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The Belly of the Beast
In order better to understand the current condition of terrorism, these events and trends need to be placed in a broader analytic framework. In the middle east and the Muslim world, three distinct processes are occurring:
- the incidence of "transnational terrorism" (or transnational jihadism) – such as the attacks on New York, Madrid and London, as well as on Amman and Bali
- militant actions by Islamist or other forces within their specific countries – such as Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Algeria
- a transnational political process, the broader, authoritarian and socially repressive (but non-violent) spread of Islamism through political and electoral activity – in countries such as Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and Egypt.
The first is very much a minority activity even for jihadis, let alone Islamists. In the second case, a number of formerly violent groups have sought in recent years some accommodation with politics and the state (Hizbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt). The prospect of a major victory in the Moroccan legislative elections of 2007 by the Party for Justice and Development indicates that this trend is spreading westwards, with significant implications for the Moroccan community in France and Spain.
In broad strategic and political terms, and in terms of the consequences for relations between Europe and the middle east, the confident and apparently inexorable spread of political Islam – from Iraq to Morocco – is of greater importance than the sporadic incidence of jihadi bombings.
Yet while the spread of Islamism has its own dynamic, its discrete political and social causes, it is also shaped and stimulated by the actions of the west, and in particular the United States. This is most obviously the case in relation to Iraq; but it is also the case that the west antagonises Muslim opinion by supporting Israel almost without criticism, by evading a political process that could lead to a contiguous and independent Palestinian state, and by indulging statements from some of its political, military and religious officials that fuel a sense of inter-religious confrontation.
In this light, although Europe in 2005 may indeed have suffered significantly fewer casualties from terrorism than in 2004, the long-term prognostication remains one of many dangers and uncertainties.
There is another lesson that 2005 underlines, and which should never be forgotten: the long-term incidence and political impact of acts of political violence depend not only on the perpetrators of such acts themselves, but on the actions of those they oppose – namely, states. Those in the engine-room of the "terrorism industry" are less inclined to recognise the problem here, one in which it the industry is deeply complicit: that the denial of the violence of states themselves, and the failure to register and evaluate this violence, reflects a larger crisis of moral and political imagination.
The most important conclusion, for practical politics and for its study alike, is that we need to measure the incidence of killing, beating, torture, illegal detention and humiliation by states – the United States, Britain, Russia and Israel included – as much as to measure the bombs and other depredations of terrorists. We need a World Annual State Terror Report to set against the crimes of al-Qaida and its associates. It would not be difficult to compile; but, in the current political and moral climate of the western world, it is rather improbable.
Fred Halliday is Professor of International Relations at the LSE, and Visiting Professor at CIDOB, Barcelona. His books include Islam and the Myth of Confrontation and 100 Myths About the Middle East.
This article was originally published here, where you can find further links, as part of the debate on openDemocracy.net.
Reprinted under the terms of the Creative Commons licence.
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