United Nations, in its 60 years tenure has not been able to come up with the satisfactory definition of terrorism. International Criminal Court has excluded terrorism from its jurisdiction, although it deals with a wide range of crimes including genocide. Terrorism is still an abstract concept but has attracted lots of attention by media and academic circles. Authoritarian governments in many countries have been active in taking actions against terrorism, claiming to be the only savior of the country from the deadly virus. Most importantly after September 11 attacks, US has lead a war against terrorism followed by many other countries who want to get rid of terror by spreading more of it. The cooperation Washington gained for war on terror was even more than the cooperation against the international communism. The European Union and Russia collectively rallied to the US cause.
Opinion about the terrorism and terrorist activities is widely been condoned in US but analyising the political and social causes of terrorism has been avoided. Everyone was supposed to agree to the official line – that an irrational force inspired by a hatred of democracy threatened the planet. None of the books considered here justify terrorism; they analyze its causes and suggest remedies.
Violence with political aims
“Unknown Soldiers” a book by Matthew Carr, is about how terrorism is violence adhered to achieve the political aims. He quoted the example of attacks and assassinations in 19th century Russia by organizations claiming to be inspired the French revolution. In 20th century Balkans were under continuous war(1900-13) and in Ireland after 1916.All over the world colonies rebelled against their oppressors
Freedom fighter and rebel groups were demonized to justify repression by the colonial powers. They referred terrorists as bandits, criminals and vermin. In 1950’s Mau rebels in Kenya were accused of belonging to fiendish sect by the British officials and settlers. Even the New York Times explained Kenyan uprising as their frustration on being unable to embrace the development brought in by civilization. Seven years of revolt resulted in massive killing and displacement. Insurgents killed 32 settlers and 177 members of the security forces, about 100 of them African. Whereas the army and police killed more than 20,000 Mau Mau, with hundreds of thousands of Kenyans injured and driven from their homes. Carr points bring our attention to the fact that colonial conflicts often bring former terrorist leaders to power: Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Ahmed Ben Bella in Algeria, Menachem Begin in Israel and Anwar Sadat in Egypt.
Authorities never consider motives of terrorists to be legitimate and their social demands & sources of their discontent is never taken into account unless under extreme pressure. American eminent writers have put forward many theories, for instance Professor Huttington in 1993, forecasted the clash of civilizations between the West and Islam. In 1964 the historian Bernard Lewis explained the root cause of Arab Israel war to be the inability of the Muslim world to adapt to modernity.
“Violence to oppose that of their oppressors”
Phil Rees in his book “Dining with terrorists” states that violence is merely a way of raising international awareness of distress. Rees is an investigative journalist who has won several international awards for his work on demystifying the motives of terrorists. He has travelled around the world talking to the leaders of organizations in such a way that none re portrayed as terrorists yet convey their political message across. He brings out the human side of his stories by the photographs to back his description of terrorists’ convictions and give powerful arguments to find more peaceable ways to end the violence.
Rees is a remarkable storyteller, the way he puts forward his interviewees’ point of view, who claim that they resort violence only to oppose their oppressors and some want to force the enemy to negotiate a compromise. Rees also argues that Palestinian response in 1970’s especially the hijacking of the airplanes should be treated as propaganda. The Palestinians are resistance fighters just as the Zionists under British between 1922 to 1948 or as the French during German occupation.
1997 was the year when Rees got know a founder of Hamas Issmael Abu Shanab, who completed his education from US and was penned many books on technology or politics. Abu Shanab after serving eight years in Israeli jails remaed a militant. His point of view was that Palestinians only send their children to die in their fight for freedom as a response to tank shelling, bombs dropped by F16 jets and missiles launched by Apache assault helicopters. Violence, in his point of view is a way to get international attention to distress and oppression. Abu shanab’s car was hit by rocket launcher by an Issraeli helicopter. Abu Shanab was the 138th victim of Issrael’s targeted assassination policy which under international law is considered as war crime.
Stop the war on words
Rees during his visit to Columbia witnessed the Marxist Revolutionary Armed forces and counter revolutionary militia. Both the organizations involved in massive killings, kidnapping of the fellow citizens who were suspected to gain sympathies of rival organization. Rees in his accounts interestingly states that instead of naming these organizations terrorists, it will be a better option to try and getting the conflicting parties problems solved and stop the war on words for the sake of world’s peace. ”(1)Quoting former US ambassadors to Latin America, he points out that the US policy in its backyard has little to recommend it .
In his accounts he also states that blame for the crimes committed in Basque country can not only be blamed on Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) independence movement but also on the Spanish government, and indirectly on US and Europe, fo condemning this terrorism without even initiating a peace dialogue. Stating on the situation in Northern Ireland he says that “a peaceful settlement has been found for a conflict that dragged on for decades and was presented as being religious in origin, therefore intractable: it required long negotiations with the Irish Republican Army.”
Whereas the case of Al- Qaeda is different as Bush and Al-Qaeda both considers the differences between the Judeo Christian West and Islam is the struggle between life and death. There is no question of negotiation or compromise so the hope for the peaceful situation is grim. “The jihad waged by Osama bin Laden is as inflexible as the crusade launched by Bush after 9/11.” Rees comments that to get hold of Al-Qaeda is is the most difficult task because of its varied and vast location between the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan and the networking is based just upon a call to its supporters. Now how the Western governments are thinking to deal with such autonomous units is a question to ponder!
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1- The most recent example is the release on bail on 11 April of Luis Posada Carriles in New Mexico. He is an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who took part in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, and a CIA informer. He masterminded the plan to blow up a Cubana de Aviacion airliner in 1976, killing 73 passengers. After entering the US illegally in 2005 he was charged with breaking immigration laws, invalidating the extradition applications filed by Cuba and Venezuela (from which the doomed flight took off).
This article is rephrased from the article published in Le Monde diplomatique, “Does `global war on terror’ mask a new imperialism?” by Eric Rouleau
MATTHEW CARR: Unknown Soldiers: How Terrorism Transformed the Modern World (Profile Books, London, 2006, 400pps, £20)
PHIL REES: Dining With Terrorists: Meetings With the World’s Most Wanted Militants (Macmillan, London, 2005, 432pps, £7.99)