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At the beginning of the spring semester, Kamal Beyoghlow, public and international
affairs, told his class “We want to take a look at some of the root causes
of this phenomenon called terrorism—not to justify it, but to try to understand
it.”
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Beyoghlow's Terrorism Course Is Popular after Sept. 11
By Jeremy Lasich
The events of Sept. 11 have given Kamal Beyoghlow, a public and international affairs professor, new perspectives to present in his Theory and Politics of Terrorism course. As former director of the National Security Program and a former foreign affairs officer in the U.S. State Department's Office of the U.S. Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Beyoghlow certainly has the credentials to tackle the sensitive topic.
At the beginning of the semester, Beyoghlow told the class of 100 students that the course would be objective. "If we are subjective and try to blame someone or something for the actions of Sept. 11, we're not really going to go very far," he says. "We want to take a look at some of the root causes of this phenomenon called terrorism - not to justify it, but to try to understand it."
The course's core goals include achieving a better understanding of the nature and roots of terrorist political behavior as a distinctive form of political violence; assessing the effectiveness of terrorism as an instrument of force and war; assessing the relationship between terrorism and the rule of law; comparing and contrasting the current terrorist threat domestically, regionally, and globally; and examining the relationship between terrorism and technology.
Before Sept. 11, Beyoghlow taught the course from just a policy and national security perspective. This semester, he is teaching it with an interdisciplinary approach that includes the psychological, economic, political, and sociological dimensions of terrorism. The core of the course has been a geographically based survey of prominent problems and active groups in certain regions of the world, through which students are encouraged to consider terrorism and how it differs from other forms of politics, war, crime, national security, and military tribunals. The course also examines domestic and international counterterrorism policies and strategies, and crisis and consequence management issues and problems.
Because terrorism is now often associated with just Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network, one of Beyoghlow's challenges this semester has been to get his students to expand their focus beyond Afghanistan. "The United States in the long term must come up with various regional strategies to fit each area - what applies to bin Laden and Afghanistan may not work in the Philippines," he says. "There are very diversified groups with different objectives, but at the same time, we need to think about all of them in terms of a threat to the stability and security of the world."
While Beyoghlow normally relays his message to younger students, this class is different; enrollment soared with an older audience and a number of current and former government employees who want to understand why America was attacked. "Students are really concerned about Sept. 11 for a variety of reasons - they really want to understand the phenomenon of why us, but they also want to understand whether it will happen again," he says. "I honestly think a lot of the students are seeking some sort of closure to Sept. 11. I hope this class will help them achieve that."
Without a textbook that adequately addresses the topic, Beyoghlow relies on current events articles and his extensive network of contacts from the counterterrorism community as guest lecturers, giving the students a first-hand account of recent activities. In March alone, students listened to employees from the FBI and the U.S. State Department.
Beyoghlow hopes his background will provide students valuable insight into terrorism that they would be unable to get elsewhere. "On one side, I bring in policy experience; on a second side, I have academic experience; and on a third side, I have the ability to combine both," he says. |
