Living By The Sword

Despite the US campaign, terrorism is only likely to grow in the years to come. Concerted efforts at ending social, economic and political grievances must be undertaken to end it, writes Hussein Ahmed Amin*

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By the last decade of the 20th century it was fairly easy to foresee, as historian Eric Hobsbawm did in the epilogue of his book The Age of Extremes, that international terrorism would be one of the major problems of the new century. It is becoming more possible for small groups of political and other dissidents to disrupt and destroy, threatening the security of the inhabitants of the stable, strong and rich states of the First World with advanced weapons, including chemical, bacteriological or even nuclear arms. The materials and know-how for the manufacture of such arms are widely available, and they are becoming increasingly adapted for small group use.

Almost everyone acknowledges that the major cause for this ever-growing threat is the widening gap between the rich and the poor parts of the world, and the injustices, more real than imagined, felt by the people of the Third World, as well as the apparent failure of all programmes, old and new, for managing or improving the affairs of the human race.

When we hear members of so-called terrorist groups in Arab and Islamic countries use religious terms and slogans we should bear in mind that most of the radical movements originating in Islamic lands, from the time of the Prophet Mohamed till the present, have tended to express their political, social and economic grievances in religious terms. Such movements would never have imagined there to be any other justification for their violence and revolt against authority than the religious one. Governments, states or rulers, superpowers or international coalitions and organisations protecting the interests of particular classes or groups were, and are, depicted as infidels opposed to the will of God. Sacrificing one's life to oppose their plans and wicked intentions was, and is, said to have its ultimate reward in paradise.

If we keep in mind too the fact that the majority of people in most Arab and Islamic countries live hopeless and miserable lives it will not be difficult to understand the fearlessness before death that is so prevalent among extremists, such as the current Palestinian suicide-bombers. They have nothing to lose but their chains, and they have this world, or paradise in case of failure, to win.

It is easy to explain why terrorism has assumed, besides its original local aspect, an international one. The hijacking of planes, the murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, or the attacks on Jewish synagogues in Istanbul, Buenos Aires, or Jerba in Tunisia, might be considered local in a sense, even though these events happened far away from enemy territory. But now that more and more issues are becoming interlinked, with several countries involved in one and the same issue, one can understand why a Palestinian youth might think of assassinating a US presidential candidate, such as Senator Robert Kennedy, or why a Saudi businessman might plot to perpetrate attacks on strategic targets in the US.

Globalisation has a hand in helping terrorism become international. The promise that unrestricted international trade would allow the poorer countries to come closer to the rich is now seen as a delusion, or, worse, as a lie that runs counter to historical experience as well as to common sense. The people of poor countries now feel that they will be discarded by the global economy and that the gap between the rich and the poor will widen. As this gap widens, the United States' exercise of global power increases. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, as well as the World Trade Organisation, have all pursued policies systematically favouring free-market orthodoxy, private enterprise and global free trade since the 1970s, all of which suited the late 20th century US economy but not the world as a whole.

If global decision-making is to realise its true potential, such policies will have to be changed. But this does not look a likely prospect, at least not in the near future. For the present, and for some time to come, the US will be the superpower that dominates world affairs.

This has a particular relevance to the question of international terrorism. In the past, it used to be a relatively simple matter for a rebel, or a dissident politician, thinker, artist or poet, to flee his country either to a neutral state or to a country hostile to his country's regime. They could live safely in their chosen land of exile, without the possibility of their governments getting them back either by force or by the use of threats. In exile they could enjoy greater respect for their talents and more freedom to express their ideas and voice their grievances.

This was the case in all past ages, except during the first two centuries AD of the Roman Empire, when it constituted a single state, ruled by a single person. This was an empire that controlled all the countries of the Mediterranean basin and almost all the civilised world. Enemies of the emperor and dissidents such as Christians and slaves saw the empire as a kind of vast prison without bars, submitting to their doom in silence and despair. How could they escape when immense expanses of sea and desert surrounded the state, together with primitive tribes? Even where this was not the case the surrounding kings and chiefs often owed allegiance to the Roman emperor, being only too happy to prove their loyalty by surrendering any escaped dissidents.

Rebels, then, were in the position of captives whether they left or stayed in Rome under the Roman Empire. When the emperor exiled a poet who had earned his displeasure, such as Ovid or Juvenal, he felt no need to send him away in chains or accompanied by guards or soldiers. For, as Cicero told Marcellus when the latter was sentenced to banishment, "Remember that wherever you go you are in the grip of the conqueror."

Cicero wrote these words some two millennia ago, and strangely enough the world is in a similar situation today. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, the US has become the sole arbitrator in world affairs, thanks to the aid the US provides through IMF and World Bank loans and its increasing tendency to exercise pressure on foreign regimes that follow a policy the US is opposed to.

Yet the US will not find it easy to achieve its targets and suppress all resistance to its aims. If we look at Roman history once more, then it is noticeable that the impossibility of fleeing "the grip of the conqueror" mentioned by Cicero, or the despair of dissidents at finding safe refuge, led rebels to plot the assassination of one emperor after another, carrying out acts of destruction that involved the Roman state itself. Despair and frustration may sometimes prove stronger than weapons of suppression. And one may be almost sure that dissidents who were once able to quit their country and remove their activities from one place to another will turn from attempts at removing grievances to acts of terrorism inside the United States or in countries whose policies are run, or directed, by the US when they realise that the long arm of the United States will reach them wherever they are, even in the remote caves of Afghanistan. The bombing of the World Trade Center building in New York in the 1990s, or the attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar Al- Salaam in 1998, provide evidence of this.

