Terrorism and the Democratic Imperative: Reflections on Contemporary Muslim Politics Written by Dr. Abdelwahab El-Affendi When the news came in August 1998 of the bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya and Tanzania, the publisher and editor of an independent and strongly pro-government weekly published in Cairo made this comment: " The news came to me like a dream. The destruction of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salam. Glory be to the avenger. These fires remind me of the fires of Baghdad. My heart bleeds for the Africans but I am pleased about what happened to the Americans. That may have turned us into angry and embittered people looking for revenge which would placate our souls. I am not going to inquire about the perpetrator. Whoever you may be you have placated us a little. Ask the Arab masses from the Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean and you will see pleasure in their eyes. Even those who condemn the act say let them pay. Yes, American we are strong."
The editor who made the above statement does not belong to the extremist fringe of either the right of the left. He condemns the terrorism of local Islamists and he is very close to government circles - too close perhaps , as he has recently been used by official circles to spearhead the government's campaign against local human rights groups accused of receiving Western funding. The editorial in the semi-official Al Ahram on the same day called on the US to improve its image. It said 'The Arab peoples generally regard the USA as biased in favour of Israel and against the Arabs'. In other words the US has brought it on themselves. Other Egyptian papers were more explicit. The US, they argued has turned a deaf ear to Egyptian pleas to fight terrorism. Instead America harboured and protected wanted terrorists under various pretexts. Now it is learning a historic lesson. This general sentiment was echoed throughout the Arab world, particularly in countries which are US allies: the Gulf countries, Jordan and Morocco. These attitudes to political violence are reflected in mainstream political Arab discourse regarding how violence is produced and reproduced in the region. Most Arab regimes are very vocal in condemning terrorism but the signing of a treaty condemning terrorism by Arab Interior Ministers was held up for years because of the disagreement over the definition of terrorism. On the insistence of the majority of Arab countries, led by Syria, the final agreement distinguished between violence aimed at liberating occupied lands and other types of violence. The first would not be regarded as terrorism. Thus terrorism was defined in terms of the target and not its methods. Violence against Arab regimes or perpetrated on their territory is considered terrorism. That directed against Israel is not. In practise all Arab governments practically espouse this attitude and it is found in their policies. We cannot go into this discussion without a definition of terrorism. Contrary to the prevailing attitude, defining terrorism is not very difficult. One of the definitions concentrates on the five distinguishing characteristics of terrorism. (1) A terrorist act is an act which is premeditated and designed. (2) It is directed at a wider target than the immediate victims. (3) It involves an attack on random or symbolic targets. (4) It is considered by the society in which it occurs as extra normal, that is in the literal sense, in that it violates norms and conventions. (5) It is used primarily, but not exclusively, to influence the political behaviour of governments. I prefer the definition proposed by Alex Schmidt which defines terrorism as the equivalent of war crimes. I think this definition captures both the factual and normative condition of terrorism. I started with the comment made by an Egyptian editor and the connection he makes with the blowing up of the American embassies and the sanctions against Iraq at a time when the two acts can be seen in the same light. In both places the act targets civilians deliberately. In both places the suffering of the innocent is either an objective in itself or it acts as a pressure point on the target on which pressure is being put. The people who are hurt are not the target but they are used to exert pressure. The suffering of the victims is regarded as acceptable. Collateral damage, to use NATO speak , is 'a price well worth paying' as the US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, said about the deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq as a result of the sanctions. If we accept the definition of war crimes, terrorism becomes an act which cannot be justified because nothing can justify war crimes. However if we stress the definition of war crimes, most of the acts of modern war would be classed as terrorism. We do not want to do that. If you look at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagaski, it has all the criteria of a terrorist act. On a smaller scale an individual terrorist would throw a bomb on a residential area and would kill 20 or 30 people. It is done to send a message What was done in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was also intended to send a message that if you do not give in we will do more of this. Although people may disagree on the definition of terrorism because of political differences, they usually recognise a terrorist act. For example Israel has waged a very powerful campaign to describe the acts of Hizbollah in Lebanon as terrorist. Although the USA and some Western countries have taken part in this campaign, they have recognised the difference. After the massacre of Lebanese civilians in April 1996 an international committee was formed and the USA and France were members. It was formed to make sure that the war between the two sides did not overstep the limit and degenerate into terrorism and that civilians would not be targeted. The United Nations was also part of this committee. It acknowledges, not implicitly but explicitly that the acts of Hizbollah were legitimate. The United Nations was ready to say you can target soldiers and military targets in the zone of occupation but do not target Israeli civilians across the border. This would be considered terrorism. So even when there are political differences the parties can agree on what is and what is not terrorism. That is why I am saying that the definition of terrorism is not really a problem. If we define terrorism in terms of its means and not its ends, another point we are trying to make is that terrorism is seen by most analysts as a problem of democratic societies. It is not a problem in despotic regimes as they themselves are terrorist by definition. Some of the despotic regimes even manufacture terrorist acts against themselves in order to be allowed to go to the limit. In the early 1970s the President of the Philippines, Fernand Marcos, faked an assassination attempt against the defense minister and used this to impose martial law. The defense minister later acknowledged that this was a manufactured attempt. These kinds of actions are not open to democratic governments - they cannot resort to these acts. But the analysts point out the