funded through financial networks. The history of globalized terrorism
correlates to recent developments in terrorism that are inextricablybut not
exclusivelyintertwined with the re-emergence of religious, anti-neocolonial
politics (commonly depicted as Islamism), and the coincidental developments in
transportation, communication, and weaponry. I should stress that while Islamism
is the most salient representation of terrorism post-9/11, there is a plurality of
extremist ideologies both religious and secular that have fuelled and legitimized
terrorist motivations. Thus this chapter begins with a brief but much warranted
elaboration of Islamism before highlighting four keynote developments within the
narrative of globalized terrorism: the demonstrative terrorism for the liberation of
Palestine in the late 1960s, the reincarnation of religious extremism in the Iranian
Revolution in the late 1970s, the anti-neocolonial suicide attacks in Beirut in the
early 1980s, and the international terrorism by jihadists since the 1990s.
personal level, but also for society, the political state, and the world order
(Kramer, 2003). Contemporary Islamism is postmodern in the sense of being
critical of Western modernity while retaining a fundamentalist belief attitude.
As Habermas points out, a fundamentalist belief attitude addresses not the
content but the manner of belief (Borradori, 2003, p. 18). Here, I call this
uncompromising belief attitude fundamentalism, to distinguish it from
extremism which embodies the excessive practices that may or may not result
from such rationalizations. Although Islam is commonly highlighted to be
inextricably intertwined with fundamentalism, all ideologies could in fact be held
with such a fundamentalist belief attitude (Robins & Post, 1997). As Barber
(2003) argues, the claim that radical Islam is a form of totalitarianism is a
dangerous distortion that singles out Islamic fundamentalism for problems
endemic to all religions, and indeed, to all beliefs (p. 188). While Islamists may
be denoted as fundamentalist Muslims, fundamentalism is an uncompromising
belief attitude that can be found in all sorts of ideological beliefsbe it modern,
premodern, or postmodern; religious or secular.
Fundamentalists hold a belief attitude that ignores the epistemic situation
of a pluralistic society and insist on the universally binding character and
political acceptance of their doctrine (Borradori, 2003, p. 31). Thus, Islamists
belong to but one set of fundamentalist denominations within the diverse
population of Muslims worldwide marked by a vast range of hermeneutics. The
Foucauldian concept of political spirituality is central to Islamism: as the set of
ideological beliefs and rationale that places Islamic texts and teachings as the only
and ultimate reference by which to guide personal, social, political, and legal
changes (Afary & Anderson, 2005). In other words, Islamism is marked by an
uncritical and uncompromising hermeneutic of spiritual-political dogma that is
intolerant of difference. As Robins and Post (1997) point out, the essence of
Islam is to govern all aspects of lifelife in a unified sense that is without the
demarcations of politics, religion, law, and society derived from Western
traditions. For Islamists, there is only Islam.
While such a denotation of Islamism necessitates a fundamentalist belief
attitude, it does not necessarily implicate the use of physical violence in the
pursuit of such radical changes. Therefore it is necessary to distinguish moderate
fundamentalists from those who uphold their fundamentalism in extreme ways.
Here, I call those who put their fundamentalism into forms of radical practice as
extremists. In other words, while fundamentalists may hold onto their beliefs with
an excessively uncompromising attitude, extremists defend and promote their
fundamentalism in extreme ways that breach socio-cultural norms.
Fundamentalism is the essential, underlying belief attitude that rationalizes and
motivates extremist practices.40 As a socially constituted and transferable set of
40
See Figure 3.1.1 for a framework illustrating extremism as the set of immoderate practices that
necessitates a fundamentalist belief attitude. There are far too many examples of potentially
48
mental and behavioral dispositions, extremism is embodied by the excessive, nondeliberative actions taken from an uncompromising rationale and infallible
attitude. The majority of Islamists is thus separable from the minority (who
promote and impose such ideological changes violently) according to their
extremism. The actions that distinguish extremists from mere fundamentalists
entail the willingness to extend a mentality into the realm of practiceone
marked by an excessive, fanatical fervor. In short, while fundamentalism
merely describes an uncompromising attitude towards all sorts of beliefs,
extremism describes the extension of such belief attitudes into practice. 41 Such
extremism must transcend the conventional practices that are normatively
tolerable within a particular culture. In the case of human rights discourse, an
action could be considered extremist, or too excessive, when human security
yields to the defense or imposition of a preferred belief.42
Not only then does extremism refer to the coercive violence exerted for the
sake of an ideology and its power, but it also denotes the deliberate inactions that
fail to prevent violations of human security because of such beliefs (such as the
denial of potentially life-saving medical treatment for children due to their
guardians religious beliefs).43 On this view of extremism as both the actions and
inactions founded on a fundamentalist belief attitude, Derrida thus challenges that
terrorism may not be necessarily be voluntary, conscious, organized, deliberate,
intentionally calculated but may also be passive (Borradori, 2003, p. 108). After
all, the majority of modern worlds population is oppressed by structural violence
or suffers from the terror of poverty, starvation, or preventable diseases on a daily
basis. Can such passive negligence to intervene, and thereby consent to such
imminent consequences, also be terrorism? Central to the problem of terrorism
and its perpetuation therefore is the recognition of terror and terrorists.44
In sum, jihadists are those Muslims so fundamentalist in belief attitude
that they sanctify violence, or jihad, as a justifiable way to impose Islamic law
as the blueprint for the self, society, state, and world (Laqueur, 2003). Jihadism
is thus representative of the extremist violence justified by a fundamentalist belief
attitude towards a version of Islamic political-spirituality. However, I want to
reiterate that jihadism is only one extremist version of Islam. More generally,
extremism can be the means for pursuing both religious and political goals by all
fundamentalist beliefs and the consequent extremist actions to be listed in the diagram. In other
words, any belief can be believed with a fundamentalist attitude, one that is unscrutinizable and
uncompromisable. However, all extremist acts are founded on a fundamental rationale, whatever
its causematerial or abstract, secular or religious.
41
Extremism, like fundamentalism and terrorism, tends to carry negative connotations crossculturally, which may hinder the application of the qualifier.
42
The common contention that terrorism is necessarily extremist, that is, defined by the violation
of conventional norms will be critically examined in Chapter 4.
43
See Committee on Bioethics, American Academy of Pediatrics, Religious exemptions from
child abuse statutes, Pediatrics, 1988, 81(1):169-71.
44
The recognition of terrorism and terrorists is further discussed in Chapters 4, 5, and 6.
49
In fact, Enders and Sandlers (2006) spectral analysis of terrorism incidents led to their
conclusion that the cyclical pattern in the data (see Figures 2.1.1 and 2.1.2) was primarily
attributable to the copycat effect: where a successful terrorist strategy reveals a weak spot in
security defenses and thereby showing the way for more copycat attacks. And as a cluster of
successful copycat attacks pressure governments to devise more effective counterterrorism
measures, subsequent attacks will be increasingly inhibited. News of foiled attacks will prevent
other copycats by forcing them to reconsider their strategythereby initiating a hiatus. During
such times terrorists can devise new plans, recruit new members, and acquire new weapons and
funding. This rebuilding of the terrorists resources can occur until an event occurs that
precipitates another round of attacks (Enders & Sandler, 2006, p. 69). Only this time around, the
strategy will have evolved to exploit new weaknesses in the counterterrorism measures in an
unceasing, cyclical game of cat and mouse.
50
The terrorists pushed back their deadline twice more..., knowing that each delay
only redoubled the TV audience. The demand to free our imprisoned brothers had
only symbolic value, Al-Gashey would say later. The only aim of the action was
to scare the world public during their happy Olympic Games and make them aware
of the fate of the Palestinians (Wolff, 2002, p. 4).
Despite the fact that all eleven Israeli hostages and five of the eight terrorists were
killed during the crisis, such forms of demonstrative terrorism aim to gain
publicity, for any or all of three reasons: to recruit more activists, to gain
attention to grievances from softliners on the other side, and to gain attention from
third parties who might exert pressure on the other side (Pape, 2003, p. 345).
With the waning of the mediagenic skyjackings as the terrorist strategy, a more
extreme form of destructive terrorism arose. Still, the demonstrative strategies
of the 1960s-1970s left in its wake a symbiosis between the spectacle of terror and
the modern mediaa relationship that would only grow more interdependent in a
globalizing world.
religious terrorism that can be traced all the way back to the Assassins (Chaliand
& Blin, 2007g, p. 99). As Chaliand and Blin (2007a) argue, the Iranian revolution
marked the striking success of radical Shiite Islamism as it inspired Hezbollah,
Hamas, al-Qaeda, and many others, in a tradition that sanctified martyrdom even
by means of suicide bombings against civilians (p. 221). Gr (2007) also
specifies Irans 1979 creation of the bassidje, or organized volunteers of youths
roughly fifteen years old for suicide attacks, as evidence of such religious-political
extremism. According to Gr (2007), youths under the age of 18 were enlisted
because they were enthusiastic, more manipulable, and too young to join the
army. Khomeinis political propaganda phrased in theological terms glorified
martyrdom to the extent that it was able to overcome the opposition of the
bassidjes families to their enrolment.
Previously, such themes [of martyrdom] had never been the subject of systematic
preaching. Religion... was strategically oriented to meet newly decreed political
needs.
The recently installed religious leadership adapted religion to the
circumstances with genuinely revolutionary and patriotic opportunism.... [O]ne
might wonder whether the development of suicide volunteers as a weapon could
have been an instrument of control for the leader and the governmental system....
(Gr, 2007, p. 376)
Grs (2007) example thus serves to illustrate the political nature of religious
extremism (or religious nature of political extremism).
Pape (2003) alternatively suggests that suicide terrorism is not limited to
extreme Islamists:
suicide tactics also figure prominently in nationalist
movements aiming at self-determination. He rightly points that although jihadists
receive the most Western publicity, statistically, the worlds leader in suicide
terrorism is actually the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the guerrilla
separatists in northeast Sri Lanka holding a Marxist-Leninist ideology (Pape,
2003, p. 343).
The LTTE alone accounts for 75 of the 186 suicide terrorist attacks from 1980 to
2001. Even among Islamic suicide attacks, groups with secular orientations account
for about a third of these attacks... (Pape, 2003, p. 343).
52
countries and societies (p. 19). However, the historical evidence fails to show
that the rise of suicide tactics is predominantly and directly due to the rise of
jihadism. As Laqueur (2003) also points out, the secular Tamil Tigers...
produced more suicide bombers in the 1990s than any other terrorist movement...
(p. 26). In other words, extremism can arise from secular, political ideology
including nationalismjust as it can arise from religious doctrine. Alcorta and
Sosis (2005) emphasize that the adoption of communal rituals and initiation rites
by nominally secular terrorists groups, such as the LTTE, and their quasideification of Marxist-Leninist ideals, blurs the line between what is secular and
what is religious (p. 110). In terms of extremism then, one wonders whether a
secular/religious distinction is even necessary.
Another issue is the suicide qualifier of terrorism. According to Pape
(2003):
What distinguishes a suicide terrorist is that the attacker does not expect to survive a
mission and often employs a method of attack that requires the attackers death in
order to succeed (such as planting a car bomb, wearing a suicide vest, or ramming
an airplane into a building). In essence, a suicide terrorist kills others at the same
time that he kills himself.... In practice, however, suicide terrorists often seek
simply to kill the largest number of people (p. 345).
Although suicide terrorism does appear to be a new methodology that entails the
killing of the terrorist during the act in order to maximize casualties, a suicide
terrorist may not be so easily distinguishable from a non-suicide terrorist on the
basis of the terrorists expectation to survive the attack. As Ternon (2007) points
out, perhaps with the exception of oppressive terrorists, most revolutionary
terrorists since antiquity knew that they were taking great risk and that death was
the most likely outcome of their terrorist action (p. 132). The expectation of
deathwhether in the preparation of the bombs, carrying out of the mission,
consequence of being captured, or affiliation with an outlawed groupmust
figure prominently in the mind of any calculating terrorist. Such presuppositions
of death are succinctly captured in Issas exhortations to his fellow non-suicide
terrorists on the eve of the 1972 Munich Massacre:
From now on, consider yourself dead. As killed in action for the Palestinian cause...
(Wolff, 2002, p. 3).
53
This is one possible correlation between the rise of extremist fundamentalism and suicide
terrorism: Promises of a glorious and eternal afterlife post-martyrdom can provide the incentive
for rational terrorists to choose the more effective suicide tactics. Consequently, any PEA to
terrorism founded on a theory of rational choice may neglect other important rationales in the mind
of terrorists.
54
suicide terrorist attacks between 1980 and 2001, whereas less than one person was
killed on average in each of the 4,155 terrorist incidents worldwide during the
same periodif the unusually large number of fatalities from 9/11 are excluded
from the calculations (p. 346). Excluding 9/11, suicide attacks from 1980 to 2001
accounted for only three percent of all terrorist attacks but 48 percent of all
terrorism-related deaths (Pape, 2003). This finding then suggests one factor that
accounts for the increase in casualties from terrorism despite the decrease in
incidents as illustrated in Figures 2.1.9 and 2.1.10. Enders and Sandlers (2006)
copycat theory offers a corroborative account for the growth of suicide tactics.
Tending to be harder to deter, causing more casualties, generating more publicity,
instilling more fear, and being more coercive, each successful suicide attack
becomes an inspirational model for subsequent copycat attackseven if terrorist
motivations and goals are different. In other words, the perceived effectiveness of
the strategy makes its adoption by other potential terrorists more appealing. But
this theory only explains its propagation and not its cause.
In accounting for the motivation of suicide terrorists, Papes (2003) thesis
is that the resentment of a foreign occupier in a home territory is the central
motive for all suicide terrorist campaigns.
From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, every suicide terrorist
campaign from 1980 to 2001 has been waged by terrorist groups whose main goal
has been to establish or maintain self determination for their communitys homeland
by compelling an enemy to withdraw (Pape, 2003, p. 344).
Atran (2006) rejects Papes (2005) attribution of suicide terrorism to the political
goal of self-determination by arguing that religion, especially extremist Islamism,
is now more than ever at the heart of suicide terrorist motivation. Atran (2006)
cites that the LTTE have carried out only two confirmed suicide attacks since
2002 while various Iraqi groups in 2005 alone carried out more than 400 suicide
attacks killing more than 2,000 peopleclaiming more victims than in the entire
history of the LTTE. Rather than taking on either side of this common,
dichotomous debate, Alcorta and Sosis (2005) and Laqueur (2003) reasonably
view the phenomenon of suicide terrorism as being founded on pseudo-religious
ideology. The blur between religious and political ideologies in terrorism is
especially problematic with the evident spirituality in the secular and the secular
in the religious.47 In other words, suicide terrorists can be regarded as highly
determined individuals whose rationale for self-sacrifice is framed within some
communal cause. Such ideological motivations are not well described as being
either religious or secular: They are instead unified in a fundamentalist belief
47
Consider for example the many factions of the PLO, the LTTE, Aum Shinrikyo, and the many
Zionist and jihadist groups.
55
The question is one of power. A State in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of
its own destiny. It is this factor which makes neo-colonialism such a serious threat
to world peace.... Neo-colonialism is also the worst form of imperialism. For those
who practise it, it means power without responsibility and for those who suffer from
48
56
There are many publications on the issue of anti-Americanism. In the confines of this thesis,
anti-Americanism is one central dimension of anti-neocolonialismwith America being a
neocolonial power in a postcolonial world.
57
In Sudan, he [Osama bin Laden] established an Islamic Army Shura that was to
serve as the coordinating body for the consortium of terrorist groups with which he
was forging alliances.... In building this Islamic army, he enlisted groups from
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia,
Morocco, Somalia, and Eritrea. Al Qaeda also established cooperative but less
formal relationships with other extremist groups from these same countries; from the
African states of Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda; and from the Southeast
Asian states of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Bin Ladin maintained
connections in the Bosnian conflict as well. The groundwork for a true global
terrorist network was being laid (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States, 2004, p. 58).
With their military training, experience, and resources in asymmetric warfare and
their validated victory over the Soviet superpower, the jihadist movement became
international, lending their support to extreme Islamist movements around the
world. Because global jihadis... fought against perceived global domination,
their enemies were primarily neocolonial state powers (Atran, 2006, p. 131).
Without any legal legitimacy in engaging and realistic hope of defeating through
conventional war the focal point of their ressentimentwhich is primarily the
Israelis and Americans after the collapse of the Soviet Unionjihadism from
1991 to 2001 is predominantly terroristic in strategy. The car-bombing of the
World Trade Center in New York in 1993, the Khobar Towers truck-bombing in
Saudi Arabia in 1996, the suicide truck-bombings of the US embassies in East
Africa (Kenya and Tanzania) in 1998, the suicide boat-bombings of the American
warship the USS Cole in 2000, and the infamous 9/11 suicide attacks on America
in 2001; are the anti-American examples illustrating how the anti-neocolonial yet
globalizing jihad has evolved from being regional guerrillas into globalized
terrorists. This loose federation of terrorist groupsunited by jihadismis
thus central to the new globalization of terrorism (Laqueur, 2003, p. 50).
A brief historical overview of recent manifestations of terrorism has
highlighted that:
(1) Terrorism, though always publicity-minded, has become increasingly
destructive.
(2) Though the religious/secular dichotomy of extremism is problematic in
concept, it is prominent in contemporary terrorism discourses.
58
I partially agree with Laqueur (2003) that todays terrorism is, to a significant
degree, unprecedented primarily in methodology. However, delineating from the
common new versus old dichotomy, terrorism as a practice can be better
understood by analyzing its morphology within its evolutionary ancestry.
Contemporary manifestations of terror cannot be completely distinguished from
that practiced in the pasteven if it has been evolving particularly rapidly with
globalization. The traits marking globalized terrorism can be better understood
when compared to its antecedents in three major respects: organization, modus
operandi, and victim targeting.
3.2.1 Organization
The official end of the Soviet-Afghan War in 1989 marked the beginning
of jihadism as a global movement, as discussed in Chapter 3.1.5. But a
subsequent war in Afghanistan, part of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)
59
declared by the US-led coalition in response to 9/11, has accelerated the evolution
of the already globalizing jihad. The perceived success of 9/11 by the jihadists
facilitated the identification of al-Qaeda as the nemesis of American hegemony.
While there are other transnational terrorist organizations that subscribe to various
fundamentalist ideologies endorsing extremism, the GWOT has made Osama bin
Laden, al-Qaeda, and jihadists in general the icons of contemporary terrorists.
Because war is a convention between legitimate political authorities, the legal and
political status of al-Qaeda was further legitimized when America declared war
on the non-state organization (Feiser, 2004). Paradoxically then, the GWOT has
made these globalized terrorists both weaker and stronger at the same time. While
al-Qaeda may have been singled-out and physically disrupted by the many facets
of counterterrorism,51 they are symbolically stronger as its consequence.
...[I]t has morphed and widely proliferated into something far more difficult, if not
impossible, to destroy, because there now exists no corporal centralized command
structure to attack. Physical attacks against it have become much more difficult,
therefore. And the ideological attacks and measures required to discredit, delegitimize and dissolve the trademark have barely been mounted (Feiser, 2004).
Al-Qaedas symbolic power has attracted global fans to its brand name. Thus by
highlighting al-Qaeda as Americas foremost public enemy, it increasingly
embodies anti-Americanism, a favorable and attractive quality with some
populations in certain parts of the world. In other words, the GWOT
simultaneously advertises an al-Qaeda brand name that fills certain transnational,
cultural niches. To identify with al-Qaeda is to be an anti-American rebel,
thereby imbued with the symbolic capital that comes with such branding in
particular societies. The contingent development of a global al-Qaeda network as
being the brand of jihadismand terrorism in generalis made manifest in its
organization and operations.
Not only did the GWOT help define and advertise al-Qaeda as the global
brand of jihadism, it forced local jihadist groups to further disperse
decentralizing its leadership into autonomous cells networked through a unified
ideology. The elimination of the physical al-Qaeda nexus resulted in the
decentralization of its regional elements into like-minded, local leadership
groups (Feiser, 2004). Hoffman (2007) distinguishes the al-Qaeda locals from
those in the network: the former being directly trained, funded, and organized
by al-Qaeda while the latter are often homegrown cells that claim al-Qaeda
membership and subscribe to their ideological brand of jihadism. Known as
sleeper cells, these indigenous terrorists usually inhabit the targeted
51
Counterterrorism includes the offensive measures that attack terrorists, assets (including
resources and infrastructure), and their supporters (including safe havens and sponsors); and the
defensive measures that preemptively deters future attacks (Enders & Sandler, 2006).
