Not too long ago I happened upon an amusing article in the newspaper, which was completely wrong, but nonetheless obscenely entertaining. The article began with an attempt to extract the "ism" from terrorism to undermine the conceptual dimension of the word and ended by unconditionally lauding Barack Obama's apparent intentions to dissolve indiscriminate, ideologically-based killings by Islamic terrorist organizations. According to the article, President Obama will take a different approach to the war on terror by adopting a rigid definition of terrorism as a means to achieve an end. I certainly hope this isn't the case. I think the president would disagree with the idea that terror has no implications beyond its literal definition as a "tactic." More importantly, I would like to address the crux of the author's argument, which hinges on the narrow distinction that, unlike "historical terrorist groups" (i.e. American revolutionaries against Great Britain), modern terrorist organizations (Al-Qaeda) have an anti-West, anti-U.S. agenda.
Taken on the surface, this distinction seems to hold, but the danger here is in the suggestion that modern terrorist organizations are fighting exclusively out of an arrogant resistance to accept American values and freedom. This is a huge misapprehension that bears witness to the author's racist, patronizing view of the Third World. But I don't blame the author, because this attitude is a widely-shared symptom of Western society.
While terrorist organizations may only represent a minute portion of people, these organizations still represent an extreme part of a wider attitude many in the Middle East share. The origin of this hate is too often misplaced as a cultural resistance to accept democratic ideals of universal freedom. The anger expressed by terrorists and (to a lesser extent) the wider Middle Eastern community finds its roots not in fanatical ideology but in very real social inequalities and even our own Western notions of tolerance.
The basic opposition on which the entire liberal vision relies is a dichotomy, in which there are those who are ruled by ideology and those who are above it. Terrorists follow an agenda to destroy everything the West represents and only by asserting American principles of freedom and liberty can we defeat these demagogues of hate. This is an obscenity. Such an argument presupposes that America's enemies are intolerant fundamentalists who want to continue living their lives in an archaic realm of a closed society. First, it should be noted that terrorists, like those behind the Sept. 11 attacks, are not fundamentalists. Why would true fundamentalists, who are fully and genuinely convinced of their own righteousness, feel the need to attack the West? Why would they need to assert an identity opposed to Western values when they are perfectly comfortable laughing at our permissive, hedonistic conception of freedom? Second, to put it plainly, it would be foolish to believe that Western society is above ideology. How could one consider America's attachment to capitalism and individualism something post-ideological?
Islamic extremists do not attack out of a necessity to preserve their identity as Muslims but rather to assert themselves from a perceived position of inferiority. Western society's preoccupation with political correctness and tolerance is infuriating to Muslims because it designates them as the symbolic "Other," which needs to be "tolerated." Globalization and Western ideals are so pervasive that many Muslims in the Middle East gauge themselves on our standards and subsequently perceive themselves as inferior. Terrorist violence stems not from a desire to protect the indigenous way of life, but rather out of a desire to be included in the very thing they oppose. They may say (and even think) they are acting on behalf of God, but their violence has its origins in plain economic and social struggle.
It is important to recognize terror as a symptom of a wider issue rather than an isolated, manageable problem. The social struggle in the Middle East continues to develop due to the passive, systemic violence that is perpetuated by the smooth running of our society. The attacks on Sept. 11, terrible and unforgiving as they were, should be recognized as a result of capitalism and the conditions placed on emerging democracies. These attacks should call our attention and compel us to locate their true cause that extends beyond an us-against-them version of evil. The idea that terrorism can be narrowly identified as the diametric opposite of the Western ideal is part of the problem and it avoids the difficult realization that terrorism actually represents a resistance to the systemic violence that sustains it.
Roger Young youngrg@muohio.edu