vulnerability of democracies to this kind of violence which targets innocent people in order to make a point. If the terrorist acts are directed at democracies there is an implied recognition by the terrorist groups that people, the rulers and the society can be pressurised. For example we can look at what happened in Ethiopia in 1994 - 1995 during the fight between Marxist groups. One of the groups was led by Mengistu Haile Mariam. Mengistu's opponents kidnapped his wife and children and threatened to execute them unless power was handed over to them. Mengistu replied when you have executed them make some soup and send it to me. They knew they could not pressurise Mengistu. But in democracies there is a human element even if only one person is involved and terrorist groups recognise that democracies are more humane than they are. Some of the analysts also say that one of the vulnerability of democracy is that if a democracy tries to suppress terrorism by arresting people, suppressing human rights etc. it will no longer be a democracy. If this is the case then the Middle East is not really democratic in this sense. There is no abundance of democracy. Not even Israel can be considered democratic. Nevertheless there is a very high incidence of terrorism in the region. How can we explain this? Even though the Middle East is not democratic terrorism and violence are rife. Some of the arguments refer to the fact that despotism generates terrorism and there is at least one confirmation of this reality in Algeria. Algeria did not use to have any terrorist acts prior to 1991-1992 when the elections were annulled. A counter argument states that prior to the elections Algeria was a one party dictatorship. In Egypt during the Nasser era when there was no freedom there was no terrorism. During Sadat's era when there was a lot of liberalisation there was terrorism. But I think we need to go beyond this analysis in order to try and see what the problem is. For example if you take the assassination of President Sadat in 1981 and after you will see that there was a very serious polarisation in society with the president attacking almost every political group. When he died many of the leaders of civil society were in jail. He cracked down on almost everyone. When he was assassinated there was much jubilation. Some theoreticians and church leaders have actually said that killing a tyrant is a justifiable act. There is also the element of identification when people identify with the perpetrator, the act would not be considered terrorism in their eyes. But there is also an element whereby the polarisation in Middle Eastern societies has created a kind of reverse of dual identification. You find people who identify with the victims and people who identify with the attackers. For some people an act is considered terroristic while for others it is not so. We also find in the Arab Middle East a deep sense of powerlessness and frustration. This is illustrated by the quote stated above. The editor feels powerless about a certain situation, in this case the siege of Iraq. Now there is also the suffering of the Palestinians. So they just identify with an act which is taken to express frustration. This is also indicative of alienation from the state. In normal cases if there is frustration about political problems then the political leadership of the country would be able to channel this type of frustration and direct it into creative political acts. This happened during the Nasser era when he gave the Arabs the feeling that he was doing something about their problems. They transferred their feelings into feelings of loyalty to him and during the Nasser era the level political violence was very low because there was trust that the state is going to remedy the situation. Now there is a sense of powerless. It was also evident during the Gulf War when Saddam Hussein was defying American authority. This led to popular support. When you have this sense of powerlessness and alienation from the state and polarisation you will have a formula which is favourable to violence of all sorts. The Middle East has not reached the level of violence which occurred in Rwanda or Bosnia. There you have the whole population engaging in acts of terrorism and violence. But at the same time it is pretty close. Although some of the political violence is committed by known groups there is some element which is not organised in any way. For example after the kidnapping of the Kurdish guerrilla leader, Abdullah Ocalan from Nairobi, there was a random explosion of violence by Kurds all over Europe. Some burned themselves. In Egypt and Jordan there were also random attacks on Israeli tourists and Western tourists. Some of the attacks were carried out by soldiers in the military who have no connection with any political groups. This shows that violence has reached a very high level. At the same time it is also significant that after these acts are being perpetrated civil society does identify with them and support them. Lawyers come in to defend them. A similar thing happened in Israel when the Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was murdered. Before that an Israeli terrorist gunned down nine worshippers in a mosque. There were groups in Israeli society who supported these acts. A shrine was built to an Israeli who gunned 29 worshippers in a mosque. Many settler groups visit this shrine. Another incident related to this particular situation is the phenomenon known as the Afghan Arabs. This is a combination of two levels of despair. First of all the participation of many Arabs in the war in Afghanistan was an expression of despair about the situation in their own country. There is the famous story of Anna Karinaniya. After his lover committed suicide he decided to go to Serbia to fight the Turks. This was an act of despair. There was nothing in it for the hero and he looked at the Serb cause as some sort of displaced idealist cause. Most of the people who went to Afghanistan were people from Syria, Libya or Iraq. They could not go home. There were also the Palestinians who have no home to go to. They went in search of this ideal knowing that they had nothing else to look forward to. People from Gulf countries also went to Afghanistan. They had nothing to do. They lived well but there were no politics for them to take part in. So they went to Afghanistan. But when they come back there was another problem. Their countries would not receive them. So they had a problem and they started forming all sorts of violent groups. I am not saying the despair is the direct cause of violence : it is a combination of this atmosphere of lack of hope, polarisation and alienation from the state. Violence and the lack of democracy have similar roots. They are both springing from a political situation characterised by these shortcomings. Some analysts would say this is because of the Muslim psyche or the Muslim tradition or their way of thought. But then we can ask how and why are the Western powers, including the United States, also involved in this violence. It is a situation where the political actors find there is no way forward except through terrorism and violence. saiyed shahbazi www.shahbazcenter.org