60
They were part of a wider array of self-activated cells across Europe and the gulf,
linked by an ideology of radicalism and violence, and by affection for bin Laden.
They were affiliates, not tightly tied to a broader al-Qaeda structure, but still
attentive to the wishes of bin Laden or al-Zawahiri. Al-Ayeri passed al-Zawahiris
message to the terror cell in the U.S. They backed off (Suskind, 2006, p. 7).
In other words, the cellular networks that have come to define the structure of
globalized terrorists are franchises of the organization. And while their evolution
was accelerated by the GWOT, it is facilitated by the instruments of
globalization.
One inherent and constant trait of revolutionary terrorist organizations is
their need to remain clandestine in operation. Because such asymmetric strategies
are practiced by those unable to engage in open war, secrecy is needed to
effectively foment paranoid fear. Globalization is thus instrumental for the
dispersions of clandestine groups. Given that internal communication is
necessary to consolidate unity and coordinate operations, information and
communication technologies provide the efficiency and anonymity needed for
globalized terrorists. While transportation technologies facilitate the ease of
international travel, the internet in particular facilitates the geographical dispersal
and networking of memberships: providing sites for propaganda, recruitment, and
instruction.52 Not only have globalizing technologies facilitated the evolution of
terrorist organizations into global networks, but policies conducive to
globalization have also been instrumental. Democratization promotes the right for
52
The role of the internet in globalized terrorist groups is further discussed in Chapter 3.2.2.
61
citizens to leave or enter their country, thereby enhancing the ease of transnational
movements.53
Furthermore, economic globalization also facilitates the financing of
terrorist organizations.
With the capitalist movement, wealth is increasingly
accumulated individually and controlled privately. Moreover, the policies and
technologies that promote free and unregulated flows of capital in neoliberal
economics have led to a dizzying, global maze of virtual trades and transactions
(Beck, 2000). Affluent sympathizers can more efficiently and anonymously
provide monetary support to preferred groups. According to the 9/11 Commission
Report (2004), there is a global financial network known as the Golden Chain
that channels donations between primarily Saudi and other Persian Gulf
financiers, charities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private
groupsincluding al-Qaeda (p. 55).
Bin Ladin and the Afghan Arabs drew largely on funds raised by this network,
whose agents roamed world markets to buy arms and supplies for the mujahideen, or
holy warriors (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
2004, p. 55).
The origins of this well-established chain is ironically linked once again to the
Soviet-Afghan War, during which Saudi Arabia and the United States supplied
billions of dollars worth of secret assistance to rebel groups in Afghanistan
fighting the Soviet occupation (National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States, 2004, p. 55).54 And because this funding was secretive, the
Pakistani military intelligence service was employed to train the rebels in covert
methods for channeling these resources. According to the 9/11 Commission
Report (2004), Osama bin Laden both raised financial support for and sponsored
terrorist activities given his affluent background and familial connections:
53
See Chapter 3.2.3 for the relation between democratic rights and terrorist targeting.
According to Barber (2003), the Soviets were defeated by the jihadists partly due to the secret
support from the US, who counted as friends all who pretended not to be its enemies (p. 21).
54
62
Because of the salience and thus extensive research on al-Qaeda and its
operations, its example is important in understanding how globalized terrorists are
organized and how such organizations are changing.
55
While I agree that jihadism, or extremist Islamism, is the most prominent in terrorism discourse
post-9/11, a reassessment of the essence of terrorism in Chapters 4 and 5 suggests that jihadism is
merely one narrow representation of terrorism within a vast socio-political spectrum. In other
words, globalized terrorists do not only include jihadists, but also many other extremists.
63
global terrorist networks. Thus, the main battle now is as much over ideological
legitimacy in the eyes of the global public as it is on the physical aspects of war.
They carried BlackBerrys, CDs holding high-resolution satellite images like those
used for Google Earth maps, and multiple cellphones with switchable SIM cards that
would be hard to track. They spoke by satellite telephone. And as television
channels broadcast live coverage of the young men carrying out the terrorist attack,
TV sets were turned on in the hotel rooms occupied by the gunmen.... This is
terrorism in the digital age (Wax, 2008).
The terrorists had in fact been through virtual rehearsals, created by satellite
images and videos of their target sites. In terms of the assault, the terrorists
communicated with each other on mobile phones and used information on the
internet to strategically counter the tactics of the Black Cat commandos, whose
every move was unwittingly broadcasted by the swarm of television media and
exploited by the terrorists.56
When TV stations showed every twist and turn of the masked Black Cat commandos
sliding down ropes from helicopters to rooftops near a Jewish center called the
Chabad House... [s]everal TV stations... told their anchors to stop reporting on the
positions of commandos (Wax, 2008).
Despite ceasing the television broadcasts, online sources such as YouTube and
Twitter continued to update information as eye witnesses and even hostages near
the attack sites exchanged information with the outside world. The terrorists also
56
The Black September members similarly foiled rescue attempts by German police forces during
the hostage crisis in the Munich Olympic village in 1972 when the terrorists were able to watch the
policemens covert rescue live on television.
64
robbed hostages of their mobile devices, using them for intelligence. And with
respect to the dissemination of propaganda, beyond the obvious media and
political attention attained just from the act itself, the terrorist group Deccan
Mujaheddin claimed responsibility for the attacks through an e-mail sent by a
computer traced to Moscow.
When the gunmen communicated, they used satellite telephones and called
voice-over-Internet-protocol phone numbers to conceal their trail (Wax, 2008).
In fact, just one month prior to the Mumbai Attacks, American intelligence
agencies had reported worrying signs of terrorists exploiting communication
technologies, such as the blogging sites of Twitter, claiming it was already being
used to post and support extremist ideologies and perspectives and as social
networks for operations within the US (Reed, 2008).
The report also claims that satellite navigation and mapping tools have been
discussed in al-Qaeda forums. One discussion post is said to have examined the use
of Nokia's mobile phone navigation tool for Specialist use in Marksmanship,
Border Crossings and in Concealment of Supplies. A member of another forum
suggested internet or VOIP technology could be used alongside voice changing
software to disguise a users identity (Reed, 2008).
No more need for Afghanistan: would-be terrorists can download manuals and
videotapes that show them how to make explosive vests, car bombs, chemical
weapons and poisons, and a library of tips on how to use them all effectively. The
danger is not just theoretical. There is evidence that some of the newest terrorists
were recruited and sometimes trained this way (Worth, 2006).
65
Atran (2006) further adds that, between 2001 and 2006, pro-Islamist websites
have increased from less than 20 to over 3,000including roughly 70 militant
sites that have formed a collective virtual jihadi university (p. 135).57 The
Global Islamic Media Front describes the Al Qaeda University of Jihad
Studies [as] a decentralized university without geographical borders where
graduates learn to advance the cause of a global caliphate through morale
boosting and bombings by specializing in electronic jihad, media jihad, spiritual
and financial jihad (Atran, 2006, p. 135).
Web sites such as that of the Global Islamic Media Front... have become the new
organizational agents in jihadi networks, replacing physical agents such as bin
Laden.... [M]edia sites... increasingly control the distribution of knowledge and
resources (Atran, 2006, p. 136).
...edited snippets and sound bites favored by todays mass media have been used
with consummate skill by jihadi leaders and ideologues.... As a result, deeply local
and historically nuanced interpretations of religious canon have been flattened and
homogenized across the Muslim world and beyond, in ways that have nothing in
particular to do with actual Islamic tradition but everything to do with a polar
reaction to perceived injustice in the prevailing unipolar world. At the same time,
the historical narrative, however stilted or fictitious, translates personal and local ties
within and across small groups into a profound connection with the wider Muslim
community... (Atran, 2006, p. 136).
Atran (2006) cites Luis Miguel Ariza, Virtual Jihad: The Internet as the Ideal Terrorism
Recruiting
Tool,
Scientific
American,
January
2006,
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000B5155-2077-13A8-9E4D83414B7F0101 and AlFarouq jihadi forum, October 7, 2005, http://www.Al-farouq.com/vb/.
66
mode of attack for terrorists, accounting for roughly half of all transnational
terrorist incidents. However, the exploitation of contemporary technologies has
been incrementally modified towards effectuating maximal casualties. To
reiterate the discussion in Chapter 3.1, the adoption of suicide terrorism as the
modus operandi of globalized terrorists is significant because:
(1) The technique aims and tends to maximize casualties (Pape, 2003).58
(2) It is the strategy of globalized terroristspracticed across countries and
culturesand is nearly synonymous with the contemporary notion of
terror itself (Laqueur, 2003).
Suicide attacks are currently the most terrifying form of terrorism and their
frequency is accelerating worldwide.59
As Atran (2006) argues, suicide tactics are responsible for a majority of
all terrorism-related casualties and serve as banner actions for a thoroughly
modern, global vanguard for a massive, media-driven transnational political
awakening (pp. 127-128). While extremism fosters the growth of increasingly
destructive forms of terrorism, the novelty of suicide terrorism is primarily
methodological: The self-destruction of the terrorist is not merely an incidental
cost, but an essential part of a strategy to maximize casualties, fear, and publicity.
It is here that the suicide terrorism of today differs from that practiced by the
premodern and modern revolutionary terrorists.
Though also presuming
martyrdom they were specific in victimization in order to win support. In fact,
some Russian anarchists did not attempt to escape in order to have the opportunity
to deliver swaying political speeches at their trials before being executed (HubacOcchipinti, 2007). Globalized terrorists synergistically harness modern constructs
to turn themselves into organic smart bombs. Exploiting mundane civil
insecuritiesthrough parked cars and trucks, airplanes, backpacks, articles of
clothing on men, women, and even childrena more powerful sense of paranoid
fear can be coerced. Such propaganda-by-carnage is highly mediagenic and
fearsome.
In sum, suicide terrorism is effective from the terrorists standpoint: for
pragmatic, ideological, and economic reasons. Pragmatically, suicide terrorism
tends to lead to more casualties, attract greater media attention, generate more
fear, be easier to plan without the intent of escape, and be difficult to deter once
the terrorist is armed and has initiated action (Laqueur, 2003). Ideologically,
suicide terrorists of any era are motivated by a fundamentalist attitude towards a
certain uncompromisable belief, a cause worthy of martyrdom. Economically,
families of Islamist martyrs are commonly provided with housing benefits, free
trips to Mecca, financial compensation of roughly $25,000 USDwhereas the
58
In Papes (2003) seminal paper, suicide terrorism inflicts 13 casualties per incident while
conventional terrorists have inflicted less than one casualty per incident on average.
59
See Figure 3.2.1 and Figure 3.2.2.
67
families of those killed in open combat with the Israelis were paid merely two
thousand [US] dollars (Laqueur, 2003, p. 92). Built on the earlier arguments
made for the pertinence of extremism, anti-neocolonialism, and the media, the
modus operandi of globalized terrorists embodies the exploitation of instruments
of globalization in order to maximize casualties, and thereby, publicity, fear, and
coercive power.
... [In] order to draw attention to the justification of their cause, the more recent
brand has turned to indiscriminate attacks aiming to cause multiple casualties. In
doing so, they have exchanged the propaganda value of justification for greater
shock value, ensuring massive media coverage. This change seems to reflect the
adaptation of the strategy to the age of television (Merari, 2007, p. 33).
60
Noncombatant is defined in Chapter 2.1.1 as referring to civilians and off-duty military and
state officers.
61
See Chapter 2.3.3.
68
As argued in Chapter 2.3.2, oppressive terror varies in the degree of victim selectivity: from the
stringent to the genocidal. Revolutionary terrorism also demonstrates such variance.
63
See Chapter 3.1.3.
69
Though failing to cause mass destruction, a counter example is the unsuccessful truckbombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 which, according to the 9/11
Commission Report (2004), was intended to kill 250,000 people (p. 72).
70
To date, evidence indicates that liberal democracies are more plagued by terrorism
that their autocratic counterparts, even though grievances may be greater in
autocracies... (Enders & Sandler, 2006, p. 25).
Although Iraq has been far more brutal toward its Kurdish population than has
Turkey, violent Kurdish groups have used suicide attacks exclusively against
democratic Turkey and not against the authoritarian regime in Iraq. There are plenty
of national groups living under authoritarian regimes with grievances that could
possibly inspire suicide terrorism, but none have (Pape, 2003, p. 350).
profound role of the media cannot be ignored. As Chaliand and Blin (2007b)
argue, terrorism may be more effective against democratic countries than against
dictatorships not because dictatorships are more efficient at finding and
punishing terroristsalthough they do have greater leeway than democracies in
doing sobut because the impact of an attack is broader in a free country than in
one whose people have no voice in government and the media serve or are
controlled by the state (p. 8). This complex tension yet symbiotic relationship
between democratic freedom, the media, and terrorism mark a crucial debate in
the discourse of globalized terrorism today.65
If democracies constitute the liberties and rights that protect all citizens
(including clandestine terrorists) in its society, then any counterterrorist measures
would also constrain the liberties and rights of the general population. Terrorism
in democratic societies is like a tumor that grows in and yet feeds off of its host
using up its biochemical and metabolic resources, and fanatically unwilling to
communicate with and consider other cellular messengers. And when treated by
radio-chemical means, both the tumor and healthy cells in the host inevitably
weaken. Thus, if revolutionary terrorism is like cancer, then globalized terrorism
is its metastasis. But one important clarification is that while there may be some
conceptual and statistical correlations between democracy and terrorism, there is
the dangerous and arguably false implication that democracy is a cause of
terrorism. After all, the practice of terrorism precedes the existence of modern
democratic societies. Rather, globalized terrorism is especially effective in a free
society with the mass media, which developed in tandem with the rise of modern
democratic institutions during the late 18th century. In other words, the
development of democratic systems that protect the civil freedoms and political
rights of its citizens and institutionsincluding the mediacreates an
autonomous society more easily exploited by terrorists. But most importantly,
such statistical arguments linking terrorism with democracy not only neglects the
occurrence of the other subspecies of terror, but dichotomizes the diversity of
governance that exists (as being either democratic or autocratic). Thus further
examination of the roots of all four ideal types of terrorism is warranted and will
be explored in subsequent chapters.
3.3 Conclusion
The globalizing society prepares the ground for new and multifaceted
conflicts, ideologies and alliances, which go beyond all hitherto existing
schematizations (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2006, pp. 150-151). With the
changing world, the morphological variations of globalized terrorism are evident:
marked by increasingly globalized terrorists that exploit the instruments of
65
72
66
While varying in primacy, many authors have noted the concern of indifferent terrorists armed
with WMD: including Enders & Sandler, 2006; Hoffman, 2006; Jenkins, 2007; Laqueur, 2003;
Lia, 2005; and Peters, 2005a. The 9/11 Commission Report (2004) further suggests evidence that
terrorists groups such as al-Qaeda have actively sought to gain access to resources that could be
used in nuclear or radiological weapons. The theoretical and statistical assessments of such threats
vary widely and will be beyond the scope of this thesis.
67
Even during the writing process of this very chapter there have been notable examples of such
novel developments of globalized terrorists such as the London plane bombers, the New York
synagogue bombers, the Colorado subway bombers, the Detroit Islamists, or the Nigerian plane
bomber. See Chu and Rotella (2009); Daly, Gendar, and Kennedy (2009); Cruickshank (2009);
Bunkley (2009); and Eggen, DeYoung, and Hsu (2009) respectively.
68
See Chapter 2.3.1.
73
69
70
74
CHAPTER 4
THE ESSENCE OF TERRORISM
4.0 Introduction:
If politics is the continuation of war by other means, or vice versa as
Clausewitz (2006) argues, then terrorism is merely the continuation of the politics
of war by other means. But how are these means different? Before reconsidering
the notion of terror, I have argued in the previous chapters that:
1) While the PEA empirically grounds terrorism research, it is also
necessarily narrow and arbitrarily constrained in theory.
2) While a historical approach helps to contextualize the evolution of terror,
such a genealogy is largely defined by the discourse of terrorism itself.
In other words, how terrorism is defined dictates what incidents are
recognized as such.
3) The salient discourse of terrorism at the moment can be generally typified
as globalized terrorism.
Because this thesis ultimately contends for the expansion of human freedom
through the cultivation of an intercultural ethos, the discourse of globalized
terrorism not only needs to be constructed (as I have done in previous chapters)
but deconstructed to uncover its limitations. Prerequisite to being able to
conceptualize a nontrivial response to terrorism is a careful rethinking about what
terrorism constitutes. As Habermas argues, history needs to be appropriated
critically (Borradori, 2003, p. 13). Therefore this chapter is necessarily
philosophical: to critically deconstruct the essence of terrorism previously
constructed in hopes of arriving at a less arbitrary and paradoxical position.
The undermining and transcending of the discourse of globalized terrorism
ultimately betrays the necessity for a more coherent framework. Through an
evolutionary perspective of the socio-politics of the human animal, not only can
the moral controversy of terrorism but of all forms of violencefrom legitimate
wars to illegitimate terrorismcan be evaluated more coherently. This consistent
yet adaptive approach to the moral evaluation of violent conflicts offers a more
transcultural framework for analysis. The imperative for expanding a shared
ethos that values the freedom from fear can serve to mitigate the reciprocation and
75
71
76
See Figure 4.1.1 for a graphical summary of the distribution of the definitional elements of
terrorism.
73
In fact Laqueur, a respondent to the survey in Schmid and Jongmans (2005) research,
commented that: Ten years of debates on typologies and definitions have not enhanced our
knowledge of the subject to a significant degree. [T]he study of terrorism can manage with a
minimum of theory (p. 3).
74
See Figure 4.1.2 showing the condensation of the definitional elements into seven core
elements.
75
See Table 4.1.1 for a list of the seven core definitional elements of terrorism.
76
The issue of whether terrorism can be practiced by individuals on the social scale will be the
focus of the next chapter.
77
77
The presumption that all terrorist acts are necessarily committed according to a purely rational
choice will be challenged in greater depth in Chapter 5, where the sociological dispositions
inculcated in ones social field is also taken into consideration.
78
Derrida therefore refers to such violenceboth legitimate and illegitimateas gewalt, drawn
from Walter Benjamins essay Critique of Violence (Borradori, 2003). I will retain the usage of
the word violence (as opposed to gewalt) to not only refer to both authorized and unauthorized
uses of physical and symbolic forces. Symbolic violence is the often taken-for-granted modes of
domination that, through soft power, are subsumed within the mundane beliefs, practices, and
structures of social life (Bourdieu, 2001). The problematic conventions distinguishing legitimate
and illegitimate forms of violence will be further highlighted in Chapter 4.2.
78
79
80
81
See Table 4.1.2 for a summary of the current UN legal conventions on terrorism.
Although Enders and Sandler (2006) see the international conventions of the UN as being
effectively futile, they problematically recommend proactive counterterrorist measures based on
what is a national (arguably American) discourse.
82
81
83
Some citizens do not recognize the authority of the state when dealing with interpersonal
disputes. Even less would acknowledge the authority of a fellow citizen, one without state
authority. Similarly, on the international level, not every state recognizes the authority of a
government of governments such as the UN and its policieslet alone those mandated by a
particular nation-state. Thus, the problem of legitimate authority is central to contemplating the
transnational reach of international law and institutions.
82
The arguable exception is the 2005 convention against nuclear terrorism, which is anticipatory
(if one does not consider the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII by the US as
terrorism).
85
As I will highlight in Chapter 4.3.3.1, some people may be so accustomed to terror that they
have normalized it into part of their socio-political experience. Consequently, the education of
human rightsnamely the right to be free from want and fearis crucial to expanding the
recognition, condemnation, and mitigation of terror.
83
revolution: within all armed conflicts where the basic human rights are grossly
violated (Schmid & Jongman, 2005, p. 18).
In response to this moral ambiguity, Rodin (2004) draws on the doctrine
of double effect to overhaul the JWT (p. 762). He asserts that intentional harm
to noncombatants is unconditionally immoral. Emphasizing the fundamental right
of noncombatants to be immune from deliberate or reckless violence, Rodin
(2004) concludes that the unintentional killing of some noncombatants in the
course of military operations is morally culpable to the same degree and for the
same reasons that typical acts of terrorism are culpable (p. 769). Consequently,
noncombatants possess the stringent right of immunity from violence that cannot
be traded for collectivized interests of a greater number of noncombatants or...
some other greater good (Rodin, 2004, p. 755). For McPherson (2007)and
even more so for Rodin (2004)the morality of war and terrorism are as
distinguishable within the spectrum of political violence as yellow is from orange
in the visible spectrum. Given the indistinguishability between the moral essences
of war and terror, their legal distinction becomes arbitrary and moot. Moreover,
as Seto (2002) points out, it is often the powerful that make the laws and the
powerless that lack political legitimacy.
Thus if terrorism is legally
distinguished from war, many of the most powerful belligerents would be selfbestowed with a license to monopolize violence and be insulated from its legal
and moralresponsibilities (Seto, 2002). The imperative then is to consider
war and terrorism as indistinguishable on moral grounds but merely differing
in convention.
85
different conflicting moral frameworks and (3) the imperative for cultural change
through interculturalism.86
86
The problem is particularly acute in the case of terrorism, since terrorism commonly
involves violence between different moral cultures. Terrorists typically believe that
they are engaged in a righteous cause; they believe their acts are moral and
justified.... But if terrorists believe that they are right, and we believe they are
wrong, who then is correct (Seto, 2002, p. 1244)?
Moreover, the MOT may not only be diagnosed deontologically but also
consequentiallythat is, by considering its cause. For example, after defending
at length why governments should deontologically abide by the JWT, Walzer
(2004) consequentially argues that the JWT may be overridden in supreme
emergenciesduring moments when our deepest values and our collective
survival are in imminent danger.... (pp. 33-34).89 Thus for the consequentialist,
88
Noncombatant is defined in Chapter 2.1.1 as referring to any civilian or off-duty military and
state officer.
89
Walzers (2004) arguments on political violence are neither completely deontological nor
consequentialist. He instead contends that the strict application of either ethical position is
87
untenable. Without providing a resolution, Walzer (2004) asserts that one can only hold such
paradoxical tensions as a feature of our moral reality (p. 40).
88
by popular cause and the universality of human rights as argued by Rodin (2004).
The consequentialist position is untenable because:
(1) To exhaust every alternative is theoretically impossible. Given the
uniqueness of each temporal moment, contingent changes do not
necessitate that past failures will always continue to fail in the future.
Other than the limits of ones mentality and attitude, there are no definitive
indications when subsequent (non-terroristic) attempts will no longer have
the potential to yield meaningful changes (or that subsequent terroristic
methods necessarily will lead to the desired progress).
(2) Nonviolent options may be eliminated not in practice but in principle.
Fundamentality allows the conclusion, that the MET is the only means
feasible, to be drawn a priori. In other words, the failure of legitimate
options (such as debate, protests, demonstrations, or even warfare) may in
fact be a belief not based on experiments and observations.
(3) The attainment of the terrorists aims may not be clearly observable or
tenable. Their failure to see results depends on their hermeneutical
horizonthat is, their rational expectations, dedication to observation,
methodology of measurement, and time frame allotted to allow for change.
As Walzer (2004) points out, politics is an art of repetition and a
persevering science (p. 53).
(4) The consequences of the terrorist act are uncertain. The contingent results
are not easily predictable according to simplistic, causal rationales
especially when applied to phenomena as complex as political violence
and change. And the retrospective justification of terrorists (such as
Mandela and Begin) does not conclusively demonstrate that the terrorist
acts were the cause of the good outcome. One therefore cannot be
certain that the desired end (such as the ending of apartheid) would not
have contingently occurred in an alternate history without resorting to the
MET.
(5) The intended good is relative. Only those concurring with the
goodness of the intent and outcome justify the terrorist act. This
goodness must be universal for the consequentialist if it should be
imposedeven violently. Yet the argument is paradoxical: The intended
good must be deontologically defensible in order to consequentially
justify the MET. Because the very premise of consequentialism is that
the ends justifies the means, the consequentialists apology for the MET
paradoxically asserts that the ends of the means is unconditionally good.
Whether a cause or consequence is good for one cultural group may not
be likewise for others. It is in fact this lack of a supra-cultural position
that undermines deontology. Such intercultural conflict thereby fuels the
unceasing perpetuation of terrorism/counterterrorism.
89
There are many historical examples of such moral contentions: Take the case of the freedomfighting mujahedin and the terrorist group al-Qaeda. Or consider the actions (or rather inaction)
of the Pakistani government in response to the 2008 Mumbai attacks. See Rondeaux and Whitlock
(2008), and Warrick and Lakshmi (2008).
91
See Figure 4.3.1 for a moral scale of assassinable victims represented as the visible spectrum
(Merari, 2007, p. 28).
92
Most crucial is whether the belligerent group has taken into consideration the moral viewpoints
of their targets before conducting their attacks. This moral system for the consideration of
transcultural conflicts will be the main focus of the next Chapter 4.3.3.
90
When Cedarbaum asked whether that included children, Shahzad said women and
children had died in U.S. strikes in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Its a war, he
said, describing himself as part of the answer for Muslims fighting that war
(Susman, 2010).
Not only did Shahzad not consider his actions unjust, but he did not even consider
them criminal.
Therefore, despite the paradoxical tension between the
deontological and consequential approaches, the consideration of the morality of
transcultural conflicts may find more coherence from an evolutionary theory of
morality (ETM). Advantageous to the ETM is that by construing moral systems
as adaptations for survival, moral conflicts may be seen more coherently across
cultures, allowing for intercultural evolution.
4.3.2.1 An evolutionary theory of morality
Drawn from Seto (2002), the premises are that:
(1) Human psychology and behaviors are selected through evolutionary
forces.
(2) Because individuals exhibiting particular attitudes and behaviors are more
likely to survive and reproduce, these will, after generations, become more
common within the local population.
(3) Thus adaptive reproduction underlies the evolution of moral behaviors,
including terrorism.
The ETM is not genetic determinism but rather assumes that environmental input
during ontogeny and social input during maturation are critical for the
expression and adaptive functioning of many traitsincluding that of morality
(Sosis & Alcorta, 2008, p. 109). Morality may thus be understood as an evolved
complex (including cognitive, affective, behavioral, and developmental traits) that
facilitates social cohesion. As human societies become increasingly large and
complex, the need for moral systems to regulate social stability likewise increases:
Being good (or at least appearing to be good) then is an adaptive survival skill
(Seto, 2002). Requiring complex mental and linguistic capacities for abstract
thought and communication, moral faculties may thus be a defining evolutionary
feature of humanity. While the morality of individuals may not directly relate to
their physical fitness, Roughgarden (2009) argues that some traits evolve not only
through sexual selection but also through social selection. These socially-selected
traits are sought out by potential mates and are beneficial for the species in the
91
93
This evolutionary theorythat individuals may prefer the good more than simply the fit
modifies classical Darwinian sexual selection. This evolutionary principle runs counter to the
conventional wisdom that nice guys finish last. See Roughgarden (2004) and Roughgarden
(2009). Both drawing on game theory, Roughgarden (2009) and Seto (2002) see cooperation as an
innate tendency in human nature that is mathematically beneficial. However, I will limit the
supposed reproductive benefits of exhibiting moral goodness to only those of the in-group rather
than the entire human species. After all, different groups of people often compete and attack one
another due to differences in moral frameworks.
92
The second postulate: The MET can be clearly observed irrespective of the
moral frame of reference of the hermeneut.
94
However, I do not believe that the transmission of moral memes is as calculable and organized
a process as biological inheritance. See Atran (2001).
95
See Seto (2002) for his references to many authoritative scriptural passages that uphold the
primacy of the golden rule.
93
Given the tenability of the two postulates,96 the LET can first be argued as
violating human rights:
(1) People who legally justify their employment of the MET as selfdetermination are maintaining their collective right to use the
methodology against those of an oppressive group.
(2) Yet noncombatants within both groups commonly self-impart the right to
be free from being victimized by the MET and would therefore consider
the practice (when employed against them) as oppressive by virtue of
violating such rights.
(3) Since there is no absolute authority (one universally legitimate) by which
members of one group can monopolize the LET such that the common
right to be immune from the MET can be overridden,
(4) Therefore the legal justification for the right to employ the METeven
out of self-determinationcontradicts their self-given right to be free from
oppression (should they hold it) and is revoked by the shared right to be
free from terror.
Secondly, the MOT can be argued to be conditionally immoral:
(1) People justifying their use of the MET are asserting the universality of
their ideals upon differing ideologues of a condemnable culture (such that
they can defend the utilization of such methods).
(2) Yet there is no absolute frame of reference, one embraced by all, through
which these ideologies could be supra-culturally and impartially assessed;
therefore the applicability of one groups ideals is restricted to the local,
not universal level.
(3) Therefore to impose the use of the MET upon members of other groups
holding alternate ideologies cannot be justified.
(4) The conclusion is that people of a particular culture cannot rationally
justify the moral use of the MET against members of another ethos.
Hence, members of different groups should mutually allow coexistence
without utilizing the MET.
Although Siegel (2002) and Mason (2005) are defending the applicability of the
principle of multiculturalism to all cultures, my defenses of the immorality of
terrorism and its violation of human rights are not universal but only aims to
expand this ethos by defending the widespread condemnation of the MET as a
defection from the POR through the limited power of rational argumentation. The
first justification only holds for those who appeal to human rights (which
implicate an important role for human rights education) and the second for those
who are convinced by the limited force of abstract reasoning. I thus argue that in
any conflict between groups, a violent act should be deemed morally
96
The first and second postulates were articulated in Chapter 4.3.2 and Chapter 4.1.1 respectively.
94
661). They therefore practiced violence that was not morally condemnable
according to their POR: For they accept, indeed, expect, similar retaliations from
others, regarding such violent reciprocations as normal.97 It is also possible to
imagine some societies (especially in the past) that would not have considered
their civilians as noncombatants (an identity by virtue of which supposedly
provides immunity from political violence in many ethe). One contemporary
example of some individuals who acceptindeed, expectsuch indifferent
violence as part of the normal social experience is Hussein Abu Ali, who serves
tea to pilgrims along the roadside during Ashura each year in Baghdad. Ali
considers a suicide bombing carried out by a woman at the Shiite shrine that
resulted in over 40 deaths and many more injuries as just another mundane event
(Shadid, 2009). The tea server reopened his stall just two hours after the blast
following the collection of body parts in plastic bags, the loading of dead bodies
onto trucks, and the rinsing of blood off the streets. Weve grown accustomed to
it.... Explosions, blasts, shootings and rockets, we dont have any fear anymore
(Shadid, 2009).98 Even in one of the most developed countries in the world,
some American neighborhoods may have grown normalized the regular
experience of violent shootings as part of a youth culture:
killing somebody who ticks you off is normal. Its something that is only to be
expected, like eating when youre hungry. If a stranger or someone from a rival
clique steps on your clean, white sneakers, or makes a crack about your manhood, or
laughs at you, putting a bullet in his heart or his head is seen by an awful lot of
young people as an appropriate response. The main problem is the acceptance of
murder as normal behavior by so many inner-city young people (Herbert, 2010).
Once these violent behaviors are learned through the almost unconscious
copying of one another, social pressure among peers renders it normal to reach
for a gun to settle grievances (Herbert, 2010).
What happens is these guys have a grievance, just like everybody has a grievance.
Theyre shooting each other over things like, He looked at my girl, He
disrespected me, He cut in front of me in line, He owed me money. And then, of
course, there is the retaliation: He shot my brother or my friend (Herbert, 2010).
97
However under the ETM the Holocaust is still immoral. Despite not violating the first
condition, the oppressive terrorism violates the second.
98
Given an alternative however, I suspect that most peopleeven those living in a culture that has
incorporated extremism as part of the normal discoursewould at least prefer not having to
experience violence and death. I also suspect that Ali and his people are not without fear, but
rather that they have grown numb to that fear in a post-terror world. The condition of the postterror world will be discussed in Chapter 6.
96
This ethos perpetuates the expectation and acceptance of modes of violence that
becomes the norm. Education thus plays a crucial role in the transformation of
such violent normsfrom interpersonal shootings to international warsby
subjecting such mentalities, attitudes, and behaviors to more diverse moral
critique.
4.3.3.2 Sharing an ethos, expanding our horizons
Because states, through a monopoly of their laws, self-legitimize their preemptive or retaliatory violence, most governments define terrorism so as to
exclude the possibility of their own condemnation by it. Here, the ETM can be
applied to the entire spectrum of political violence. Even if the aggressors
consider their attack wholly justifiable and their citizens would morally accept
similar actions by their enemies, the act remains immoral if the target finds it
morally objectionable.99 As McPherson (2007) notes, political violence
committed by nonstate actors are not intrinsically worse than otherwise
indistinguishable acts of political violence committed by states (p. 539). Such an
ethical analysis of political violence upon an evolutionary theory of reciprocity
provides a more coherent basis for escaping the imposition of deontological
absolutes or the subjective mire of consequentialism. Within this dynamic
framework, the JWT is but one cultural discourse that dictates what acts are
morally tolerable in the reciprocation of violence.
The ETM does not presuppose that people should have a particular system
of values or rationality that is somehow superior to others (though there is the
possibility that certain systems may be better suited for particular contexts).
Rather, the assumption is that the capability for moral thought and sensitivity is an
evolutionary trait of humanity. As Paul Bloom notes:
people have a rudimentary sense of justice from a very early age. This doesnt
make people naturally good. But it does mean that social norms fall upon
prepared ground (Brooks, 2010).
99
Consider the example of fighting in ice hockey. When players from different teams fight on the
ice, they share a common ethos that is not specifically dictated by the league rules: Players fight
one-to-one with only fists; they drop their sticks and gloves as a sign of their readiness to fight;
and the grabbing of jerseys are tolerated (even pulling their opponents jersey over their heads).
For those who share this ethos, fighting in such a manner during hockey games (though illegal and
penalized by referees) is deemed moralby both teams, coaches, referees, and the league officials.
The unwritten etiquette of how scores are settled makes the reciprocation of such violence
unquestionably moral. However, if a hockey player were to breach such a shared ethossay by
using a hockey stick during a fight (which has happened before)their action would not only be
illegal but would also be deemed immoral. Alternatively, if a hockey player fights with another
player according to the hockey ethos while playing, say, a football game; it would also be
immoral as the football players culture does not morally tolerate the same style of violence as in
hockey games.
97
Our moral faculties, then, provide a natural groundwork for developing moral
dialogue on how we perceive and respond to the world. More importantly, the
ETM recognizes the unavoidable differences in moral systems that guide the
reciprocation of all types of violenceincluding terrorismand is reflexively
adaptive to such differences. Specifically, the ETM points to a couple of
approaches to enhancing the moral responsibilities to noncombatants: Through
expanding a shared ethos that reciprocates human rights (which I hold to be most
tenable through pedagogical means), and through intercultural dialogue over the
morality of acts of violence. Enhancing the awareness and appreciation of the
right of noncombatants to be free from terror is one method for slowing the
perpetual cycle of defection and punishment. Such mutual terror can only be
sustainably mitigated through non-paradoxical means such as dialogical forms of
intercultural education. Only acceptable and not imposable, critical methods of
pedagogy can help soften the fundamentalism that grounds extremist
ressentiment. The fact that the POR underlies the moral discourse of many
cultures, and that globalization creates greater opportunities for intercultural
dialogue, enhances the possibility for sharing our ethos.
Through such sharing, observers become aware of the similarities and
differences of their frames of reference. Comparable to relative motion in
physics, the truth of any empirical claims can be coherently regarded once the
parameters have been specified. As Flew (1971) argues, relative to the actual
specifications of all the variables on some given occasion, it may become
unambiguously and absolutely right to act [or, in the case of terrorism, not act] in
this one particular way (p. 82). Therefore, moral judgments are likely to be more
consistent when one anothers frames of reference have been taken into account.
Through sharing our ethos, we expand our horizons. By sharing our ethos, we see
beyond what was once unperceived. Our ethos can now take into account (or at
least recognize) the different POR of others. If our ethos that respects the
freedom from fear of every person can be shared with others, not through coercive
enforcement or by appealing to a particular divine or governmental authority but
solely through intercultural dialogue as moral agents, then many acts of
violencebe it war or terrorismcan be more coherently evaluated and
mitigated. The development of a shared ethos free from the unfreedom of terror is
not a utopian vision of homogeneity but rather a continuously evolving dialogical
process that recognizes difference and the need for such differences to be
recognized. Through intercultural learning, our moral presumptions become
challenged and refined. Being less certain that we are always right, by testing our
moral evaluations in intercultural dialogue, we will be more hesitant to assert our
positions through extreme ways (Russell, 2009). The promotion of intercultural
dialogue is more than simply a culturally-based discourse (which it is) but is also
transculturally valuable: Such dialogue suggests a pedagogical framework for
mutual learning, reflection, and criticism conducive to the freedom from terror.
And it is to the issue of intercultural learning that the thesis next turns.
98
4.4 Conclusion
While terrorism is a strategy hinging on asymmetric power relations, such
asymmetry is also reflected by the technocratic definition and diagnosis of terror.
This hermeneutical process has been monopolized by those authorized with the
power of legitimacy and imposed upon others through symbolic violence.
Deconstructing its essence, then, reveals that terrorismas a strategy of political
coercion through indifferent violencecan be considered in three dimensions:
the methodological, legal, and moral. Clausewitz (2006) summarized war to be
an act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfill our will (Chapter
One, No. 2). Thus, the similarities between war (as Clausewitz defines it) and
terror (as I have defined it in Chapter 4.1.1) are profound, and their legal and
moral distinctions contestable. International conventions embodying the JWT
only hold for those who accept its legitimate authority or fear the consequences of
its violation. Moreover, some violent acts which are not conventionally defined
as terrorism may entail very similar effects. Both war and terrorism may be
waged for just or unjust causes; use force against noncombatants, with
conventional war usually causing... many more casualties; and produce fear
widely among noncombatants (McPherson, 2007, p. 546).
Further, states do not necessarily have and nonstate groups do not necessarily lack
an adequate kind of authority that is a condition for permissible resort to political
violence. If we believe that terrorism is an evil because of the harm it does to
ordinary noncombatants, we should be prepared to accept that the brute reality of
war for noncombatants is an evil that is at least on par.... If we believe that war can
be justifiable on grounds of just cause and the unavailability of less harmful means,
despite the harm it does to noncombatants, we must take seriously whether these
same grounds could ever justify terrorism. The failures of the dominant view of
terrorism should lead us to adopt either a more critical attitude toward conventional
war or a less condemnatory attitude toward terrorism (McPherson, 2007, p. 546).
expanding an ethos that recognizes the others parameters structuring their moral
framework, there is the potential for a more coherent recognition of terroristic
methods. This shared recognition thereby offers the possibility of morally
consistent responses that will not only not perpetuate, but perhaps mitigate, the
cycle of mutual terror.
As with any proposed solutions to real life problems, especially one as
complex as terrorism, a number of conceptual stumbling blocks remain. Firstly,
the golden rule of treating others as you would yourself that is fundamental to
the POR needs to be revised to be more dialogical rather than monological. The
monological form of the golden rule is problematic for it imposes upon others
what one presupposes to be good. However, a dialogical form of the golden rule
would instead necessitate deliberation with others over how they would like to be
treated according to their terms. After all, according to the ETM, an act dealt to
others is only morally consistent if both parties find the reciprocity acceptable.
Secondly, the ETM is overly simplistic in how people are identified and organized
into groups. Given the complexity of a globalizing world, the freedom to
develop our own affiliations and identities is of great importance. After all, many
of those victimized by 9/11 may not agree with how al-Qaeda recognized them,
just as many of the civilians who died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to the war
may not concur with being affiliated with al-Qaeda. Central to the problem of
terror is the misrecognition of identities in an increasingly small yet
heterogeneous world. Thirdly, even within a single cultural group, there are
certainly different moral views when evaluating a particular act of violence. As
stake-holding citizens of the decisions made by their leaders, there is the necessity
for a justifiable representation in governing bodies and institutions. Therefore, to
continue with the consideration of the mitigation of the cycle of terror, the crucial
role of democratic and intercultural education (in terms of dialogue and learning
from difference) warrants exploration.
