Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

What causes terrorism?

christopher spence | 09.05.2002 12:46

Both rightwing and 'progressive' arguments about the causes of terrorism reflect colonial mindsets.

Suicide Bombers are the product of oppressive structures that humans have always confronted writes Ananya Mukherjee Reed

AMIDST THE last few days of carnage in the Middle East, mainstream media in several parts of the world have become obsessed with the phenomenon of suicide bombers. Two broad narratives seem to have emerged.

The first, that this is a direct outcome of Yasser Arafat's brainwashing of young adolescents who are already born into an ideology that is premised on terror and violence. The second, is that this is an outcome of the total destitution that young Palestinians face; bereft of any economic or political future, the only career choice they face is one of martyrdom.

These arguments are neither new nor plausible, but are proving to be surprisingly resilient. They gained particular currency in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and had much to do with the complex events leading up to that day. Let us examine them here, beginning with the latter. The intent is not to justify the terrorism of suicide bombing; rather it is to question the arguments that end up justifying the continued colonization and collective oppression of specific populations in the name of a "war on terror."

Within the general discourse on terrorism, especially post-9/11, it has become fashionable to argue that we need to focus on the "root causes" of terrorism — poverty, misery and illiteracy. A whole range of voices, ranging from the World Bank to a wide variety of so-called progressives argues this case with much fervour.

I see this as an expression of the missionary-colonialist sentiment. In this world-view, the civilizing mission has to be picked up from where it was left off. The more benign of these colonialists would argue that this should be accomplished not through conquest, but by feeding and educating the poor millions in the developing world.

Now, in a world where hundred of millions live under $1 a day, think what would happen if poverty bred terrorism. South Asia alone, the prime target of Bush's war on terrorism, is home to 400 million who live in absolute poverty. How many of them have taken to arms?

A South Asian myself, I know the counter-argument only too well. It is the madrassas, the Islamic religious schools, where terrorists are bred. There is some obvious truth to that: However, there is a counter-factual question that we also must confront. Can it be established with any certainty that the madrassas would have churned out Osama bin Laden's cadre without the active initial patronage of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency?

It is also true that madrassas recruit from the ranks of the poor. In that sense, is poverty not a direct cause of terrorism? I think not. In my view, poverty is not a cause but an outcome, of the myriad forms of oppression, administered by local and global powers.

We come now to the second narrative — of Islam as a religion that condones violence and war. Many theologians have dismissed the superficiality of this argument. What I continue to be surprised by, however, is the assertion that religious extremism in the Islamic world is almost impossible to contain since it enjoys widespread popular support.

But why should there be popular support for something that is so destructive? The pat answer is that there is a pre-disposition towards extremism and fundamentalism amongst the "ordinary Muslim." Viewed through this lens, any "reformist" efforts from within the Muslim world (like that of Pakistan President Musharraf's) are inherently futile.

But such an ethnic predisposition toward militancy leading to the support of religious regimes is not borne out by history. Time and again, there has been resistance to repressive political regimes within the Muslim world — exactly as there has been in the non-Muslim world. The most striking example of this is provided by the resistance of women against the most brutal of religious regimes in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

The issue of women's resistance is particularly important since women are so often regarded as passive repositories of religious values. In some sense, the same argument is made about Arafat's schoolgirl killers, who passively get brainwashed into terrorism.

In light of this argument, it is important to ask why young women did not lay down their lives for the Taliban. Why was there mobilization against the devout Islamic regimes in Iran and Pakistan? And why do they now take up arms for the liberation of Palestine? Putting the question this way can perhaps help us to delineate the root causes of terrorism.

Poverty, misery, repression and Islam are common denominators, and yet resistance finds very different targets. At times it is directed against Islamic regimes, and at other times against regimes that oppress Islamic populations. Why? Because resistance — which culminates in this immensely, dehumanized form of suicidal terrorism — has nothing to do with Islam. They lie, rather, in the myriad forms of imperialism, subjugation, and oppression humans continue to confront.

Together these constitute yet another specific kind of terrorism — a much more violent, organized, powerful and systematic one than the terrorism of suicide. These violent, organized, powerful and systematically unjust forms of terrorism are the "root causes" that the suicide bombers want to see removed.

However, in light of the life experiences of these schoolgirl killers, they see little hope of that happening as a result of the goodwill of Kofi Annan or the Pope, or through any negotiated political process, simply because these processes cannot overcome the structures of oppression in which they are embedded.

As history tells us, the end to any form of subjugation has never come about without resistance or merely through goodwill and missionary zeal. Here's one example close to home.

Could slavery have been abolished merely with a sufficient dose of American liberalism in the absence of slave revolts?


christopher spence

Comments

Display the following 5 comments

  1. Gandhi was a loser. — Ibn-Fatwa
  2. Verbose little sod, aren't you? — Mahatma
  3. Yes, but what causes terrorism? — christopher spence
  4. What IS terrrorism? — Auntie Beeb
  5. Oppression Perhaps — Dan
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech