Political
Violence: Retiring the Word Terrorism
By James M.
Dorsey
Founders of many
modern states, including stalwarts of anti-terrorism like Israel and allies in
the war on terror like the Kurds, achieved goals with political violence that
killed innocent people and would be classified today as terrorism. In fact, the
history of political violence mitigates in favour of recognizing it as a
reflection of deep-seated social, economic and political problems -- rather
than demonising it through terms like terrorism or evil.
Recent uncovered
by German magazine Der Spiegel trace the rise of the Islamic State to a network
of former Iraqi intelligence officers loyal to toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein. In 2003 they were deprived of their jobs with no future prospects when
then US administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer disbanded the Baathist military and
security forces. They were aided by Syrian military officers and officials who
saw the group as a buffer against a feared US attempt to topple President
Bashar al-Assad.
The history of
the rise of the Islamic State as an extreme Sunni Muslim rejection of
discrimination by a Shiite majority in Iraq and repressive dominance by an
Alawite minority in Syria revives the notion of “one man’s freedom fighter is
another’s terrorist”. That notion is similarly embedded in the policies of both
Western nations and conservative Arab regimes concerned about their survival.
They not only forged cooperation with
Turkey’s Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and Syria’s Kurdish People's Protection
Units (YPG) but also Gulf support for the jihadist Syrian rebel group Jabhat al
Nusra that is locked in battle with Islamic State and in Western distinctions
between good and bad foreign fighters.
‘Bad foreign
fighters’, angry at the human and political cost of combatting political
violence with a military rather than a predominantly political campaign, are
the thousands who have joined the ranks of Islamic State; ‘good foreign
fighters’ are those who have gone to Syria to fight with the Kurds against the
jihadists, particularly during last year’s battle for the besieged Syrian
Kurdish town of Kobani.
The notion is
also evident in the US National Intelligence’s most recent report to Congress
that for the first time in years no longer includes Iran or the Tehran-backed
Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah as a terrorist threat to US interests.
The list of
internationally - recognised political leaders who can trace their roots to
political violence and terrorism is long. Yet, they and their predecessors
disavowed what is termed political violence once they achieved their goals. The
list includes Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, whose ideological
roots like those of former Israeli leaders Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir,
lie in the use of political violence and terrorism in pre-state Palestine
without which the State of Israel most likely would not have been established.
Both Begin and Shamir were wanted commanders of Irgun, a group denounced as
terrorist by the British Mandate authorities.
Similarly,
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas hails from a movement that was long
condemned as a terrorist organisation. While nothing justifies the killing of
innocent civilians, recognition of Palestinians as a people with national
rights and the creation of the Palestine Authority would most probably not have
occurred without Palestinian attacks in the 1960s and 1970s on civilian
targets.
Finally, the
PKK, an organisation deemed terrorist by Ankara and its Western allies as well
as its Syrian counterpart, the YPG, are de facto allies in the fight against
Islamic State, the jihadist organisation that controls a swath of Syria and
Iraq that employs brutality as a means of governance. The list is far longer:
think of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC), the aging leaders of
Algeria or the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
The sole common
denominator of all these examples is not an ideology but a political grievance
and a belief, right or wrong, that the odds were stacked against them and that
violence was a necessity rather than a goal in and of itself. Political
violence is a tactic most often employed and frequently with success by those
opposed to forces with overwhelming military might.
All of these men
and groups who today are either respected political leaders or on their way to
returning to the international fold saw political violence as a means of the
underdog to secure their perceived rights and right an injustice rather than as
a criminal philosophy and practice implicit in the use of the word terrorism.
US Secretary of
State John Kerry, in a moment of lucidity, implicitly recognised the underlying
politics when he last year acknowledged that American Muslims had stressed to
him that the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian peace was fuelling anger on the
streets and recruitment by Islamic State. “People need to understand the
connection of that … it has something to do with humiliation and denial and
absence of dignity,” Kerry said.
All of this is
not to justify the use of political violence, the killing of innocent civilians
or the extremist ideology and brutality of groups like Islamic State. Nor does
it justify the indiscriminate torture of large numbers or mass rapes of women
as a means of control. It is, however, recognising a political reality however
unpleasant that may be.
That reality
involves acknowledging political violence for what it is and debunking efforts
to depoliticise the roots of political violence that only serve to evade often
painful political choices involved in confronting underlying grievances. It
also involves accepting that it is politics, rather than military force and law
enforcement, that offers the tools to effectively resolve situations that
produce political violence.
It also serves
to spotlight the fact that terms like ‘terrorism’ and ‘fighting evil’ turn the
struggle against political violence into a zero-sum game in which victory
constitutes the elimination of barbarians who, with problems unresolved, bounce
back from setbacks in new, far more brutal guises.
Bombastic
statements by Western leaders designating political violence termed terrorism,
particularly in the case of jihadists, as an existential threat and an epic
struggle against a form of totalitarianism comparable to that of fascism and
communism, has only served to raise the profile and appeal of brutal
perpetrators like Islamic State. The numbers speak for themselves: University
of Maryland research shows that jihadist attacks had tripled in 2013 compared
to 2010.
Political
violence may be a scourge, yet it is fundamentally an act of politics.
Recognising this makes politics rather than predominantly military force the
appropriate response. A first step towards that recognition would be removing
the term terrorism from the debate in a bid to eliminate ideological prejudice
that serves vested interests and at best complicates the search for real
solutions to real problems.
.png "Supply Chain Performance: Achieving Strategic Fit and Scope")
.png)