100
CHAPTER 5
WHERE EDUCATION MEETS
SOCIO-POLITICAL TERROR
5.0 Introduction
At the outset of this thesis, I had problematized the interrelations between
terrorism and education according to a discourse dominated by a political
economy paradigm. But a mere critique has neglected to respond to one of the
central questions driving this research: On what basis does education connect
with terrorism? Beyond being merely a form of developmental aid to combat the
hearts and minds of potential terrorists among the poor, uneducated children of
others, or a historical metanarrative that inculcates our youth with a selfjustifying national citizenship, education meets terror at three levels. First,
terrorism is ultimately learned. Conceptualized as a habitus rather than a rational
act of pure calculus, terrorist dispositions may fundamentally be reproduced
sociologically. As such, the mentality and practice of terror may need to be
addressed through educationhere, conceptualized broadly as both formal and
informal processes of teaching and learning. Second, education is required in the
sustainable cultivation of political sensitivity and accountability to not only
compatriots but also the citizens of other states. Without a politics that can
legitimately represent the voices of the people through deliberation, authorities
cannot claim moral justification in taking action in transcultural conflicts. Third,
on a more interpersonal level, education should cultivate a habitus necessary for
addressing the misrecognition and miscommunication that problematizes terror.
Transcending the toleration of people according to presumptuous identities, an
intercultural education points to the imperative of dialogue with unique others.
The development of a more qualified understanding of others and oneself can help
remedy the misrecognition that underlies the miscommunication of terror.
Without making sweeping generalizations or seeking a consensus,
interculturalism upholds as crucial dialogue across differences and thereby the
potential for reflexive change and interdependency. Here, I will develop further
the first two interrelations between terrorism and education before focusing on the
third issue in the next chapter.
101
The principle of reciprocity applies to princes and paupers alike. This means that if
we are going to condemn a particular type of politically motivated violence when
undertaken by terrorists, we must equally condemn the same type of violence when
undertaken by the U.S. Army or the CIA. If we are going to permit the justification
of politically motivated violence undertaken by the U.S. Army or the CIA, we must
similarly admit the possibility that similar violence undertaken by Al Qaeda may be
equally justified. The fact that the U.S. Army and the CIA are agents of a state does
not make their actions any more or less moral (p. 1259).100
Those with the power of legitimacy are quick to identify and condemn others
while legitimizing their own use and sponsorship of the same methods. Justified
retrospectively by history, victors are vindicated through the national education.
But perhaps what is most often neglected in the POR is the moral obligation to
forgive once the defector has returned to cooperation. The ETM would hold that
the terrorist label be removed from those who have forsaken and amended for
practicing what was dialogically determined to be intolerable.
If one impartially identifies a terrorist as simply someone who puts the
MET into practiceindependent of their cause, socioeconomic background,
affiliations, beliefs, age, gender, or ethnicitythen there may be many more
terrorists than only those appearing on government lists and in the media. After
all, terrorism is above all a tool or, if you will, a technique (Chaliand & Blin,
100
See Barlett and Steele (2003) for an account of the CIAs terrorist operations in the SovietAfghan War and the Iran-Iraq War.
103
See Robbins (2009) for one example that occurred on New Years Day, 2009, when nine
American Muslims in traditional attire were taken off an AirTran domestic flight and questioned
by the FBI after they were overheard by fellow passengers discussing the location of the safest seat
on the plane.
102
See Figure 5.1.1 for the scales to which terrorism has been applied.
104
There may thus be many more terroriststhat is, those practicing the METthan
strictly those conventionally labeled as such towards the international end of the
scale.103 Family terrorism particularly warrants elaboration: not only because it is
situated at the smallest pole along the scale of terror, and is perhaps the least
salient in dominant terrorism discourses, but also because it may play a significant
role within the intergenerational transmission of such behaviors. How terror is
learned, transmitted, and practiced in mundane ways may be the root to
addressing the full bloom of such displays when it becomes spectacular.
5.1.2.1 Family terrorism
Neglected from most terrorism discourses is what Hammer (2005) refers
to as family terrorism (p. 99). Hammers (2005) conceptual basis stems from
her critical feminists framework that violence is systemic and hierarchical and
mediated by patriarchalism (p. 100). Such physical and psychological
patriarchal abuse in the familial context is reinforced by the masculine authority
over females, children, and the elderlyin their economic, political, and social
interrelations (Hammer, 2005, p. 101). For Hammer (2005), whether nominally
classified as domestic violence or political violence, terrorism should be
understood as a systemic, familial mediated process, from the biological
family, to racial neighbourhoods, to the nation-state as a national family
(Hammer, 2005, pp. 101, 105). Palestinian feminist Nasser similarly argues that
the rise of suicide bombings in Palestine is reflective of the general brutalization
of the Palestinian societymade manifest in the violence within families
[and] aggressivity in schools (Laqueur, 2003, p. 88). Consider the practice of socalled honor killings (Chesler, 2009). Dishonored by the immoral ways of
ones family member, families threaten and eventually kill the victims, who are
often young girls.
103
To reiterate, according to the ETM, the terrorist method is not necessarily immoral even at the
extent of social terrorism. Furthermore the terrorist identity is conditional, temporally bound until
a return to shared ethos of reciprocity.
105
Families that kill for honor will threaten girls and women if they refuse to cover
their hair, their faces, or their bodies or act as their family's domestic servant; wear
makeup or Western clothing; choose friends from another religion; date; seek to
obtain an advanced education; refuse an arranged marriage; seek a divorce from a
violent husband; marry against their parents wishes; or behave in ways that are
considered too independent, which might mean anything from driving a car to
spending time or living away from home or family (Chesler, 2009).
While some feminists regard terrorism (on the political scale) as the set of
violent practices arising from the underlying patriarchal oppression (on the social
scale), Pizzey (1998) also refers to family terrorism but with one key exception:
that women also tend to reciprocate and instigate emotional terrorism. Pizzey
(1998) observes that while men are capable of behaving as family terrorists...
male violence tends to be more physical and explosive, whereas family
terrorism is a tactic largely used by women, who emphasize emotional, rather
than physical, abuse (The Emotional Terrorist). Reiterating that both men and
women are capable of terrorism, Pizzey (1998) contends that women tend to use
such violence more subtly than men. Her claim that females tend to be more
terroristic emotionally does moderate the hermeneutical of the critical feminists
who argue that the mediation of terror is purely and entirely patriarchal. Thus, a
family terrorist may be any person, of any gender and age, who employs
physical and symbolic coercion to intentionally affect the power equilibrium in
terms of the distribution of capital.104 Various forms of social violence,
including that in the family, could be considered terroristic if its method bears the
essence of terror. Even on the social level, family terrorism is inherently political
because it intentionally aims to influence human behavior through physical and
symbolic coercion.
Intent only to achieve the goal... the terrorist will take such measures as: stalking a
spouse or ex-spouse, physically assaulting the spouse or the spouses new partners,
telephoning all mutual friends and business associates of the spouse in an effort to
ruin the spouses reputation, pressing fabricated criminal charges against the spouse
(including alleged battery and child molestation), staging intentionally unsuccessful
suicide attempts for the purpose of manipulation, snatching children from the
104
Capital refers to the Bourdieusian concept of economic, cultural, and social capital (Bourdieu,
2006).
106
spouses care and custody, vandalizing the spouses property, murdering the spouse
and/or the children as an act of revenge (Pizzey, 1998).
Akin to other terrorists, the family terrorist coerces emotionally and physically,
often in response to perceived grievances. The victims of family terrorism often
serve as a propagandistic hostage for the manipulation of an intended target.
Thus, in the process of exacting physical violence upon the immediate victim,
symbolic violence may be exerted upon the target of coercion.
As Pizzey (1998) argues, an essential first step towards limiting the
destructive potential of familial terrorism is to understand the terrorist to be a
terrorist. To this end, it requires not only the recognition of the terrorists to see
themselves as having practiced terrorism, but also the terrorized to see their
experiences as such. The recognition of the discrepancy in their POR is thus
crucial to re-establishing non-terroristic communication.105
In a recent case, a Mr. Roberts described to me how, during his marriage, he and his
children faced a daily onslaught of verbal abuse from his wife. Mrs. Roberts was
also physically violent to the children. Now that he has asked for a divorce, she is
making use of every weapon in her arsenal. In the childrens presence, she has used
drugs and drank alcohol to the point of extreme intoxication. She has staged several
unsuccessful suicide attempts in front of the children, threatened over the telephone
to do something stupid, promised to kill Mr. Roberts new partner, and assured
Mr. Roberts that when she has finished with him he will not have a penny to his
name. To Mr. Roberts, all of this behaviour seemed perfectly usual. After all, he
had witnessed this sort of commotion for thirteen years of their marriage. When I
suggested to him [that] What you endured is emotional terrorism, he suddenly,
and for the first time, was able to see his situation clearly. Now, he realized, his
wifes behavior was neither appropriate nor acceptable... (Pizzey, 1998).
But as natural as it seems to condemn all terrorism, the ETM again serves
as a reminder that such behaviors may not always be regarded as immoral.
Manifesting even in familial contexts, such social terrorism are often addressed
through therapeutic means of psychiatry, social work, or counseling. After all,
some forms of familial terrorism may be regarded as an evolutionary selection of
social behavior. For example, threatening children in order to control their
behavior, whether with a raised hand or the denial of sweets, may be considered
morally acceptable by many parents or teachers. The socialization of behavioral
norms may after all enhance the survival of adolescents amidst the dangers of
their natural surroundings and the reproduction of social stability through the
reiteration of the power of the pre-existing authorities. Such moral ambiguity
105
Here the monologue in the traditional golden rule needs to be revamped to take into account
the difference of others. I focus on this issue in Chapter 6.1.3.
107
reiterates the importance for the recognition and discussion of one anothers
taken-for-granted rationales and practices. But before I focus on the implication
of dialogue with others, both Hammers (2005) patriarchal family terrorists and
Pizzeys (1998) matriarchal emotional terrorists serve to illustrate the extent of
terrorist practices in social dynamics, particularly on the familial end of the sociopolitical scale.
The recognition that all persons have the capacity to act as terrorists under
particular circumstanceseven if only on a small scaleis noteworthy at least
for its potential mitigation (should such methods be found immoral) and selfreflection (by questioning whether one has used such methods). And there is a
fallacy in presuming that the traumatic impact on targets decreases with the
reduction in the scale of the violence. In other words, there may be a tendency to
regard spectacular events of globalized terrorism as being more traumatic for
targets than the hidden terrorism experienced in the workplace or in the family.
Even mundane family terroristswho terrorize relatively few peoplecan
cause profound harm upon their domestic targets, particularly when the violence
may be more specialized to and drawn out over the targets life. In other words,
the frightening coercion instilled by globalized terrorists may be even less
tangible for some than that by an abusive parent, teacher, or spouse. Moreover,
the extensive research on the intergenerational transmission of violence (ITV)
predominantly suggests that the experience of domestic abuse (which could
include some instances of familial terrorism) socializes individuals into
perpetuating similar forms of violence as a viable modus operandi in future
conflicts. Thus the perpetuation of terroristic behaviors on any scale may be at
least partially attributable to the history of social experiences of individuals. The
crux when reconsidering the roots of terrorism and its mitigation may thus lie with
this sociological basis for the intergenerational perpetuation of terroristic
behaviors.
research (Bogat, Levendosky, & Davidson II, 2002): All forms of family-oforigin violence between parents or parent-child not only negatively affect the
prenatal health of both the expectant mother and fetus, and significantly increases
the chances of health problems for the postnatal infant, but also increases the
likelihood of the child engaging in future relational violence and abuse. While
the predominant discourse tends to treat women and children solely as the victims
of physical violence, gender and age do not delimit, conceptually or in practice,
who can perpetrate such violencenot only physically and sexually, but also
emotionally and verbally. Carney, Buttell, and Dutton (2007) point out that the
conceptualization of domestic violence as exclusively male initiated is a false
cultural discourse (p. 108). Males in fact tend to underreport their own
victimization by females, often not considering female violence against them as a
crime (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005, p. 680). The tendency for the abuser and
abused, both physically and mentally, to end up in such perpetually violent
relationships would suggest that both the terrorist and the terrorized may have
affinities for reproducing such experiences.
Pizzey and Shapiro (1982)
distinguish between two general types of battered spouses: those who
unknowingly married someone who turned out to be violent and others who are
addicted to violent relationships (p. 39). The majority of the latter, they argue,
had been abused as children. This argument, unpopular with some feminists, is
corroborated by Chus (1992) findings, which suggests that those abused in
childhood are especially vulnerable to revictimization as adults (p. 259). How
frequently which gender employs family terrorism upon one another is a subject
matter for future empirical research, the findings of which will largely depend on
the definitions and methods employed, and the cultural context studied. But
familial terrorism, as a particular form of domestic violence which may be
perpetrated and perpetuated by both genders, implies that terrorism may be
pervasive across vast socio-political contexts from families to nations. The
terrorist and the terrorized, then, may be both actors and victims, having learned
to become predisposed to such violent experiences.
Obviously, not all those who experience terror become terrorists, or must
all those who practice terrorism have necessarily been terrorized themselves. But
also obvious is that no one, even those who use the terrorist method, grow up ex
nihilo. Any social actfrom shaking hands to sending an email to playing a
basketball game to buying a beeris learned through socialization. We never
develop outside of a social field, without carers, teachers, peers, and their laws,
customs, and beliefs. Our very identities and recognition of others are necessarily
derived socially. Given, then, that our beliefs and practices are socially
inculcated, how is agency possible? How can those of us who have experienced
and perpetuated terrorism, even without recognizing it, be free to change our
attitudes, rationales, and behaviors? After all, for one to be justifiably held
accountablethat is, to be morally responsiblefor the consequences of ones
actions, one must have acted according to ones freewill (Sider, 2007). In other
110
words, terrorism (or any other wrongdoing for that matter) cannot be culpable if
terrorists have no choice in their actions. Here, Bourdieus sociological theory
provides a conceptual bridge across the structure-agency divide. Describing his
own theory as constructivist structuralism (or structuralist constructivism),
Bourdieu (1989) takes on a twofold social genesis: On the one hand, there are
schemes of perception, thought, and action which are constitutive of what I call
habitus and on the other are social structures particularly of what I call fields
(p. 14, italics added). Together, they provide a compatibilist account for
conceptualizing both structure and agency as an interdependent dynamic.
5.1.3.2 The habitus of terror: A Bourdieusian perspective
For Bourdieu (1979), habitus embodies the system of durable,
transposable dispositions both mental (doxa) and physical (practice) (p. vii). As
the objective order and mental structures of habitus, doxa are the beliefs,
values, and attitudes of a society that orient the practice of its inhabitants (Krais,
1993, p. 167). Often taken-for-granted, habitus embodies and sustains how one
thinks, acts, and speaks in certain ways because they have always been done
that way in this field (Grenfell, 2007, p. 55, italics original). Structuration of the
habitus of agents occurs within their social field, which influences their thoughts
and actions. But why do people conform to social norms in the first place? For
Bourdieu (2006), the accruement of the different forms of symbolic capital
provides a powerful incentive for conforming to the doxa and customs of a social
field. This often subconscious conformity to the recognition of the arbitrary
power of various forms of symbolic capital is what Bourdieu calls illusio
(Grenfell, 2007, p. 56). Bourdieu thus provides a coherent and pivotal theory for
both social reproduction (of practices and power recognized as forms of social,
cultural, and economic capital), and social change (through agency, and the power
to resist and critique). In such a view, individuals are neither (or both) animals
that necessarily behave in a scientifically predictable manner according to their
social conditions, nor are they spirits that are completely free of the influence of
the social matrix in which they have always been immersed. In short, habitus at
once accounts for both social reproduction and change.
Reconciling the paradox of the inviolable power of social structures and
the illimitable freedom of agents, Bourdieus theory explains how the social
world is determined by and reciprocally determines practice (Dreyfus &
Rabinow, 1993, p. 38).
Bourdieu offers a specific account of how the social field works. It is a competition,
not just for life and security as in Hobbes, but for advantage, and not just material
advantage as in Marx, but more general symbolic advantage. Bourdieus
powerful analyses have revealed to us a world permeated by strategies and
strategists of symbolic capital and a social field that motivates and produces such
strategies and strategists (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1993, pp. 40, 42).
111
Within the social field are structures that guide and constrain the practices and
will of agents. And while a particular field may embody the habitus of agents
operating within that field, the agents habitus in turn produces their capital, that
is, social, economic, and cultural power (Postone, LiPuma, & Calhoun, 1993).
Being self-reflexive, an agents critical awareness of their own habitus can
unveil the conditions of domination through the social and cultural reproduction
of inequality (Postone, LiPuma, & Calhoun, 1993, p. 6). It is the objectively
unified practices of habitus that are at once both structured by and sustains the
social field (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1993, p. 37). Here, the analogy of a magnetic
field may help illustrate how habitus and fields are being conceptualized.106
A social field exerts forces upon the individuals within it. These social
forces orientate the doxic and behavioral dispositions of agents to various
magnitudes. As a result, inhabitants of a social field will, over time and without
disruptions, tend to align with the field (as in diagram (c) in Figure 6.1.2). And
deviance is merely the display of an orientation different in the direction of the
general field. The habitus of individuals in turn contribute to the orientation and
strength of their social field. Thus, the more uniform the orientations of the
inhabitants of a field, the stronger the field when exerting its social forces upon its
inhabitants and ironically, the less they may recognize this normalizing force. In
other words, a metal that becomes magnetized within a magnetic field will in turn
emit a corresponding magnetic field. But just as a magnet can become
demagnetized through agitations (externally by colliding with other objects or
internally through an increase in temperature), which disorient the constituent
magnetic domains, a social field can likewise become demagnetized through
shocks or conflicts from sources both external and internal. Sudden political,
economic, migrational, social, cultural, and environmental changes can and do
disrupt the uniformity of a social field by disorienting the individual habitus of
which it is constituted. The taken-for-granted doxa and practice of agents may
then be recognized, reflected upon, criticized, challenged, and reoriented. It is
through such a process of disenchantment with ones illusio that habitus can
change and entire fields disrupted.
Applying Bourdieus theory to the context of socio-political terrorism,
terrorists can be understood as agents socialized with the doxa and practice of
their social field. Such a terrorist habitus is both learned through socialization and
in turn taught to others when put into practice. Comprising the learned, taken-forgranted beliefs and attitudes of a culture that uncritically guides the sentiments
and practices of the individuals within that social field, doxa are the
106
See Figure 6.1.2 for a diagram that illustrates the processes of magnetization and
demagnetization as an analogy for the normalization of social fields (structuration) and the
disorientation of social fields (agency) respectively.
112
Prof. Yusef Waghid raised an important question during my oral examination: that terrorism is
often regarded as a form of political violence not caused by education. In response, I would point
to the importance of questioning and rethinking this common understanding of terrorism. If one
become open to broader and alternate views of terror, then how such conceptions became
inculcated within us becomes essential. Thus experiencing different discourses is one important
dimension in the meaningful mitigation of terror. The role of dialogue in intercultural education
will be the focus of Chapter 6 Intercultural Learning in a Post-terror World.
113
freedom from the communicative and identity problems that reproduces terror by
helping to dispel the baggage of historicity, immutability, and orthodoxy (and will
be the focus of the next chapter). Furthering these two pedagogical significances,
the remainder of this thesis endeavors to imagine in greater detail what the formal
cultivation of a democratic and intercultural habitus entails.
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from all stakeholdersincluding the civilians who are often most vulnerable and
disempowered in such conflicts. Usually those most affected by conflicts but
having the least say in the decisions, civilians on all sides of a conflict need to be
consulted on what they find to be morally tolerable within their threshold. In the
case of the War on Iraq, even if the Bush administration justifies pre-emptive
war, the invasion should have ceased if the American and/or Iraqi people found
the proposed military action unjustified. Here, the reciprocation of violence
may be condemned, even mitigated, by expanding a human rights discourse that
educates the freedom from want and fear. Perhaps by arousing the critical
recognition of our conventionally accepted modes of violence and moral
sensitivity for those different than us, increasing groups of people will object to
the exchange of violent practices that coercively constrain one anothers freedom.
