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September 11, Crisis Resolution
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Interview for National JournalRichard E. Rubenstein Q: You have been analyzing and writing about terrorist movements for a long time. What new have we learned from the September 11 attacks about the nature of terrorism and terrorists? Do we need to modify our assumptions and working theories? Or, does Sept. 11 confirm your own long-held theories on terrorism? A: I will be glad to answer that question, but permit me to say something first. Talking analytically about terrorism always sounds unemotional. But, especially now, we can't put thinking and feeling in separate boxes. A few days ago I received a one sentence letter from an old friend in New York -- a sophisticated, knowledgeable executive who heads a major publishing company. The letter said, "I'm so sad and so scared." Me, too. My heart breaks for the victims of the September 11 atrocities, their families and friends -- indeed, for all of us. It also breaks for the hundreds of thousands, indeed, the millions of innocents murdered over the past forty years by weapons supplied and armed forces led or trained by our own government in places like Vietnam and Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and Central America, Angola and Congo, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Iran, and, of course, Afghanistan. If we can feel the same heartbreak for these victims as for our own, the monstrous acts of September 11 might one day prove redemptive. As for "scared," I am plenty scared of what comes next. But we can talk about President Bush's "war" on terrorism a bit later. In any case, to answer your question, I do not think that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon teach us a great deal about the causes and nature of terrorism that we didn't already know. We know that terrorism is violence by small groups claiming to represent massive constituencies and seeking by "heroic," provocative attacks to awaken the masses, redeem their honor, and generate an enemy over-reaction that will intensify and expand the struggle. Assuming that some section or offshoot of the Al-Quaeda network was responsible for the attacks, the profile of the terrorists -- men in their twenties and thirties of more than average income and education, passionately committed to an ideology of transformation and revenge -- is just what one would expect. Ditto for the method of organization (probably decentralized, effectively cut off from large organized mass movements), except for its rich, independent sources of funding and its long geographical reach. The terrorists' motives and strategic goals are not particularly new or mysterious, either. That they are essentially independent of existing nation-states confirms what some of us have been saying for a long time: state support is not nearly as important to terrorists as the existence of real grievances that generate a certain minimum of active and passive public support. It is certainly not unexpected that they would claim to represent a large oppressed identity group. Nationalist terrorists feel triply betrayed: by the foreign power that exports violence and an alien culture to their land; by local ruling classes that collaborate with the foreigners; and by their own people, who have not yet risen up in revolt. Their strategy is to alter all these conditions by using dramatic acts of violence to widen and intensify the struggle. The most novel feature of this terrorist campaign (other than its substantial funding and technical competence) is the fact that the fighters claim to represent a world religion, and that they have been able to exploit their connections with its most extreme ultra-conservative and puritanical sector. This makes them quite dangerous, not because so many Muslims support them now, but because an unwise response by the Americans could help generate the "clash of cultures" that Samuel F. Huntington predicted in his famous 1993 article -- a lengthy, ghastly war that might well prove to be unwinnable in the long run. Q: What kinds of people become terrorists -- both leaders such as bin Laden as well as his shock troops? Why do they resort to terrorism and what do they hope to accomplish? A: My previous answer suggests that most terrorists are fairly ordinary people beset by extraordinary circumstances. Many are would-be leaders of an oppressed nation, class, or religious group whose members have not yet decided to rebel en masse. Very often, there is violence in their backgrounds -- they have had relatives or close friends killed, maimed, or tortured by powerful foreign and local enemies. Terrorists like these are driven by a combination of despair and hope -- despair over the inability of corrupt local leaders to defend their people's dignity and autonomy; and hope for a great awakening that will unite the people behind their own leadership and free it from both foreign domination and local corruption. In my view, terrorist strategy is primarily defensive, in the broad sense of the word. Despite the use of words like "fascist" and "Hitlerian" to describe them, the militants in this case not want to lead an Islamic revolution in North America or Europe. They want the North Americans and Europeans to get their troops, their bribe money, and (in some cases) their products out of Islamic lands. These demands may be intolerant and wrongheaded, but they are not "Hitlerian." Q: We've heard many call the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks "cowards" and "suicidal religious fanatics." Are these the right descriptions? A: No. "Coward" is used strangely in this case. I think that when people say the word, they mean that innocent people who had no chance to defend themselves were destroyed in the September 11 attacks. The use of some such epithet is understandable, but, of course, a martyr is not a coward. "Suicidal religious fanatic" is also a misleading epithet, even though it is technically true that the perpetrators were willing to die, motivated by religious ideology, and intensely committed to their beliefs. Using the phrase involves two mistakes, in my view. First, "suicidal fanatic" suggests that "they" are loony, unfeeling monsters, whereas "we" are rational and humane. This ignores the fact that, from their perspective, there is a continuing war against their people that has already caused untold suffering in their lands, while we, insulated from the effects of atrocities perpetrated by those who act in our name, go on exporting violence and making money. But when we go to war, are we any less "fanatical" than they? We give medals to soldiers that martyr themselves for our cause, and we destroy not just buildings but entire unprotected cities: Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Second, the terrorists here do have strong religious motivations, and their ideology is an ultra-conservative form of fundamentalism particularly obnoxious to people who respect human rights. But "religious fanatic" suggests that their beliefs and acts are dictated by purely religious beliefs, when, in fact, they embrace a particular interpretation of Islamic tradition strongly conditioned by their political backgrounds and experiences. Don't get me wrong -- I am not saying that they are not "really" religious believers, but only that one has a