American foreign policy has become more aggressive after 11 September 2001, and this has proved extraordinarily congenial to the characteristic optimism of the lower and the middle strata of the American people. To this nation, which discovered itself only two centuries ago, and which has now outstripped the world in technical advance, being still so young and so vigorous, no undertaking seems too bold, no faith in future success incredible. Indeed, the average American feels it more incumbent on him than ever to rally his combative energies and show the world that nothing is impossible for the Great American Republic.

This makes international terrorism a US concern, US interests and strategic sites being its main targets. If those of other countries are targeted, this is either because such countries are considered to be closely involved with the US in acting against international terrorism, or because the perpetrators of terror are acting against regimes opposed to their local, individual aspirations, as is the case for the Irish and Basque separatists, the Kurdish minorities, Chechen rebels, Algerian or Egyptian Islamists, Chinese dissidents, etc.

Now that the United States has realised that it cannot act effectively against international terrorism without the concerted help, even in military matters, of other countries, especially those of the First World, it has made those countries support its efforts, either by forcing their hands, or by persuading them that a campaign against international terrorism is in their interests as well. At the same time, global, international and regional organisations are likewise brought in to the fight.

Whether this means that a concert of great powers built around the Group of Eight will develop is not yet clear. However, what is clear is that the United Nations still has an important role to play in providing legitimacy for US actions. Nevertheless, the actions that the US military/industrial establishment has so far carried out have to a high degree caused the anger of many, and not only in the Islamic and Arab World, though it is mainly here where the conviction is growing that it is Islam that the US is targeting. The US has tried to manage such anger, despite the current mood of indifference to others' feelings that dominates present US foreign policy.

Other parties, therefore, such as a global coalition and international and regional organisations, must be made to share the responsibility, as well as the consequences, of any ill-feelings aroused, though this does not mean that American decision-makers will seek consultation on every policy they adopt or action they take. It does mean, though, that Washington will need to consider the views of potential coalition partners when deciding on the direction of US foreign policy. In the meantime, regional and even national antiterrorist initiatives are welcomed as long as there is some degree of coordination.

Indeed, no enthusiastic response has thus far been so forthcoming and so voluntary as that expressed by the regimes in Muslim and Arab countries and by their regional organisations, such as the Arab League, and by conferences held by Arab ministers of the interior. For one thing, such regimes are themselves the targets of internal terrorism that aims to overthrow them. For another, the 11 September attacks, and the keen desire of the United States and its allies to combat international terrorism, have offered these regimes a golden opportunity to suppress internal opposition while pretending that their efforts are directed against the terrorism that the world as a whole is at war with.

The United States and its allies understand this very well. However, for the time being they have pretended not to see it, and they no longer express the kind of anxiety at human-rights violations in such countries that they used to do before the 11 September attacks. Democracy in the Arab World and in the Islamic countries is no longer an issue for the American administration. It knows that it is highly unpopular with the Arab and Muslim peoples, and that any victory for democracy over subservient regimes willing to conform to American policy will not serve its interests.

While the fight against international terrorism requires a global coalition, as well as the active role of international and regional organisations, a lot should be done in order to create a peaceful and stable world order and to remove social, economic and political grievances. Such action would deal effectively with the root causes of terrorism, whether local or international. Military efforts may continue to be necessary, but the fight must go beyond displays of military power, and greater attention should be paid to issues such as poverty, as well as the provision of solutions to national and regional conflicts, the removal of the causes of ethnic and religious fanaticism, and, above all, the basis should be laid of a robust and just global economy.

Yet, not much is presently being done towards the achievement of such ends. The parties concerned find it easier to wage wars, clamp down on the training centres of terrorist networks, freeze the bank accounts of suspected organisations, share intelligence and foster police cooperation both regionally and internationally, mistreat and harass foreign suspects before deporting them or putting them in jails, etc. For international and regional organisations to hold conferences and come out with treaties or resolutions "condemning all acts, methods and practices of terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, wherever and by whomsoever committed" is not an effective solution to the problem, especially when the plight of a vast number of individuals, groups, castes and even nations is ignored, and when the peoples of the developing world are not integrated into the world's new order.

This latter issue should be courageously addressed, and a clear definition of "terrorism" found. We all know that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. A distinction should be made between acts of terrorism and acts carried out in defence of the legitimate rights to self-determination and resistance to foreign occupation. It should also be kept in mind that terrorist groups do not only use terror in order to achieve their ends, but also when they despair of such achievement and so resort to acts of vengeance, something in the spirit of the blinded Samson demolishing the temple in the biblical story.

If colonists and despots call acts carried out in defence of the legitimate right to self-determination "acts of terrorism" when they occur off the battlefield and involve civilians, then it should be remembered that freedom fighters and dissidents are not always capable of facing their enemies on the battlefield or of avoiding the killing of innocent people. Violence is not intended to terrorise the persons attacked but to cause society, or governments, or the world at large, to take notice of grievances suffered, and of the reality of large-scale struggles.

Terrorism, thus far, has never attained real success, states and regimes not being inclined to retreat before acts of terror. Radical change requires a stronger force for its achievement than the courage of isolated individuals, or even that of small, well-organised groups. However, things may change in the 21st century. A large proportion of certain populations may come to have an interest in the perpetration of terror, and they may come to possess weapons much more dangerous and destructive than knives, pistols, small bombs or explosives. More people may become aware that state repression may also be labeled terror and not law enforcement, and they may thus consider it legitimate to fight terror with terror.

In the New Testament of the Bible, Christ is said to have reproved one of his followers when he reached for his sword by saying, "Put up your sword. All who take up the sword will perish by the sword." This is a reproof applicable to our present global situation, which can be remedied only if responsible states, people and regimes remember not to make terrorism appear the only way of achieving change.

* The writer is a former ambassador and an expert on Islamic affairs.