To expand the vision of human security, not only is the expansion of
human rights education important for disapproving violence, but the enhancement
of political freedom and democratic governance at least as crucial for the
legitimate construction of a shared ethos. Democratic representation, according to
Rawls (1999), has legitimate authority because it is derived from the interests of
those governed. Governments are not free to pursue their own bureaucratic
ambitions but is instead effectively under political and electoral control
(Rawls, 1999, p. 24).108 Thus for the ETM to be applicable, the moral stance of a
shared ethos needs to be as representative of the people as possiblewhich, at the
moment, is best exemplified by deliberative forms of democracy. In other words,
in a society where its inhabitants can democratically voice moral positions, choose
leadership, and participate in political discussions, the collective ethos is more
representative and legitimate. For an act of violence (including terrorism) to be
deemed moral then, it must be reciprocated between groups that have respectively
legitimized their collective moral justifications for the methodology by virtue of
democratic representation. Representation of morally contentious issues thus
requires conditions for more informed understanding and enlightened public
discussion (Sen, 1999, pp. 280-281).
Because democratic politics is necessary for the legitimate representation
of the voices of the people on whose behalf battles are fought, the cultivation of a
deliberative habitus across cultures is essential. As Held (2006) argues:
Political legitimacy does not turn on the ballot box or on majority rule per se but,
rather, on the giving of defensible reasons, explanations and accounts for public
decisions. The key objective is the transformation of private preferences via a
process of deliberation into positions that can withstand public scrutiny and test (p.
237).
108
Although Rawls (1999) contends that such representative authority still existsalbeit restricted
to a consultation hierarchyin undemocratic regimes, the legitimacy of representative
governments remains relatively greater in democratic forms of political representation (p. 71).
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Deliberative democracy is marked by not only the equal and impartial right of
individuals to participate by voting with a ballot, but also by discussing the issues
at hand in the decision-making process (Christiano, 2006). Given our diverse
moral values, deliberative democracy structures a way for their comparison while
leaving the resolution of value conflicts open to participants in a public process
(Held, 2006, p. 261). It is through democratic deliberation, argues Held (2006),
that the limits of individual horizons can be overcome to better inform public
decisions:
1) By sharing knowledge, public deliberation can transform and enhance the
understanding of complex issues by individuals.
2) By exposing sectional preferences, public deliberation can challenge and
expand the partial viewpoints held by individuals.
3) By testing particular arguments, public deliberation can enhance the
reasoning of individuals and collective judgment.
As a government by discussion (Sen, 2006, p. 53), deliberative democracy can
produce outcomes that are the most thoroughly examined, justified and, hence,
legitimate (Held, 2006, p. 238).
The cultivation of a habitus capable of participating in democratic
deliberation is important not only for the moral reasoning necessitated by the
ETM in the context of intercultural conflict, but it is also intrinsically valuable as
an educational aim. First, such deliberation is intrinsically valuable because it
recognizes the moral autonomy of people. As Sen (1999) argues: To insist
just one homogenous good thing would be to deny our humanity as reasoning
creatures (p. 77). Just as Sen (2006) argues that: Reason had to be supreme,
since even in disputing reason, we would have to give reasons; so deliberation is
fundamental, for we would have to discuss why there should not be discussion
when making collective decisions (p. 161). And although a democratic habitus
may not be culturally neutral, Sen (2006) finds that the tradition of public
discussion can be found across the world (p. 53). Given that democracy is not
just about ballots and votes, but also about public deliberation and reasoning,
cultivating a habitus for democratic deliberation does appear to respect the dignity
of people across many cultures as moral, autonomous persons (Sen, 2006, p. 53).
Second, democratic deliberation also requires a commitment to politics as an
open-ended and continuous learning process in which what is to be learnt has to
be settled in the process of learning itself (Held, 2006, p. 233). It is thus a
learning process in and through which people come to terms with the range of
issues they need to understand in order to hold a sound and reasonable political
judgement (Held, 2006, p. 233). In other words, the constitution of deliberative
democracy is itself a learning opportunity to openly examine one anothers views.
Democratic deliberation provides a public process through which the tentative
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Thus, the central challenge for modern, diversifying societies is to create a new,
broader sense of we. [This] challenge is best met not by making them like
us, but rather by creating a new, more capacious sense of we, a reconstruction of
diversity that does not bleach out ethnic specificities, but creates overarching
identities that ensure that those specificities do not trigger the allergic, hunker
down reaction (Putnam, 2007, pp. 139, 163-164).
The concept of global citizenship may offer one discourse for creating such a
super-identity. However, instead of constructing a supranational identity for the
sake of creating some artificial sense of unity, I want to focus on the cosmopolitan
attitude that underlies the discourse of global citizenship. After all, the growing
managerialism and emphasis on standardized test scores as the primary measure
of successful schools has crowded out what should be an essential criterion for
well-educated students: a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others
(Engel & Sandstrom, 2010).
At the genealogical root of global citizenship is the Stoical account of
cosmopolitanism which conceptualizes the self as being surrounded by a series of
concentric circles extending from oneself, to ones family, neighbors, compatriots,
and ultimately, all of humanity (Nussbaum, 2008). Rather than focusing on the
giving up or taking on of identities, the essence of cosmopolitanism, then, is the
impartial gravitation of others closer towards the centre of our moral concern. It
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does not necessitate the impartial concern for everyone, which is neither
reasonable nor practicable. But by drawing those beyond the scope of our
concern within our horizons, our moral sensitivity for others can be enhanced and
our motivation to participate in democratic deliberation strengthened. This
cosmopolitan attitude is founded on the recognition of humanitythe
fundamental ingredients of which include the dignity of reason and moral
capacityand is an essential aim of education in a globalizing world
(Nussbaum, 2008, p. 308). Such a cosmopolitan education seeks to enhance: (1)
reflection on ones identity and fallibility; (2) recognition of the universality of
human needs and capabilities; and (3) learning about difference and its
engagement.
With the pedagogical goal to cultivate moral sensitivity,
cosmopolitanism aims to defeat the selfish and grasping passions through the
imagination of suffering, softheartedness, and a gradual broadening of
concern (Nussbaum, 2001, p. 368). To this end, mutual learning through
intercultural dialogue on the social level is necessary, which in turn, motivates
participation in democratic deliberation on the political level.109
Through education, a democratic practice of deliberation can be cultivated
upon a cosmopolitan doxa. And through participating in deliberative democracy,
learningthat is, the changing of ones habitus through the evolution of a
mentality or behaviorcan take place. Here, learning is taken to be a
transformative experience that allows for the freedom to change our presumptions
and practices, whereas training entails a reproductive reinforcement of a certain
belief, tradition, or practice. In other words, education denotes the (formal and
informal) processes of learning and trainingwith the former enhancing the
capability to consciously evolve ones mentality and behavior.110 And because
one needs to engage with others to appreciate deliberative democracy, the
initiation of such a reiterative learning experience will likely require not only the
political process of democratic deliberation but also the social process of
intercultural dialogue. But instead of building overlying, grand identities such as
the global citizen, interculturalism merely suggests a framework for the
dialogical interaction between interlocutors from where they are. Unlike global
citizenship, which, at best, adds but another veneer of identities and
responsibilities, and, at worst, imposes a single discourse upon the diverse values
of citizenships, interculturalism merely suggests how those carrying different
identities (national, political, cultural, social, and familial) can interact to
challenge, change, and broaden the scope of our hermeneutical situation
(Gadamer, 1979). As Held (2006) argues, all interpretations embody a particular
framework of concepts, beliefs, and standards (p. 7).
109
Intercultural dialogue on the social level will be the focus of the next chapter.
As Prof. Cheng Kai Ming (one of my examiners) perceptively noted, education is a system of
manufacturing labour resources while learning may be regarded as a more empowering,
emancipating, and transformative experience.
110
118
120
A Greek child learns from what his mother says and does that the neighborhood
church is a good place; he unconsciously invests in it his unintegrated good aspects
and feels comfortable there. The same mechanism, fueled by his mother's influence,
makes him shun the Turkish mosque and minaret, in which he deposits the
unintegrated bad aspects of himself. Although the child would have his own
unique individualized psychological makeup, he would be allied to other children in
his group through the common suitable target of externalization... that affirms their
ethnic, cultural, and national identity (Robins & Post, 1997, p. 90).
The point is that fundamentalists may often not even recognize their own attitude
of immutability towards some of their beliefs and identities. Hence, without
sharing our narratives with others who see things differently and have an alternate
story to tell, we may never realize which of our beliefs are being held with an
uncompromising attitude. To segregate human institutions, such as schools,
strictly according to cultural dimensions (such as religion) is to deprive people of
their freedom and blind them with moral self-sufficiency.
However, when education promotes experiences that allows for the
transformation of ones presumptuous mentalities and practices, such learning can
moderate the fundamentalism that perpetuates the practice of terror. As Habermas
argues, fundamentalism entails a belief attitude towards a universal doctrine that
neglects the coexistential necessities of a pluralistic society (Borradori, 2003).111
Without the possibility of doubt, fundamentalism is marked by a certainty of
ones belief and identity so absolute that all other arguments and evidence have to
submit to the fundamentalists hermeneutical standpoint. As a type of doxa that
appeals to an immutable orthodoxy and informs the community-defining rituals
(Alcorta & Sosis, 2005), fundamentalism is a foundational to the extremist actions
that disregard all other challengers and skeptics of these beliefs and
(mis)recognitions. It informs extremism by simplifying ethics and identities into
simple dichotomies. Conflicts are construed into grand epics fought between
heroes and villains. With socio-cultural forces undeniable, terrorism cannot be
completely resolved through purely economic means and terrorists may not be
best modeled according to a self-serving calculus. The sharing of such cultural
narratives with others can challenge the symbols, rituals, and identities that
motivate and unify individuals. To create perturbations in the solidification of
fundamentalist doxa, meaningful interchange between those who are different is
requiredespecially during the relatively malleable period of adolescence. For it
is only through intercultural dialogue with others that we can gain alternate
perspectives that may challenge the taken-for-granted doxa and practices with
which we have been inculcated within our field of experiences. In other words,
we can only learn of ourselves in relations to others (Frankena, 1965). Through
111
121
In terms of religion, Sosis and Alcorta (2008) argue that it is pointless to try to eliminate it (p.
118). Evolutionary work not only affirms the empirical resilience of religion, it offers an
explanation for why religion endures even in the face of persecution and indicates that the
components of religion are highly effective human adaptations (Sosis & Alcorta, 2008, p. 118).
However, I find the cultural freedom to choose and practice (or not to practice) religion to be of
intrinsic importance and a better reason for promoting religious expression than the pragmatic
justification of its resilience.
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schooling. Because adolescents are taught the appropriate habitus when inducted
into a culture, ones actions and reactions have been trained to follow a set of
rulesor customswithout requiring a conscious hermeneutical effort (Taylor,
1993, p. 58). Rudimentary to these rules is a clinging to what is familiar and a
fear of that which is not (Robins & Post, 1997).
We are comforted by familiarity and by others like us. But to maintain the sense of
groupand selfcohesion we must differentiate ourselves from strangers.
Strangers, then, are necessary for our process of self-definition (Robins & Post,
1997, p. 91).
Nearly every culture demarcates an us from a them. But when such rules and
identities go unquestioned and, indeed, become inscrutinizable, there is the danger
of the consolidation of a fundamentalism that dehumanizes others as a mere
pseudospecies of humanity (Robins & Post, 1997, p. 104). The crux, then, lies
with the formational processes of our beliefs and identities. Having always been a
part of a culture, we are trained since birth to hold certain identities, and to think
and act in certain ways. But these customary beliefs need not be, nor have they
been pristine. Perhaps most terrifying is being misrecognized by others who
uncompromisingly and universally impose their monological account of justice.
To soften the concretion of fundamentalism, the learning practice of agents would
require a continual hermeneutical effort to interpret and reinterpret who they are
and what the rules of their social field means (Taylor, 1993).
With schools as the microcosm of the social field in which learners are
situated, education should cultivateespecially during adolescencethe
capability to dialogue on one anothers beliefs and identities if fundamentalism is
to become more fallible. Segregated from public education, ones beliefs
particularly religionbecomes privatized and rarely subjected to open discussion
and scrutiny. Setting religion as taboo in the secular, public classroom is not only
to deny the real presence of religions and the freedom for people to pursue their
spiritual needs, but also imposes an atheist fundamentality.
Instead of
secularizing all public schools, which demonstrates a fundamentalism in itself,
schools should foster open dialogue about all beliefs. Formal education, then,
should ensure that individual schools do not monopolize a particular belief.
Instead of catering to diversity by establishing Catholic, Jewish, Islamic,
Christian, Buddhist, or public (often synonymous with atheist) schools, which
each promote one metanarrative and super-identity, schools should facilitate the
teaching and learning of multiple beliefs (including atheism) through dialogue
among learners. Although dialogue across cultures may be an impossibility for
the pessimistic relativist, but the fact that fundamentalists interpret facts and
employ reasons to support what he already believes means that to challenge
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such fundamentalism requires not only the presence of alternative exegeses, but
different hermeneutics (Robins & Post, 1997, p. 180). If the possibility for
change indeed increases with immaturity, then schools should foster different
hermeneutical views. As Robins and Post (1997) argue, it is the defensive
aggression against ones self-sanctified exegesis and identity that frames the
terrorist mentality (p. 144). To remove the fundamentalist from their sealed
castle of invincible ignorance, schools should promote the opening of ideational
systems through the exposure to competing considerations, especially during
adolescence (Robins & Post, 1997, p. 174).
To learn how to learn through dialogue, from the social to the political,
will likely require more than knowledge but also praxis. Both Aristotle and
Dewey regarded practice as essential to learning (Frankena, 1965). Hence,
engagement with others in transcultural problems is essential to an emancipating
pedagogy. Schools should thus provide an open, secure climate in which to
cultivate the practice of dialogue and public deliberation. Providing the
opportunities to (1) dialogue over ones private beliefs, attitudes, and practices;
and (2) participate in public deliberation over collective matters are essential for
teaching learners how to learn throughout their life. As a microcosm of society,
schools, then, should model the normative society in which the future citizens are
to build and function. After all, softening our often unrecognized fundamentalism
undermines our faith in our extremist ways. And being more sensitive to the
fallibility of our knowledge and the malleability of our identities frees us from the
chains of a narrow hermeneutics. Fostering opportunities to dialogue, reason,
choose, and change, such an intercultural education is certainly valuable in itself.
Not only does the opportunity for intercultural dialogue make people
capable of criticism, capable of conflict without relying on an extremist habitus
of terror (Beck, 2000, p. 79), but it increases the substantive freedom of people to
express and choose their beliefs and identities. Fundamentalism of any belief
tends to comprehensively override most if not all aspects of social freedom from
economic to cultural to political life. To enhance our freedom, we need to engage
in dialogue with others to reveal and scrutinize our taken-for-granted
fundamentalist beliefs, attitudes, and customs. Perhaps after careful reflection, we
may decide not to change the contents of ones beliefs or practices. But what has
changed is that we have increased our freedom: By loosening the taken-forgranted restrictions of our fundamentalism, we are able to more consciously
choose what to believe and do what we have reason to value, and thereby expand
our horizons. Intercultural dialogue, then, cultivates a more fallible (or less
fundamental) belief attitude, a more malleable recognition of identities, and
ultimately provides a learning experience that enhances the freedom for choosing
the beliefs and practices that one finds valuable.
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5.3 Conclusion
The socially and historically pervasive practice of psycho-political terror
suggests its roots are embedded in human dispositions (developmental and sociocultural). Terrorism is often neglected as a social problem that is relevant to the
everyday choices and actions made by law-abiding citizens both in the country
where it occurs and elsewhere. Because social crises are no longer perceived in
terms of their rootedness in the social realm, terrorism becomes individualized as
the calculations of evil and desperate individuals in foreign lands (Beck & BeckGernsheim, 2006, p. 150). Terrorism is thus regarded as the actions taken by
black swans, peculiar outliers from our horizons. But as thoughtful, moral
beings, peoples behaviors cannot be seen simply as the output determined by
certain social conditions. Yet individual choices are never made entirely free of
the history of developmental and socio-cultural forces. My insistence is not that
individuals are free to choose their beliefs and identities ex nihilo, but rather that
this freedom can be enhanced through learning experiences that undermine the
fundamental logic of terror. After all, since birth we have all been brought up and
taught by the authorities (older siblings, parents, guardians, teachers, doctors,
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lawyers, politicians, priests, etc.) what we are to avoid and what we are to prefer.
We are never completely isolated from the reproductive forces exerted through
asymmetric relationships, especially during our adolescence. Consequently,
without the help of others to perturb our taken-for-granted doxa of what is vulgar,
sinful, or just, we have little hope of criticizing our very self-constitution.
Without someone waking us from our nightmare, warning us of a car we did not
see, or informing us that we have some broccoli stuck in our teeth, we may have
been unable to recognize the possibility that we were not just dreaming, crossing
the street, or displaying a charming smile at a dinner party.
The moral consideration of intercultural conflict through the ETM further
implicates the need to promote the recognition of human rights and democratic
deliberation on the political level, and dialogue on the social level. First, the
education of democratic human rights is imperative to increasing the shared
recognition, condemnation, and mitigation of terrorist methods. But the
willingness to participate in such democratic deliberation requires a moral
sensitivity for those on the other side. The task of education then is to envision
a world populated by people who care about one another (Wolff, 2006, p. 196).
Interlocutors must be able to draw those farthest from them, those who may not be
compatriots, into the horizon of their concern. Only when we can envision the
welfare of others (on their terms and not only according to our sense of justice)
will we be willing, indeed able, to learn of the thresholds of one another. Thus,
among the many forms of democracies, that of the deliberative is most pertinent.
Second, living in a plural world has not only implicated the need for building
multicultural citizenship on the political level but also that of intercultural
relationships on the social level. As Wolff (2006) argues, justice, or at least, too
rigid and exclusive a concern with it, undermines genuinely valuable human
relations (p. 196). It is perhaps through the everyday interactions that
interculturalism is most practicable. From the family to schools to the workplace
to civil society, the practice of interculturalism warrants more consideration.
Difference across the expanse of the socio-political spectrum must be overcome
without erasing or denying it. Through public deliberation and intercultural
dialogue, the habitus of interlocutors becomes exposed, allowing for a change in
hermeneutical stance which may not have been possible before. Disenchanting
the shroud of cultural orthodoxy makes the expansion of ones freedom possible.
The cultivation of an intercultural habitus is thus crucially important to the
mitigation and perpetuation of socio-political terror.
Freedom from terror means that one should not be subjected to political,
economic, and cultural coercion according to a single absolute identity. As a
habitus that is both learned and taught, terrorism consists of both beliefs and
behaviors which warrant reflection if its mitigation is sought. Certainly,
scrutinizinglet alone changingour most fundamental doxa and practices will
be neither quick nor simple. But one extraordinary capability of the human
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Tolerance for difference is but a first step. To strengthen shared identities, we need
more opportunities for meaningful interaction across ethnic lines enabling us all
to become comfortable with diversity (p. 164).
127
pedagogical role of the expansion of our horizons and, hence, our freedom from
terror, that will be the focus of the next chapter.
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CHAPTER 6
INTERCULTURAL LEARNING IN A
POST-TERROR WORLD
6.0 Introduction
The consideration of terrorism in this thesis began from a politicoeconomic approach. Although the framework is scientific and the method
practical, the PEA fails to critically address the discourse of terrorism itself. Who
terrorists are and what incidents counts as terrorism remain largely taken for
granted in the statistical analyses, and policy recommendations. Shifting to a
historical focus, the analysis then widens the perspective of terrorism both
geographically and temporally. Constructing a typology of terror according to the
ideal types in its evolutionary history provides a framework for interpreting the
discourse of terrorism more broadly than that conventionally found in the PEA.
However, the dominant history of terrorism narrated remains problematic: The
exegesis of any eventterrorist or otherwise, both past and presentis
necessarily constituted of the context of the hermeneut and referential to the
salient impressions that occupy the hermeneuts mind. In other words, how one
interprets terrorism in history is necessarily bound by ones selective memory
within the contemporary discourse. Consequently, the myopic foci on globalized
terrorism and Islamism particularly warrant scrutiny.
Further probing the essence of terrorism suggests the possibility for (1) the
development of intercultural perspectives of terroristic methods and (2)
sustainable means of mitigating terrorist dispositionsthereby enhancing human
security and development through the freedom from fear. But perhaps most
problematic in the concept of terror is its moral essence. Rather than taking up
either side of the common deontological-consequential debate, I first drew on an
evolutionary framework as the organic basis of moral thinking and deliberation.
Arguing that while each society may have a different ethos of reciprocitythat is,
a cultural-adaptation of the PORthe golden rule, defection, and punishment
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remain common algorithms in many moral codes. The ETM is thus proposed as
an intercultural framework for the consideration of not only the morality of
terrorism but all transcultural conflicts. This coherent yet adaptive approach to
the moral evaluation of violence offers a more intercultural framework for the
analysis of terroristic methods. It also makes it imperative to: First, expand a
shared ethos (such as that of human rights) that values the freedom from fear,
should one seek to mitigate the reciprocation and perpetuation of terroristic
violence. And second, cultivate a habitus capable of participating in democratic
deliberation to enhance the moral coherence of intercultural conflicts. However,
the critical examination of educations role in the problem of socio-political
terrorism implicates more than just political education. Here, deliberative
democracy may be less applicable towards the familial end of social terrorism.
Consequently, an intersubjective mode of intercultural dialogue as a form of
mutual education that rectifies the terror of miscommunication and misrecognition
is warranted and will be the focus of this chapter.
As with any supposed solutions to real life problems, especially one as
complex as terrorism, a number of conceptual stumbling blocks remain in the
ETM. Firstly, the golden rule of treating others as you would yourself, which
is fundamental to the POR, needs to become more dialogical rather than
monological. The monological form of the golden rule is problematic for it
imposes upon others what one presupposes to be good. However, a dialogical
form of the golden rule would instead require discussion with others on how they
would like to be treated on their terms. After all, according to the ETM, an act
dealt to others is only morally consistent if both parties find the reciprocity
morally acceptable. Secondly, the ETM is overly simplistic in terms of how
people are identified and organized into groups. Given the complexity of a
globalizing world, the freedom to develop our own affiliations and identities is of
great importance. After all, many of those victimized by 9/11 may not agree with
how Bin Laden classified them, just as many of the civilians killed in Iraq and
Afghanistan as part of the GWOT may not agree with being affiliated with alQaeda. Central to the problem of terror is the misrecognition of identities in an
increasingly small yet heterogeneous world. Thirdly, even within a single cultural
group, there are certainly different moral views when evaluating a particular act of
violence. As stakeholders in governmental decisions, citizens need to be
justifiably represented and allowed substantive participation in the public sphere.
Therefore, to continue with the consideration of the mitigation of the cycle of
terror, the crucial role of intercultural education (in terms of dialogue and
learning) warrants exploration.
130
While terrorists cite oppression as an excuse for their methods, oppressors cite
terrorists as an excuse for theirs.
Reconsider the many historical acts of political violence cited in Chapters
2 and 3. Such conflicts almost always involve frightening entire communities and
result in civilian casualties for the political purposes of the belligerent. Even in a
war on terror, such as that in Afghanistan, it is often the powerless civilians who
die and the victorious leaders who stand vindicated (Azam, 2006; McPherson,
2007).113 Much of the history of political conflicts is marked by such tit-for-tat
violence. The cycle of terrorism and counter-terrorism hinges on identities
painted through historicism, burdening contemporary conflicts with the baggage
of past grievances and valorizing them into epic battles of justice and destiny
(Sen, 2006). Ones terrorist is often just anothers terrorized. Consequently,
Habermas considers terror akin to a communicative pathology that distorts
communication, leading to cross-cultural violence and whose cure depends as
much on the improvement of material conditions as it does on the political culture
in which individuals find themselves interacting with each other (Borradori,
2003, p. 20). Derrida, meanwhile, sees terrorism as an autoimmune disorder that
threatens the life of participatory democracy for it leads to the spontaneous
suicide of the defensive mechanism that supposedly protects the organic system
(Borradori, 2003, p. 20). Alternatively, Barber (2003) views terrorists as mobile
parasites who live in host bodies but can move from host to host as they infect and
destroy the systems off which they live (p. 117). Or perhaps terrorists are like
cancers within the body of humanity, miscommunicating with other cells. As the
cancerous cells reproduce, the monological terror invades without the recognition
of, communication with, or concern for the presence of its neighbors, whose very
presence and function is vital to the health of the being of humanity. Whether
113
132
133
by arguing that the trenches between cultures can never be crossed (p. 83). The
rise of Islamophobia post-9/11 further poses new challenges to the multicultural
ideals of recognition, toleration, and civic equality. While liberal societies may
esteem the ideal of multiculturalism, it has yet to overcome the problem of terror.
Without the imperative to communicate with others, mere toleration neglects the
dispelling of misconceived identities and independence that lie at the heart of the
intercultural conflicts. More robust is an interculturalism that transcends the
limits of mere tolerance, the rigidity of identities, and the artifact of
independency. As such, interculturalism may be of ever greater relevance in a
post-terror world.
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cultural groups (Gutmann, 2004, p. 71). Although people are free to privately
practice their own culturesthat is, the patterns of thought, speech, and practices
associated with a human communitythe principle of toleration does not
entail treating all cultural practices as equally valuable (Gutmann, 2004, pp.
76-77). What a democracy cannot tolerate are those cultural practices that are
incompatible with the principle of toleration by not respecting the civic equality
of individuals (Gutmann, 2004, p. 78). The paradoxical crux of democracy is its
constitution of freedom, including that which allows dissent from its very ideals.
As one of the main sites of division among liberals, where to draw the line with
regards to the limits of tolerance is a crucial matter for multicultural societies in a
post-terror world (Ryan, 2007). Should the terrorist be terrorized? Should the
intolerant be tolerated?
Derrida traces the genealogy of tolerance to argue that it is a discourse
most:
often used on the side of those with power, always as a kind of condescending
concession... [a] form of charity.... Tolerance is always on the side of the reason of
the strongest, where might is right; it is... the good face of sovereignty, which
says to the other from its elevated position, I am letting you be, you are not
insufferable, I am leaving you a place in my home, but do not forget that this is my
home (Borradori, 2003, p. 127).
People often recommend relativism because they think it will lead to tolerance. But
if we cannot learn from one another what it is right to think and feel and do, then
conversations between us will be pointless (Appiah, 2006, p. 31).
if husband and wife insist on their rights, this would seem to undermine the
possibility of their treating each other with normal love and affection. A marriage in
which a couple insists on their rights is a marriage gone wrong. But it does not
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follow from this that we should abandon the concept of marital rights: after all,
marriages dorather oftengo wrong (Wolff, 2006, p. 197).
How can you argue rationally that other peoples basic value choices should be
tolerated on the basis of a view that says there are no rational arguments for such
basic choices (Appiah, 2006, pp. 24-25)?
Here, interculturalism may contribute to the revision of the silver rule of mutual
non-intrusion into the golden rule of extending culturally-anchored hospitality
unto others. Such a welcoming interculturalism facilitates the coherent translation
of the private to the public sphere through exchange and mutual understanding
and reassured by a shared ethos of toleration. After all, developing interpersonal
relationships with different others may do more for social cohesion than the
political protection of a whole category of people who I may never meet.
Building more than just coexistence but also an ethos of reciprocity, trust, and
interdependence is what allows a multicultural social life to flourish. Intercultural
dialogue is thus both the means for setting the threshold of toleration and the ends
of tolerance.
137
138
Under no circumstances should you do unto others as you would like them to do to
you because they might not like it.
Consider the example of the Homer gift. In the Simpsons episode Life on the
Fast Lane (season one, episode nine), Homer goes out to buy his wife Marge a
birthday gift. When the gift, a bowling ball, is opened, Homer looks admiringly at
it and asks: A beauty isnt she? Marge, having never bowled in her life,
becomes angry at Homers obviously selfish choice. In this case, Homer applied
the monological form of the golden rule by asking himself: If I was Marge,
what would I like to get for my birthday? Since he liked to bowl, Homer
naturally bought a bowling ball. To impose ones beliefs and values upon others
is definitely problematic. Now what appears obvious is that Homer may have
simply misapplied the golden rule: He should have gotten Marge a gift that she
would have liked, just as he would appreciate getting a gift that he would have
liked for his birthday. Homer should have tried to imagine himself in Marges
position, to see things her way. After all, the premise for action is based on the
precondition: If I was Marge. But this condition of the golden rule presupposes
that one knows the preferences, values, and interests of the other in the first place.
If one presumes such knowledge, one can always be mistaken; however, such a
mistake can be rectified through a dialogue that fuses one anothers different
fields of vision.116 As Grayling (2011) goes on to explain in his lecture:
You have to remember: peoples tastes differ; peoples interests differ. And if you
make yourself the benchmark, the standard, of how everybody else should be
treated then thats a very distorting view. If you respect plurality, diversity,
difference between people; [then] you respect their right to the endeavour to create
something good for themselves and those they care about. We need to talk to one
another, to negotiate, and have a conversation about what we can agree on and
accept. But that agreement should be a very generous one because we should
recognize that people are different.
But the differences between people are deeper than the mere preferences that
Grayling (2011) points out or the Homer gift illustrates. Social and cultural
differences between people lead to different moral vantage points. It is such
differences that lie at the crux of the problem of terror. Nevertheless, if one
116
This idea of the fusion of horizons, drawn from Gadamer (1979), will be developed more
fully in Chapter 6.2.2.
139
140
These two points have been made in the previous Chapter 5.1 Intercultural dialogue.
A recent Gallup poll shows that religious prejudice of Americans against Muslims is still the
strongest, even a decade after 9/11. See http://www.gallup.com/poll/125312/religious-prejudicestronger-against-muslims.aspx.
118
141
Since no culture is perfect and since each represents only a limited vision of the
good life, it needs others to complement and enrich it. Cultural diversity is therefore
an important constituent of human well-being. Since other cultures provide us with
vantage points from which to look at our own, they enable us to appreciate its
strengths and limitations and increase our capacity for self-consciousness, selfcriticism and self-regeneration (p. 15).
However, whereas Parekh (2005), like Habermas, insists that the purpose of the
dialogue is to resolve or minimize disagreements, and to arrive at a view that is
acceptable to all or at least most of the participants, I am less ambitious (p. 20). I
am only defending that the purpose of getting exposed and accustomed to
difference through dialogical engagement. Any higher purposes beyond that, such
as a formulation of a consensus, will also be a matter to be discussed by the
participants. After all, the hope of establishing such a consensus necessitates the
reciprocation of rights and respect that cannot be taken for granted.
Consequently, I argue for the necessity of intercultural dialogue as merely a
process, without presupposing the need to reach a consensus, which, even if
attainable, will only be tentative. Such dialogue may thus lead to, as Gadamer
(1979) puts it, a fusion of horizons, whereby people with different frames of
reference attain a glimpse of what may lie beyond their field of vision. The fused
horizon, as an expansion of ones imagination and concern, provides a
cornerstone upon which lies the possibility of building intercultural relationships.
seemingly different cultures separated (p. 116). Mere toleration upholds the
borders around the individual pieces of a mosaic. Lacking the imperative to
engage with difference across presumptuous cultural divides, such
multiculturalism may aggravate rather than soothe the problem of terror.
The recognition of difference is an essential prerequisite to multicultural
toleration. Otherwise, what is there to tolerate if others think and act in ways that
fall in line with ones expectations? But this recognition process is highly
problematic. It often presumes the primacy of cultural identities. And while
aware that there are differences between cultures, it takes for granted the
differences within cultures. Even more fundamental than tolerance, which
presupposes the recognition of difference, is the politics of identification and
labeling that often neglects cultural malleability and freedom. Misidentifying one
another is fundamental to the miscommunication inherent to the perpetuation of
terror.
6.2.1.1 The politics of misrecognition
Since 9/11, many liberals in multicultural societies have become critical of
multiculturalism as an effective policy for social cohesion. After declaring that
the multikulti approach has utterly failed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel
insists that immigrants should speak German and suggests restricting Turkish and
Arabic immigration (Weaver, 2010). And arguing that the doctrine of state
multiculturalism has only encouraged different cultures to live separate lives,
British Prime Minister David Cameron suggests that: We need a lot less of the
passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism
(Wintour, 2011). How are different peoples to build interdependency and
relationships when even liberals abandon multiculturalism? Surely, it is not by
flexing a muscular liberalism that snuffs out differences in beliefs and practices,
and wipes out all other minority identities?
According to the constrict theory proposed by Putnam (2007), diversity
might actually reduce both in-group and out-group solidarity that is, both
bonding and bridging social capital (p. 144). By surveying people in various
cities across the US, Putnam (2007) finds that the more diverse the community,
the less people trust their neighborsincluding those of the same ethnicity.
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unhappily in front of the television. Diversity, at least in the short run, seems to
bring out the turtle in all of us (Putnam, 2007, pp. 149-151).
members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellowmembers, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image
of their communion. In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of
face-to-face contact are imagined (Anderson, 1991, p. 6).
Identity itself is socially constructed and can be socially de-constructed and reconstructed. Indeed, this sort of social change happens all the time in any dynamic
and evolving society (p. 159).
The reflexivity and flexibility of our identities can be associated with societal
changes in behavior. Because each member of a cultural group may adhere to the
traditional beliefs and practices to different extents, cultures are constantly
contested, subject to change, and does not form a coherent whole, its identity is
never settled, static and free of ambiguity (Parekh, 2006, p. 148).
Culture is, in other words, not a club, along with membership of which go certain
attributes of membership. Culture functions more as a productive force constituted
by a relatively amorphous aggregation of loosely bounded factors that both
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influence the lives of the individuals who share in it and are influenced by those
individuals (Mason, 2007, p. 172).
Such cultural freedom does not equate to the unscrutinized celebration and
conservation of each and every identified culture. Recognizing the malleability of
cultural traditions, cultural freedom necessitates the autonomy to question and
change taken-for-granted traditions (Sen, 2006).
While it may be easy to challenge the beliefs and practices of others, to
exercise the freedom to reflect on our own customsespecially those taken-forgrantedoften requires others whose difference helps us to become more aware
of ourselves. We may be so intensely focused on the differences of others that we
are blinded to the conditions within which we are situated.119 As Parekh (2006)
points out:
Unless human beings are able to step out of their culture, they remain imprisoned
within it and tend to absolutize it, imagining it to be the only natural or self-evident
way to understand and organize human life. And they cannot step out of their
culture unless they have access to others (p. 167).
Given, then, the increasingly multilayered identities and transnational ties carried
by individuals in a globalizing world, the freedom and opportunities to make
cultural choices about ones identities, beliefs, and practices are ever more
pertinent. Consequently, the exercise of cultural freedom should be valued,
rather than negated by an imposed precedence of unquestioned conservation
(Sen, 2006, p. 114).
A multiculturalism that seeks the preservation of diversity for its own sake
is problematic because it confines people within rigid categories that should be
porous and flexible. Rather than encouraging and empowering citizens of
diverse backgrounds to interact with each other in civil society, they are invited
to act in their own cultural community (Sen, 2006, p. 163).
Such
multiculturalism, or what Sen (2006) aptly describes as plural monoculturalism,
merely celebrates cultural diversity without considering whether cultural choices
are and can be made by the members of the various cultural groups (p. 156).
Because people deserveindeed, needthe freedom to choose what they have
reason to value, what cultural identity one prefers and how much weight it carries
should be decided by the people and not imposed according to external
prescriptions. One should be free to take up, decline, or change languages,
religions, communities, or identities. In other words, cultural categorization
even in the name of diversityshould not trump cultural freedom. To impose a
presumptuous classification upon people according to imagined communities, and
119
See Figure 6.2.1 for an illustration depicting the difficulty of becoming aware of ones own
condition.
146
148
149
I am urging that we should learn about people in other places, take an interest in
their civilizations, their arguments, their errors, their achievements, not because that
will bring us to agreement, but because it will help us get used to one another
(Appiah, 2006, p. 78).
In other words, political multiculturalism may structure equality and noninterference through laws which command citizens to respect the equal rights of
those different from themselves, but a social interculturalism could supplement it
by promoting a mutual education of the heart and the imagination through
placing interlocutors not in a debate but within the narratives of one another, in all
its humanness (Nussbaum, 2001, p. 443). People, and not only their rights, may
be more fully appreciated. In this regard, interculturalism diverges from a
Habermasian communicative ideal, where debates are undistorted by disparities in
power, purely grounded on the strength of impartial argumentation, and
completed with the establishment of a consensus (Bohman & Rehg, 2011). The
engagement in interculturalism, then, does not demand the symmetric
reciprocation of power, or even rights. Nor does it necessitate the establishment
of a consensus. For even the notion of power, represented as capital or rationality,
are refracted through different cultural lenses. As Parekh (2006) argues, because
society is marred by deep inequalities of economic, political and cultural power,
any theory of political deliberation cannot rely on the power of reason alone if it
is to be fair to the structurally disadvantaged (p. 306). After all, structural
asymmetries means that any consensus reached necessarily favors the
advantaged debater. In other words, interculturalism transcends knowledge of
others by pointing to the need to gain knowledge in others and ourselves. But if
interculturalism entails the sharing of narratives that do not require the
Habermasian conditions for an ideal speech situation, what does interculturalism
require?
Third, interculturalism requires a sense of fallibility and a willingness to
participate in dialogue in sometimes unconventional ways. A critical awareness
of our fallibility is crucial to intercultural dialogue. If we are aware that even our
scientific laws are never the last words in describing things as they are, but are
instead tentative theories upon which we construct our understanding of and
interactions with the world, then we must retain a sense of skepticism towards the
provisional nature of our knowledge (Popper, 1979). Hence, interculturalism
takes the rationality of arguments as being rooted in the values, beliefs, histories,
educations, emotions, and cultures of the interlocutors. From the awareness of the
limitations of our epistemological situatedness, we can engage dialogically as
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critics of the presumptions and identities of oneself and others. It is through such
hermeneutical efforts in wrestling with others that we gain alternate and wider
perspectives of reality. Interculturalism is thus conceived and practised in two
directions at once: reduction of ones own sovereign moral territory in order to
seek cross-cultural dialogue with others truths (Beck, 2000, p. 79). Hand in
hand with criticism, fallibility is both the cause and effect of the openness
necessary for intercultural learning. Such openness requires a readiness, indeed
expectation, for conflicting views, irresolvable ambiguities, and revising ones
own assumptions and practices. However, the awareness of the irreducible
complexity of many of our worlds problems does not mean we simply give up on
dialogue. Through intercultural dialogue: Truth must earn its quality of being
true (Beck, 2000, p. 81). Without thrusting the validity of ones singular reality
upon others, interculturalism recognizes our mutual fallibility, and the necessity
for both the differences and changes in our perspectives (Beck, 2000).
Interculturalism could, indeed should, remind us to function as autonomous
beings according to our knowledge without being certain of our justified beliefs to
the point of monologically imposing them upon others. In other words, fallibilism
breeds openness and keeps us from closing our horizons to others. What is
valuable and necessary for intercultural learning then is openness and dialogue.
Interculturalism is a pedagogical experience through multimodal dialogue.
The sharing of narratives between people with different frames of reference may
include argumentation or the attainment of a consensus, but it insists on the
willingness to be self-reflective and openness to being fallible. This intercultural
attitude draws on the awareness of the fallibility of ones knowledge as well as the
knowledge claims of others. It is not only built on a hospitable invitation
extended to others into ones own domain but also on a readiness to enter that of
the other. In short, it stems from the recognition of our epistemological
limitations and moral worth as autonomous, thinking beings.