choice in interpreting sacred texts and religious traditions, and that the choices they have made reflect their overwhelming sense that Western intervention in and occupation of Islamic lands represent an intolerable violation of their identity. Osama Bin Laden has complained particularly about U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia, the continuing U.S. war against Iraq, and U.S. favoritism toward Israel. These events, rather than sacred texts per se, are what shape his interpretation of religious duty. Q: Two aspects of the Sept. 11 attacks seem important when compared to terrorism by other groups in the past. (1) Anonymity seems to have been a deliberate strategy of the perpetrators (2) No overt demands were linked to the attacks. In other words the idea was to kill, strike fear, and doubt. Do you agree? If so, comment on the psychological and tactical importance of the strategy. A: I don't really agree that these are important issues. Anonymity has been a feature of many terrorist acts in the past, as has claiming the wrong identity in order to throw the blame on some enemy group. In this case, the tactical advanges of anonymity seem obvious. First, the people to whom you want your identity revealed (i.e., the Muslim masses in certain countries) already know it, at least in a general sort of way. So taking "credit" will only make your enemy's task of identifying and pursuing you easier. Similarly, overt demands are not always made in cases of terrorist attacks, since (a) everyone knows what the grievances are; (b) specifying them might help identify specific perpetrators; and (c) not specifying them may create a stronger eventual negotiating position for the terrorists both within the popular movement and between their people and the foreigners. Of course, as Lenin noted, "The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize," but the attacks of September 11, although unspeakably vicious, were not politically meaningless: they carried with them an implicit political agenda. Q: The events of Sept. 11 happened within an ongoing, deeper conflict between the United States and many in the Islamic world. Is it possible for the United States to talk or negotiate with the perpetrators? Is there any historical evidence that a non-retaliatory, non-military approach has worked elsewhere? A: I don't think that "negotiating" is a meaningful term, if that means cutting some sort of deal with the perpetrators. Nor do I think that the "perpetrators," whoever they may be, are the party one wants to begin talking to. They should be captured and prosecuted. "Talking," however, in the sense of initiating a dialogue with representatives of extreme Islamist movements, as well as with other tendencies, about Western relations with the Islamic world is not only possible but necessary, if we are to avoid a lengthy, bloody, possibly unwinnable conflict. In the field of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, we have learned that you can talk with pretty much anyone, provided that there is a will on both sides to communicate. Of course, this can't just be talk for talk's sake; I am talking about a dialogue, facilitated by independent experts who know what they are doing, which is analytical in that it explores the deep sources of conflict between alienated peoples, and creative in that it proposes solutions that may never have been envisioned before. And, yes, this sort of dialogue has worked before -- in fact, it works where military retaliation is ineffective because the conflict is generated by unsatisfied basic human needs, like the needs for identity and development. The current peace process in Northern Ireland, for example, was preceded by more than a decade of conflict resolution efforts involving Catholics, Protestants, and independent facilitators. A potentially lethal conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia was averted by using these same techniques. Promising efforts are now under way in many other lands where it is clear that "official" violence only continues the cycle of revenge and counter-revenge. In fact, your question assumes that military counter-measures can end terrorism, when that is actually a dubious proposition. Where the terrorists have virtually no mass base, for example, in Italy during the period of the Red Brigade, good police work combined with offers of amnesty can be quite effective. But where a mass base exists, even if it is nowhere near a majority of the terrorists' people, these groups have not been "stamped out" except at a ghastly cost in human lives and freedom. An example is Argentina's "dirty war" against the urban guerrilla groups, a ferociously violent campaign from which that country has still not recovered. As I've already suggested, a similar campaign directed against Islamic extremists in general has a strong potential to produce both horrible counter-attacks and a bloody clash of cultures. Q: As a country what (as a people generally and the Bush Administration in particular) do we seem to be doing right in the wake of Sept. 11? Conversely, what mistakes do you see brewing in the U.S. and how might we avoid them as we carry out our repsonse? A: It seems to me that the major thing we have done right, up to this point, is not to have bombed Afghanistan. If President Bush's bellicose rhetoric is intended to serve as a substitute for massive military action, I applaud it, but I'm afraid that is not the case. Bombing Afghanistan will be viewed as an atrocity committed against a suffering people who have already been exploited and abandoned by the West. And to characterize the counter-terrorist struggle as "war" and to state that "those who are not with us are against us" is music to the terrorists' ears, since what they hope to provoke is a war of the West against Islam that will force their people to choose between local "patriots" and "traitors." But the great mistake we are making, in my opinion, is to think only in terms of short-term responses to terrorism rather than in terms of long-term policies aimed at identifying the underlying causes of the violence. We Americans desperately need to rethink our role in the world, especially the way in which we have been misrepresented abroad by politicians and companies out to satisfy their own immediate interests, even at the cost of creating the kind of alienation that gestates terrorism. Do we really want to be the new Roman Empire? And, if so, are we prepared to crucify local rebels, massacre innocents, and destroy temples as the Romans did? I think that if most Americans understood who was acting in their name around the globe and what they were doing, they would not stand for it. Q: Rich.... any other thoughts you care to add? A: One further thought. Following the civil disorders of the 1960s in the U.S.,
President Johnson appointed a commission to study the underlying causes of civil
violence. It was called the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of
Violence, and it was chaired by Milton Eisenhower, Ike's brother and the president
of Johns Hopkins University. I think we need a National Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Terrorism to do the kind of in-depth study that would guide
future policymaking in our country. And if the American government won't create
such a commission, perhaps we in the nation's communities and universities should
do it ourselves. |