6.2.2.2 Why share narratives?
There can be no prescribed outcome for interculturalism for it only seeks
to gain a more experiential and deeper understanding of others, and to become
more critically aware of the dispositions taken-for-granted in our beliefs and
practices. Such intercultural learning hangs on a dialogical process which does
not presume the universality of rationality but only in the possibility for some
sites of shared experience across cultures. The superior debater will thus not
necessarily win the dialogue. After all, interculturalism requires not a rational
consensus but seeks an expansion of horizons that houses others. But then why
share narratives if it likely will not lead to a consensus but will likely involve a
discomforting engagement with others holding different fields of view? Although
intercultural dialogue might not, indeed need not, lead to a rational consensus, the
process of dialogue is valuable in itself as a learning experience of autonomous,
moral beings. As Taylor (1993) argues, to transcend our monological
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Every finite present has its limitations. We define the concept of situation by
saying that it represents a standpoint that limits the possibility of vision. Hence an
essential part of the concept of situation is the concept of horizon. The horizon is
the range of vision that includes everything that can be seen from a particular
vantage point (p. 269).
The limits of our phenomenal world, the experiences of which provide us with our
knowledge, rationality, objects of desire and contempt, and history, is bound by
our horizons. To see beyond our horizons, or to at least see some of our objects of
focus (including ourselves) from different angles, would require the contribution
of others with different fields of vision. One cannot shift their horizons on their
own simply by imagining themselves in the place of others, given that our horizon
delimits what is imaginable already, akin to the monological golden rule. The
attempt to place oneself in the situation of the other as Gadamer (1979) proposes
requires the presence of and dialogue with others. By sharing our narratives
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6.3 Conclusion
What role education plays in the cultivation of misrecognized identities
that lead to terroristic miscommunications, and an interculturalism that
epistemologically and morally recognizes the intrinsic worth of others is crucial to
this thesis. I conceptualized in the previous chapter where education meets the
phenomenon of terror on a more fundamental basis by pointing to their
sociological connection as the inculcation of habitus.
As a form of
miscommunication, terror is perpetuated from the misrecognition of human
identities as being singular, static, and universal. Strengthening free and plural
modes of dialogue may thus alleviate the terror of monological misidentification.
Interculturalism is the attempt to engage with difference without being bound to a
non-consensual threshold of what is tolerable or rational. It seeks to enhance the
capacity for mutual understanding through the exchange of narratives as
autonomous, moral beingsthereby, helping to develop the reciprocation of
interdependence rather than mere independence. But if individuals and cultures
are so diverse that even the consensus on a threshold of toleration may prove
problematic, how can an interculturalist be confident that meaningful
communication is even possible across cultures? Even if such dialogue is
practicable, is it not just another cultural discourse? Why should it be adopted by
those with other values and of other cultures?
The possibility for the fusion of horizons is founded on the safe
presumption that all persons, despite their differences, share certain
commonalities allowing for intercultural communication. Firstly, all peoples
share tangible scales of time and space in which we exist, live, and think. The
knowledge we learn, then, is defined by the relevant scale of our existence and
founded on an a priori conception of space and time (Flew, 1971). Aesthetics,
rites concerning stages of life, reciprocity, conflict resolution, morality, causality,
temporality all describe many of the traits we humans share (Appiah, 2006, p.
96). Although our hermeneutical experiences can differ (e.g., a sick dog
recovered because of the veterinarians antibiotics or because of the divine
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In other words, we live and can only live by constructing our lives according to a
narrative founded on causality and temporality. Unguided by our logic, our very
survival in this world would be in jeopardy. Without the necessary connection of
cause with effectof what was, is, and will bethe world will be unreadable and
life absurd. One would not eat to satisfy hunger, drink to quench thirst. The fact
that we may hold different interpretations of our world, according to our different
vantage points, necessitates that we at least share hermeneutical experiences
within the same world. Without a noumenal world in which to interact, we would
not even have a basis for disagreement; for to hold a different view of something
requires the recognition of that something. Likewise, the fact that we use
languageeven if differentin thought and discourse refutes the solipsistic
presumption that the existence of all others too may be but figments of ones
imagination (Putnam, 1982). If we live according to our best tentative theories of
our world, then any growth in new knowledgethat is, learningrequires the
experience of the unexpected, anomalies that lie beyond what was once observed
or predicted (Popper, 1963). The only way to expand our horizons, to see beyond
what is taken-for-granted as known, is to seek corroboration or falsification
through intersubjective discourse. The hybridization of cultures has demonstrated
that the gulf of incomparability between cultures is not unbridgeable (Beck,
2000, p. 84). Many forms of intercultural learning have thus already been
experienced, wherever different observations and interpretations of particular
events are shared to contribute to mutual changes in beliefs and practices. Upon
this ontological basis of a shared existence then, there is every possibility for
mutual learning, as well as the transformation, expansion, and fusion of horizons.
To the charge that interculturalism carries no more supra-cultural
authority than the liberal discourse of multiculturalism, I concur. Like
multiculturalism, interculturalism can, indeed should, be recognized as a
development from within Western liberal traditions. Interculturalism is not
culturally neutral. But as a dialogical process that is itself reflexively subject to
modification, it does not need to be. Unlike multiculturalism, which takes itself
for granted as imposable, including upon those undeserving of respect
(Gutmann, 2004, p. 22), interculturalism admits to being just another value that
can be freely adopted and modified by others (Appiah, 2006, p. 25). Participation
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in intercultural dialogue is therefore voluntary, its process not progress, and its
conclusions drawn by the interlocutors themselves. The value of interculturalism
lies not in its ends, for which none can be monologically prescribed, but as a
means in itself. Surely there will be awkward moments during intercultural
dialogue, but if one realizes that the value of engaging with difference is exactly
because one is ignorant of the others threshold, such awkwardness can in fact
be regarded as sites of critical understanding. After all, no one culture is justified
in claiming a monopoly of the good life.
However rich it might be, no culture embodies all that is valuable in human life and
develops the full range of human possibilities. Different cultures thus correct and
complement each other, expand each others horizon of thought and alert each other
to new forms of human fulfillment. The value of other cultures is independent of
whether or not they are options for us. Indeed they are often valuable precisely
because they are not (Parekh, 2006, p. 167).
when the stranger is no longer imaginary, but real and present, sharing a human
social life, you may like or dislike him, you may agree or disagree; but, if it is what
you both want, you can make sense of each other in the end (p. 99).
the problem of terror requires a process of mutual learning that expands our
horizons. Given our unique perspectives, any hope of seeing beyond ones
hermeneutical experience rests upon discourse with others. As Nussbaum (2001)
proposes, the ability to imagine the experiences of others can help us to
participate in their sufferings (p. 426). This appreciation of the diversity of
circumstances in which human beings struggle for flourishing thus entails being
drawn into those lives through the imagination, becoming a participant in those
struggles (Nussbaum, 2001, p. 432).
To promote empathy in this way does not commit us to cultural relativism, to the
view that every culture is equally good, or to any sort of hands-off attitude toward
cultural criticism. In fact, the compassionate spectator is always attempting to
compare what she sees with her own evolving conception of the good (Nussbaum,
2001, p. 432).
After all, what moves people is often not an argument from a principle but just
a gradually acquired new way of seeing things (Appiah, 2006, p. 73).
Relationships between people that are mediated only by rule and not by empathy
frequently prove more fragile in times of hostility, more prone to a dehumanizing
type of brutality (Nussbaum, 2001, p. 395).
The community of national history was always raised in the dialectic of enemyimages. Threats create society, and global threats create global society (p. 38).
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But globalization also opens new possibilities for diverse ways for fusing horizons
by inviting intercultural dialogue, reflection, and change, and establishing a more
communicative and trusting ethos that remedies the problem of terror. By
appealing to the epistemological need for others and the moral value of
developing freedom, interculturalism may lead to a fusion of horizons that builds
interdependency rather than fear. After all, being able to see differently can
transform ones self-perception and thereby free oneself from imagined cultural
baggage. As reflective, autonomous beings, there is hope that, through thoughtful
words and acts, we can change our lives. As Sen (1999) reminds us: It is not so
much a matter of having exact rules about how precisely we ought to behave, as
of recognizing the relevance of our shared humanity in making the choices we
face (p. 283). Being able to touch deep moral and emotional nerves, evoke
unconscious collective memories, and mobilize the deepest self-understanding of
ones audience are therefore crucial in the dialogical process of building
intercultural dependency (Parekh, 2006, p. 310). The hope then is that the
interdependence necessary for expanding horizons may dissolve a culture of terror
and paranoia in a world risk society full of global citizens built on global threats
(Beck, 2000).
Viewed within the context of this thesis, interculturalism is a dialogical
process through which ones inherited identity, values, and beliefs may be
alteredthereby questioning the necessity of terrorism. And if a shared threshold
of tolerance can be derived from a dialogical golden rule, then the participants of
transcultural conflicts can coherently consider the morality of one anothers
actions according to a mutually accepted ethos of reciprocity. As a theory, the
ETM may offer little deterrence to would-be terrorists. But interculturalism, as a
sustainable process that may be cultivated, may offer more hope in addressing the
fundamental dispositions that perpetuate terror. After all, social change hangs
crucially on the changing of habits as much as on changing minds (Appiah, 2006).
The social reproduction of terroristic dispositions provides an important basis for
conceptualizing how such habitus may be understood, analyzed and mitigated. If
the freedom from terror is indeed valuable in a post-terror world, then there may
be reason to promote an intercultural pedagogy.
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CHAPTER 7
ENVISIONING A NEW HORIZON
7.0 Introduction
As our plural world grows denser, the compatibility of our different
identities, beliefs, practices, and pursuits is crucial to todays conflicts. New and
extraordinary ways are soughtindeed, requiredto coerce people increasingly
desensitized to the spectacle of terror. This thesis seeks to examine what
terrorism is and how it interconnects with education in our post-terror world. The
terrorist and counter-terrorist are caught in a perpetual dialectic: As an eye for an
eye marks the monological exchanges between those blind to the vantage points
of others. The (his)story of terror cannot be told impartially, nor can the science
of national security be practiced free of the scientists values. Consequently, both
warrant scrutiny. It is from this skeptical attitude towards the dominant
discourses of terrorism and education that the present enquiry is carried out. To
draw on Gaarders (1994) analogy of the world as a giant white rabbit being
pulled out of a top hat, I am trying to climb up one of its hairs and call into
contention that terror ought not and need not be a mundane part our experiences.
In this concluding chapter, after a brief defense of the central premises and
arguments in this thesis, I identify and respond to some of its crucial challenges. I
finally close with some potential implications for the future research and practice
of education.
defensible definition in such pragmatic matters. Through the lens of their own
discipline, positivists provide objective data on the roots of terrorismincome,
education, employment, religion, nationality, etc.without recognizing the valueladen presuppositions of their science (Putnam, 2002). I too began this thesis
without questioning the dominant discourse of terrorism. By imposing a rational
choice model, the narrow focus of the PEA may prove to be an oversimplification
for studying the diversity and complexity of such phenomena. The PEA to
terrorism is based on the Homo economicus paradigm, that is, individuals who
live and act according to a self-interested cost-benefit calculus. However, as
social animals with different concerns, we are neither identically nor entirely
governed by economic forces. Highly doubtful that the databases extensively
used in the PEA are impartial or comprehensive, I find that terrorism research is
often (falsely) enshrouded as an objective science. After all, what events should
the scientist quantify? Who should be the subject of terrorism research? Terror is
a value-laden subject. The PEA to terrorism does provide some statistical
information concerning certain forms of its manifestations, but it often fails: first
to account for the partiality of the scientist who holds but one value-laden vantage
point among many, and second to respect the moral dignity and diversity of
people who are able to imagine and pursue what they find reason to value.
Therefore, the study of the terrorist phenomenon requires the interdisciplinary
contributions from those who hold multiple perspectives.
Reviewing the historical manifestations of terror reveals what statistical
data cannot: That as a propagandistic act for attaining more socio-political power
through coercive fear, terrorism is founded on a self-justifying set of immutable
principles, be it religious or political. In other words, terrorism is essentially a
spectacular method of coercion which, despite the extremity of the violence, is
justified by a fundamental belief in a certain principle or cause. But like the PEA,
the exegesis of historyparticularly that of something as ambiguous and
controversial as terrorismis founded on the partial vantage point of the
historian. If history is the product of a shared culture, then the reading of terror
will be colored by ones finite and particular conditions. I am not asserting that
the PEA or historical analysis of terrorism is uninformative but rather that they
only provide partial accounts of the phenomenon. As such, the different
interpretations of terrorism warrant input from one another. After all, any
defensible science requires corroboration/refutation through critical examination
from others. While the contemporary discourse of terrorism is dominated by that
of transnational, non-governmental organizations that are increasingly extremist
in their modus operandi and fundamentalist in belief attitude; such globalized
terrorism is but the most spectacular tip of the iceberg of socio-political terror.
As Greene (2007) argues: While a linguistic community may insist on the
correctness of their definition, in doing this, they run the risk of missing the big
picture, of denying themselves a deeper understanding of whats going on around
them or even within themselves (p. 38). Consequently, I draw on Schmid and
161
freedom. Because we have the capability to decide and act according to reasons
we value, and not only out of necessity, we can be considered moral agents. We
are beings that do not entirely abide by our inclinations or self-interests at every
moment (Kant, 2005). Otherwise, we would be but mere robots acting according
to a pre-programmed algorithm, incapable of making autonomous choices, and
hence exempt from the moral accountability of our activities (Sider, 2007).
Unless we are moral agents capable of exercising our free will, we cannot be held
culpable for ourwhat are ultimately predetermineddeeds, including terrorism.
Although our capacity to reason is essential to our dignity as moral agents, we are
not entirely autonomous. We are not free to fly around like superman or live
forever without aging, no matter how much we wish and how hard we try. There
are physical, chemical, and biological limits to our world, although technology
does help us enhance our freedom by helping us overcome some of our natural
constraints. Neither are we free to feed on human flesh, commit sexual acts with
family members, or rob another of their possessions, despite the fact that these
acts are naturally accomplishable. After all, there are further political, cultural,
and economic restraints that limit our social freedom. In other words, within the
physical, chemical, and biological laws that define what we can naturally
accomplish, there are further political, cultural, and economic laws that constrain
what we should socially practice. Given, then, that we are neither mere puppets
utterly and predictably controlled by forces beyond our will nor free spirits
entirely uninfluenced by our natural and social conditions; why expand the
freedom from terror?
Expanding our freedom from terror is justifiable both instrumentally, as a
means to pursue and attain what we find reason to value, and intrinsically, as an
end-in-itself. Terror is a source of unfreedom which, by transgressing the norms
of others, coerces autonomy away from them. It limits development by restricting
the expansion of freedom of persons and nations politically, culturally, and
economically. Through terror, we are compelled to see and do (or not do) things a
certain way without the possibility of scrutiny or dialogue. In order for us, who
all carry different histories and hold different vantage points, to be able to pursue
those visions that we find reason to value; freedom is instrumental. Mitigating the
practice of terror is justifiable because doing so enhances our capabilities to be
and do differently from that imposed by unscrutinized conventions. But not only
is the freedom from terror instrumental to the attainment of different visions of the
good life, but it is an intrinsically valuable goal in itself. The abatement of
terrorism is a defensible end-in-itself, irrespective of what we ultimately attain,
because even if we choose our pursuits no differently with or without the threat of
terror, the opportunity for making this choice respects our moral dignity as
autonomous, thinking persons. Suppose a communist dictator, through the
terrorist method, compels you to serve as a medical doctor because of your
outstanding results in biology examinations. It turns out that you are immensely
interested in medicine and would have strived to become a doctor even if you
163
were not forced to do so by the state. In this case, freedom plays no instrumental
role in your pursuit and attainment of your good life, namely of practicing
medicine. However, you were denied the freedom to derive through reason this
choice of becoming a medical doctor. In other words, the opportunity for
decision-making on matters that significantly affect our lives is justifiable as a
goal-in-itself, irrespective of what our choice is.
Because terror denies people of their dignity, of their moral capacity to
think and choose those beings and doings that they find reason to value, the
freedom from terror is justifiable both as an instrumental means to attain what one
would like to pursue and as an intrinsically valuable opportunity for making
choices. To deny the value of freedom, even given its natural and social limits, is
to deny the human capacity to reflect and act upon those decisions and activities
that matter to peoples lives.
In assessing our lives, we have reason to be interested not only in the kind of lives
we manage to lead, but also in the freedom that we actually have to choose between
different styles and ways of living. Indeed, the freedom to determine the nature of
our lives is one of the valued aspects of living that we have reason to treasure (Sen,
2010, p. 227).
Given then that the freedom from terror should be enhanced for instrumental and
intrinsic reasons, what does terrorism have to do with education and how can
education expand this freedom?
If you know for certain what is the purpose of the universe in relation to human life,
what is going to happen, and what is good for people even if they do not think so
then you will feel that no degree of coercion is too great (Russell, 2009, p. 13).
Reminded that we can always be mistaken, we will find less reason to forcefully
assert our tentative theories, histories, and identities. For developing the freedom
from terror, education promotes the philosophical enquiry of our deepest beliefs,
values, and practices through intercultural dialogue. Education thus plays a
pivotal role in the reproduction and evolution of the terrorist habitus.
In sum, terrorism, as a normatively indifferent strategy of violent coercion
that can be learned and perpetuated across a socio-political scale, crucially
hinges on education. It is pivotal to the reproduction and change of the terrorist
habitus. To mitigate the former and cultivate the latter, we should learn to hold
one anothers beliefs and identities tentatively, aware that our horizons are always
finite and can be complemented by the visions of others. By coercing what and
how our activities should be, terror restricts our freedom to be and do what we
find reason to value. An emancipative education should thus develop in learners
the capability to engage in interculturalism, to appreciate the possibility of
changing the world by seeing and thinking about things differently.
166
167
Some men are so impressed by what science knows that they forget what it does not
know; others are so much more interested in what it does not know than in what it
does that they belittle its achievements. Those who think that science is everything
become complacent and cocksure, and decry all interest in problems not having the
circumscribed definiteness that is necessary for scientific treatment. In practical
matters they tend to think that skill can take the place of wisdom, and that to kill
each other by means of the latest technique is more progressive, and therefore
better, than to keep each other alive by old-fashioned methods. On the other hand,
those who pooh-pooh science revert, as a rule, to some ancient and pernicious
superstition, and refuse to admit the immense increase of human happiness which
scientific technique, if widely [and, I would add, wisely] used, would make possible
(p. 25).
Both theoretical and practical, philosophy not only contributes to what is known,
but also to the scope and limitations of what is knowable. After all, how one
defines knowledge and the manner by which such knowledge can be gained are
questions that shape the art of science but also lie beyond the scope of its enquiry.
Constituting of both reason and experience, philosophy can contribute much to
our discourses of terror and education.
The mere philosophy challenge is founded on a narrow epistemology,
one that neglects the contributions from different theories of knowledge and its
evolution. And it is the very certainties that we defend which lay the fundamental
groundwork for our potential extremism. If education is to be concerned with not
only the growth of skills but also wisdom, then educators must not only teach
the arts and science but also the knowledge of what we do not know. It must seek
to strike a moderate balance between absolute certainty and uncertainty. As
Russell (2009) argues:
if philosophy is to serve a positive purpose, it must not teach mere scepticism, for,
while the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless. Dogmatism and scepticism
are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of
not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge
or of ignorance (p. 27).
168
(2006) explains, since moral values are culturally embedded and since each
culture is a self-contained whole, they are relative to each society and the search
for universal moral values is a logically incoherent enterprise (p. 126). Because
relativists hold the view that all moral judgements are relative to a culture, it
cannot be criticized from outside (Parekh, 2005, p. 17). The implication is that
moral consensuses, indeed intercultural dialogues, are not only futile but
impossible. But the ETM does not generate absolute moral laws. It does not
formulate claims like civilians should never be intentionally attacked or
surrendering enemies must not be executed without trial. Rather, it is highly
contextual: what moral judgments become passed through the ETM will depend
on the stances of the people affecting and affected by the conflict. Only those
methods which do not violate the norms accepted by the people of all sides in a
particular context will be moral; the very same methods may be judged immoral if
at least one group of people finds their norms violated by such acts. But then, is
not the ETM making the relativistic claim that there is no right or wrong?
In contrast, universalists hold that there are common values that are
essential to human nature, such that they are valid and defensible across all
cultureseven if they meet resistance from others. If everyone could simply
become convinced by the superior argument, then all would come to a rational
consensus. In this view, there are some values that are, and should be, universal
(Appiah, 2006, p. xxi). Universalists insist with reasons their claim that there are
facts which remain true independent of ones cultural beliefs, values, preferences,
morals, histories, or practices. Consequently, according to this account, there is
some good life that everyone should pursue or at least value, even if they do not
do so at the moment. To hold such a view requires the belief in some universal,
inviolable ethical system, one that insists on the possibility to judge in absolute
terms right from wrong, irrespective of vantage points and across time and
space. The crucial idea here is that there are certain moral responsibilities
prescribed by universal normative principles. In other words, there are certain
rules and principles that can [and should] be universally shared (Held, 2005, p.
22). For example, human rights and tolerance are some values that are held as
universal by many liberals among others. However, while the ETM does not
formulate any absolute, normative maxims; it does provide a coherent framework
that systematically takes into account the diversity and evolution of moral
reasoning. Given the freedom-fighterterrorist dialectic, the theory simply holds
that one cannot justify denying others the freedom from terror that is demanded
for oneself. Simply put, the possibility for any moral consensus rests on its
dialogical constitution.
In sum, the stance of the ETM can best be described as what Beck (2000)
calls contextual universalism, that is, the tenability of truths rather than just one
truth through mutual interference between exclusive certainties (p. 84). Such a
stance departs from the absolutist basis shared by both universalists and
170
relativists. Both impose their singular viewpoint upon all others: the former of
the validity of a particular nature of reality and the latter of the impossibility of
dialogue or bridging across multiple realities. The crucial implication from
shifting towards the recognition of imperfect pluralities is that, the things we
hold most sacred must be opened to criticism by others (Beck, 2000, p. 86). The
ETM reflexively but systematically adapts to cultural diversity and evolution to
provide a finite but coherent moral stance when considering intercultural conflict.
Its claim, that it is possible to systematically assess the morality of any
intercultural conflict, appears universalistic. However, the outcome of each moral
evaluation will be dependent upon the particular conditions constituting each
conflict. The ETM holds no transcendental ethics. For example, if two tribes on
an isolated island were to engage in conflict and every single member of both
sides morally accepted, say, the eating of the bodies of their enemies; then such
actions would be as morally acceptable (or culpable) as uniformed soldiers
leaving their enemies bodies to rot in a war. In sum, the contextual
universalism of the ETM is moderate between the absolute certainty of
universalists or absolute incommensurability of relativists by holding there to be
phenomenal realities that: (1) can be naturally and socially shared by different
cultures, and (2) are tentative, heterogeneous, and ultimately fallible.
171
Terrorism is the politics of state officials and movement militants alike. This
argument does not justify either the officials or the militants, but it does excuse them
all. We hardly can be harsh with people who act the way everyone else acts
(Walzer, 2004, p. 57).
Watering-down the notion of terror may seem to present an excuse for universal
resort: Yes, terrorism is wrong, but everybody does it. However, instead of
having everyone increasingly accept terror as the norm of human interaction, it is
possible that the inherent culpability of the terrorist label may help remind us to
reflect and change any of our terrorist ways. The supposed weakness of broader
notions of terror is also the source of its greatest hope. For through scrutinizing
and holding ourselves responsible for possibly robbing others of their freedom
from terror, we may become: (1) more sensitive to the mundane experiences of
terror in our families and societies, (2) more aware of our role in the systemic
perpetuation of terror from the social to the political contexts, and (3) more
willing to participate in expanding our freedom from terror by ceasing its
perpetuation.
Furthermore, broad notions of socio-political terror may implicate too
many terrorists to be practicable, for one cannot condemn terrorism without
condemning all violence of every stripe (Chaliand & Blin, 2007b, p. 10). After
all, governments have enough trouble dealing with political terrorists as it is; to
potentially admit many social practices into the problem of terror only
obfuscates an already complex and controversial issue. To broaden the stateauthorized discourse of terror would digress from the focus of policy-makers:
How to combat the threat to national security posed by subnational terrorists
(Pape, 2003). As Merari (2007) points out, broad definitions fail to distinguish
terrorism from other forms of violent conflicts, such as guerrilla or even
conventional war (p. 15).
Yes, narrow and rigid definitions of terror make the life of policy-makers and
terrorism researchers much simpler. However, doing so neglects the sociological
experiences in which the fundamental roots of terror are embedded. The
practical acts of counterterrorism merely scratch the surface, if not problematize,
such socio-political issues.
172
I concur with the charge that a broad conception of terror is not pragmatic
for governments and their advisors. However, there is a danger in not carefully
contemplating such complex issues. After all, it would have been more practical
for slave owners to not critically reflect on slavery nor change the existing
policies and practices. Likewise, the resistance to consider broad or diverse
understandings of terror simply out of their impracticality is a faulty and inverted
rationale. How terrorism is conceived profoundly shapes how one responds to
it.120 Thus the inertia against rethinking terror is particularly crucial to its
perpetuation. Given that soldiers are dispatched, armed, and poised to counter
any terrorists with legitimately lethal force, it is of grave importance to critique
and understand the concept of terrorism. Using singular, narrow, and hence
practical definitions to identify and respond to terror is problematic for at least
two reasons: First, they arbitrarily simplify what is otherwise a complex
phenomenon. Second, they are not dialogically formulated but monologically
imposed. To impose laws constituted of a particular interpretation of terrorism is
problematic. After all, the essence of terror is not the physical elimination of
whomever is perceived to be different but the eradication of difference in people,
namely of their individuality and capacity for autonomous action (Borradori,
2003, p. 7). To act upon an arbitrarily narrow definition of terror is to deny
diverse viewpoints on such controversial issues and thereby potentially perpetuate
it. Russell (2009) puts it well: Dogmatism is an enemy to peace (p. 26).
Reconceptualizing terror from a socio-political framework offers a new
perspective on the hermeneutics of terrorism. While recognizing the social
pervasiveness of such politics may be deemed impractical by many authorities,
the moral implication is that many of our hands may not be pristine of its
culpability. Perhaps more importantly, the recognition of socio-political terror
may promote wider self-reflection of and debate concerning terroristic behaviors.
After all, to monologically address what is a dialogical problem is inadequate.
Hence, this thesis defends a dialogical education that cultivates a skeptical
curiosity towards and an intercultural appreciation of diverse understandings of
terror, as well as one another.
Consider the strict definition of forcible rape that has recently been broadened in the US to
include male victims, as well as, among other things, forcible oral or anal penetration (Savage,
2012). The new definition, which includes a broader understanding of rape, will directly impact
the statistics and analyses of such incidents in the future.
173
perpetuate the pecking order within and between societies. As Russell (2009)
argues:
Because terror crowds out the freedom to think and the capability to compose
autonomous reasoning, to truly counter the heteronomy of terror would require the
learning of wisdom, that is, the knowledge of what one does not know (Sen, 2006,
p. 175). Merely exporting the training of skills to poor nation-states misses the
essential focus of development: the capabilities for freedom.
In todays post-terror world, educators must be more concerned not only
about what knowledge is held, but how it is held. If education is to be more than
the (re)production of docile, skilled workers, then it must encourage the freedom
to formulate and express critical thought, particularly on the social reproduction of
the terrorist habitusthat is, the intentional coercion of others through physical
and symbolic violence for ones own purpose. To enhance the freedom from
socio-political terror, education must be a force for emancipation (Grenfell,
2007, p. 78).
It will be found that increase of skill has not, of itself, insured any increase of human
happiness or well-being. Philosophy means love of wisdom, and philosophy
in this sense is what men must acquire if the new powers invented by technicians,
and handed over by them to be wielded by ordinary men and women, are not to
plunge mankind into an appalling cataclysm (Russell, 2009, p. 22).
Mere educational training fails to dispel the illusionary identities that divide
people into uniquely hardened categories which are easily exploited in support
of fomenting intergroup strife (Sen, 2006, p. 178). Liberation from the
misrecognition and symbolic violence present in our dispositions is therefore a
personal and social struggle for Bourdieu (Grenfell, 2007, p. 251). He thus seeks
to de-dogmatize education by uncovering its social function and thereby reappropriate the structures of our own thought (Grenfell, 2007, p. 162).
Comparing education across cultures provides novel perspectives for thinking
about these systems, and thereby offers a basis for critique. Education, then,
should seek to provide not only the training of practical skills but also a practical
175
suppose you meet a Muggletonian, you will be justified in arguing with him,
because not much harm will have been done if Mr Muggleton was in fact as great a
man as his disciples suppose, but you will not be justified in burning him at the
stake, because the evil of being burnt alive is more certain than any proposition of
theology.... [T]he general principle remains, that an uncertain hypothesis cannot
justify a certain evil (pp. 28-29, italics added).121
Being less certain about what we know and appreciating how others can improve
our tentative knowledge, perhaps our freedom from terror can be better developed
in future generations.
Through intercultural comparisons of the theories and practices of
terrorism and education, researchers may substantively affect how terror is
understood and countered, and how interculturalism may be adapted in particular
educational contexts. The socio-political framework of terror points to potential
research on how such habitus and experiences may be perpetuated and understood
in the field of education: be it inter-institutional, inter-learner, oppressive
(teacher-student), or revolutionary (student-teacher). Comparing how the terrorist
identity and habitus may be inculcated among youths around the world today may
be particularly illuminating, indeed, pertinent, to the development of their postterror world, one inherited from us. Consequently, another relevant area of
research is how intercultural education, as a generic algorithm, may be viewed
and adapted by learners and educators in their particular contexts. After all,
influencing social thought, political action, and public policies, research (even if
philosophical) can substantively affect peoples lives and choices, be they
political leaders or future ones being socialized as schoolchildren (Sen, 2006, p.
178). And this thesis is one example of such philosophical research.
Muggletonianism was a small Christian sect in England lead by Lodowicke Muggleton in the
17th century.
177
terror. As such, it focuses on re-examining the terrorist phenomenon and the role
of education in its perpetuation. As a coercive method that, through physical and
symbolic violence, violates one anothers norms; terror is a dialectical problem
hinging on the misrecognition of identities and miscommunication across cultures.
To expand the freedom from terror, education should seek to enhance:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
the recognition of and respect for the moral dignity of every person,
the malleability of our identities and relations,
the awareness of the fallibility of our tentative knowledge, and
the appreciation for the uniqueness and limitations of each persons
vantage point.
In regards to the first, some form of human rights education should be promoted
by every state, adapting its discourse into their particular contexts while valuing
the moral dignity of all persons. In terms of the second, learners should from a
young age, when their identities and loyalties are especially formative, be taught
to appreciate their freedom of association and plurality of identities. For the third,
educators should encourage diverse enquiries and discussions, particularly
concerning those issues that are too mundane or too fantastic for many adults
accustomed to their taken-for-granted conditions. Finally, and above all,
education should promote intercultural dialogue.
To develop new horizons free from terror, the will and ways to understand
those who are different warrant cultivation. Placing the hope of ceasing the cycle
of terror in the enhancing intercultural dialogue and freedom may seem like mere
fantasy. But without objective measures to define, let alone resolve, terror; the
cultivation of hope that we, through our personal and societal changes, can
meaningfully affect our shared world is at least the first essential step towards the
freedom from terror. Counterterrorism is hardly a natural science; neither are
terrorists necessarily strangers doing and believing strange things. Without the
hope of envisioning horizons free of terror, we will only fuel its perpetuation by
fighting it. The hope, indeed expectation, that our problem of terror can be
alleviated at least makes its realization more achievable. As Ariely (2010) argues,
not only do our beliefs and expectations affect how we perceive and interpret
sights, tastes, and other sensory phenomena but our expectations can [also]
affect us by altering our subjective and even objective experiences (p. 228).
Placing hope in the freedom from terror at least changes our expectations and
perceptions of such experiences. After all, where else do archers aim if not for the
infinitely small centre of their target? As moral agents, we have the capacity to
affect our beliefs and practices. We can, through intercultural dialogue, transform
ourselves and perhaps even our societies.
Through entering one anothers narratives, different horizons can crossfertilize, our partialities and fallibility appreciated, and the value and values of
others recognized. By building interdependencies that enhance our freedom both
178
179
How can education enhance the freedom from such sociopolitical terror?
180
Number of Incidents
700
600
500
400
300
Incidents
200
Linear (Incidents)
100
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Year
Number of Incidents
Incidents
Linear (Incidents)
Year
181
Number of Incidents
600
500
400
300
Incidents
200
Linear (Incidents)
100
0
Year
Number of Incidents
450
400
350
300
250
200
Incidents
150
Linear (Incidents)
100
50
0
Year
182
Number of Fatalities
3000
2500
2000
1500
Fatalities
1000
Linear (Fatalities)
500
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Year
Number of Fatalities
3000
2500
2000
1500
Fatalities
Linear (Fatalities)
1000
500
0
Year
183
Number of Injuries
6000
5000
4000
3000
Injuries
2000
Linear (Injuries)
1000
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Year
Number of Injuries
6000
5000
4000
3000
Injuries
2000
Linear (Injuries)
1000
0
Year
184
3500
3000
2500
2000
Linear (Incidents)
1500
Linear (Fatalities)
1000
Linear (Injuries)
500
0
1968
1970
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Year
2500
2000
1500
Linear (Incidents)
1000
Linear (Fatalities)
Linear (Injuries)
500
2004
2001
1998
1995
1992
1989
1986
1983
1980
1977
1974
1971
0
1968
Year
185
Remarks
Access
Data
Description
Sources
Sponsor
Name
The US Department
of State (USDOS)
Reports from US
embassies worldwide
and the Central
Intelligence Agency
(CIA)
Includes only
incidents of
international
terrorism strictly
defined as
significant
1968 2004
(digitally published
from 1976 2004)
Data is published
annually in freely
accessible, digital
reports:
http://www.terrorismi
nfo.mipt.org/Patternsof-GlobalTerrorism.asp
Discontinued and
replaced by the
NCTCs Report on
Terrorism in 2004
International
Terrorism: Attributes
of Terrorist Events
(ITERATE)
US Office of Political
Research
RAND Worldwide
Terrorism Incident
Database (RWTID)
Report on
Terrorism
The RAND
Corporation
National
Counterterrorism
Center (NCTC)
Attempts to include
all international
terrorism incidents
covered by the press
and media but has
selectively included
some borderline
domestic terrorism
incidents
1968 present
Attempts to include
all international
terrorism incidents
covered by the
press and the media
and has included
domestic terrorism
since 1998
Attempts to
include all
incidents of
terrorism both
domestic and
international
deemed
significant
1968 present
(international
terrorism) 1998
present
(domestic
terrorism)
Database is only
accessible through
subscriptions as of
2008
http://www.rand.or
g/ise/projects/terrori
smdatabase/
2004 present
Data is no longer
freely accessible by
the public
Developed by former
CIA analyst Edward
F. Mickolus in
1975(United States
Central Intelligence
Agency, 1976)
Data is published
annually in freely
accessible, digital
reports:
http://www.terrori
sminfo.mipt.org/P
atterns-of-GlobalTerrorism.asp
Incorporates two
earlier RAND
databases: the
RAND Terrorism
Chronology
Database and the
RAND-MIPT
Terrorism Incident
Database
(Sandler & Enders, 2007; Bellany, 2007; LaFree, Dugan, Fogg, & Scott, 2006)
186
Terrorism
(bottom-up)
Guerrilla Warfare
Conventional
(legalized) War
Control of
Territory
Small (individual to
groups of 1 - 10s)
Medium
(units of 10 - 100s)
Large
(armies of 1000s or
more)
Weapons
Concealed arms
(explosives)
Rifles, grenades
(basic military arms)
Uniform/Symbols
No uniforms
Uniforms / symbol of
identity or affiliation
Victims
State symbols,
religious-political
figures, public at
large
Military,
communication and
transportation facilities,
infrastructure
Primary intended
impact
Psychological
coercion
Attrition of enemy
forces
Physical
destruction/defeat of
enemy forces
Recognition of war
zones
No
Within country
International
legality1
No
Yes
Yes
Domestic legality
No
No
Yes
(Merari, 2007)
The issue of the legality of war that demarcates it from the illegality of terrorism in international
law will be elaborated in Chapter 4.2.
187
State
State
Citizens
Citizens
Instigator
The IRA stands for the Irish Republican Army, ETA for Euskadi ta Akatasuna or Basque
Homeland and Freedom, and IMRO for the Internal Macedonia Revolutionary Organization.
188
Extremism:
immoderate
actions based on a
fundamentalist
rationale
Fundamentalism:
an uncompromising
belief attitude
189
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1981-1990
1991-2000
Time Period
2001-2005
(Atran, 2006)
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
2001
2002
2003
Year
(Atran, 2006)
190
2004
2005
Premodern
(Revolutionary)
Terrorism
Modern
(Oppressive)
Terrorism
Modern
(Revolutionary)
Terrorism
Selectivity of
Victims
Specific political or
military figures with
minimal collateral
damage
Religious
Ethno-political
Political
Religious-political
Self-preserving
Self-preserving but
suicidal in
expectation
Suicidal
Despotic hierarchies
Localized networks
Decentralized
international cells
Forthright
Clandestine
Clandestine
Ideological
Motivation
Methodology
Organization
Self-preserving
but suicidal in
expectation
Localized
networks
Mode of
Operation
Clandestine
Financing
Meagre, relied on
local financiers
Common
Essences
Postmodern
(Globalized)
Terrorism
Less specific and
even genocidal in
selectivity by
indifferently
legitimizing the
victimization of
entire civilian
communities
Often meagre,
Some relatively
relying on local
well-funded through
financiers
global networks
Struggle for socio-political power (by disempowering potential threats and/or
consolidating ones own power)
Reliance upon the psychological role of hyperbolizing fear and intimidation
Reliance upon the media of their times to disseminate propaganda
Motivated by ideological self-justification
Widely held to be illegal and immoral 3
Often monopolized
monetary resources
191
As defined by Schmid
and Jongman (2005)
Terrorism
Since antiquity
Premodern
Oppressive
Premodern
Revolutionary
The Russian
Revolution
Modern
Revolutionary
Interstate
Modern
Oppressive
An emerging
species?
Globalized
Terrorism
192
193
Definitional Elements
Violence/force
Political
Fear/terror
Threats
Psychological effects
Victim/target differentiation
Systematic
Combat strategy/tactic
Breaching of norms/rules
Coercion/extortion
Publicity
Indiscriminate violence
Victimizing
Intimidation
Innocence of victims
Group perpetrator
Symbolic demonstration
Incalculability of violence
Clandestine/covert nature
Repeated violence
Criminal
Frequency (percentage)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
Repeated
Violence (7%)
Fear/Terror
(51%)
Violence
(90.5%)
Fear (100%)
Psychological
Effects (41.5%)
Publicity
(21.5%)
Propaganda
(35%)
Symbolic
Demonstration
(13.5%)
Coercion
(100%)
Threats (47%)
Coercion/
Extortion (28%)
Threats (96%)
Intimidation
(17%)
Demands on Third
Parties (4%)
Victim/Target
Differentiation
(37.5%)
Indiscriminate
Violence (21%)
Victimizing Civilians/
Noncombatants
(17.5%)
Indifferent
Victimization
(100%)
Innocence of
Victims (15.5%)
Incalculability of
Violence (9%)
Breaching of
Norms/Rules
(30%)
Aberrant (36%)
Criminal (6%)
Systmatic Planning/
Organization (32%)
Combat
Strategy/Tactic
(30.5%)
Strategic
(71.5%)
Clandestine/
Covert Nature
(9%)
Political (65%)
Group
Perpetrator (14%)
194
Frequency
Coercion
100%
Indifferent Victimization
100%
Violence
90.5%
Strategic
71.5%
Political
65%
Aberrant
36%
Group Perpetrator
14%
195
New York
December 9,
1999
December 15,
1997
March 1, 1991
Rome
Rome
February 24,
1988
Montreal
March 3, 1980
Vienna
December 17,
1979
December 14,
1973
September 23,
Montreal
1971
December 16,
Hague
1970
September 14,
Tokyo
1963
(United Nations Treaty Collections, 2005)
Private citizens
(all private and nongovernmental goods and
services providers)
196
Government officials
(politicians, policy and
decision-makers)
Familial
Political
Workplace
Corporate
National
International
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 6.1.2. A diagram of the alignment of magnetic domains, or
magnetization [from (a) to (c)] and disorientation of magnetic domains, or
demagnetization [from (c) to (a)].
197
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