ASPJ Africa & Francophonie - 3 rd Quarter 2011
The Return of Grand Theory
Terrorism and the End of Postmodernism
Dr. Abdy Javadzadeh*
Before analyzing how suicide bombing negates postmodernism— which, to many observers, sounds disconnected—one must understand grand theory, postmodernism, and suicide terrorism, as well as their connections to each other. In its attempt to explain both social and political life, grand theory interprets the world in terms of grand and totalizing narratives, taking into account historical data related to class, political power, and cultural movements. Postmodernism or postmodernist theory explains social life in fragmented narratives. There is nothing totalizing about postmodernism, which emphasizes the ambiguity of what is right and what is wrong—or the idea that nothing is right or wrong due to fragmented interpretation. One characteristic of postmodernism, decentering, does not necessarily negate the central theme but accounts for multicentrism as the emergence of many centers and gives each center equal credence. Therefore, many centers of right and wrong refute and replace the central right and wrong of grand theory. Suicide bombing or suicide terrorism is related to symbolic acts of violence by individuals organized to cause harm to the perceived enemy or affiliates of that enemy for the purpose of furthering political objectives.1 Such acts are planned and carried out by organizations and groups that are small in number but strong in ideology. The argument here is that one can look upon suicide bombing, or terrorism in general, as totalizing (grand) theory in terms of political ideology and culture. In the 1960s, a certain type of skepticism arose among moral and political theorists that gathered widespread support. Among such theorists were Daniel Bell and his concept of the “end of ideology.”2 Due to these new theories, grand theory came to be treated as little better than a confused and outdated mode of interpretation. The effect of all this, according to Quentin Skinner, was that two millennia of philosophizing about the social world had suddenly come to an end.3 This implies that it must be a mistake to suppose that the true concern of moral, social, and political philosophy can ever be to provide us with reasoned defenses of particular ideas or practices. Grand theories address the problems of modernism. Modernists often search for the origin of social developments while postmodernists work to describe and analyze social issues at different points in time and space. For grand theorists, finding the origin equates to finding the answer. Postmodernists, however, reject the idea of finding an answer. More interested in raising questions, they thrive on discourse, preferring to keep intellectual conversation alive rather than search for answers. Furthermore, modernists emphasize coherence and continuity, whereas postmodernists deal with inconsistencies and discontinuity. These differences are pertinent not only in areas of political or sociological theory but also in realms of morality and ethics. George Ritzer delineates these perspectives as follows: 1. People are neither good nor bad but morally ambivalent, and it is impossible to find a logically ethical code that could accommodate such moral ambivalence. 2. Moral phenomena are not regular and repetitive. Therefore, no ethical code can possibly deal with moral phenomena in an exhaustive fashion. 3. Morality is inherently laden with contradictions that cannot be overcome, with conflicts that cannot be resolved. 4. There is no such thing as a universal morality. 5. From a rational point of view, morality is, and will remain, irrational.4 Although postmodernists have adopted the above system of moral belief, suicide bombers and terrorists would find such a system objectionable since it would mean only chaos and an anomic society.
Perpetrator as Victim:
The Sociopolitical Logic of Suicide Terrorism
Terrorism has been around as long as we have observed ourselves in human history. Entire cultures agreed not only on the existence of the enemy but also on the method by which he must be eliminated.
Academic Definitions of Terrorism
Postmodernists and Terrorism
Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?
The difference between a revolutionary group and a terrorist organization is entirely subjective. Unlike what experts have come to define as
terrorism vis-à-vis revolutionary groups, the two still exhibit similarities. Let
us look at those as well as some differences and determine whether we can delineate an objective difference.
There is a separation between cause and method. Why do such individuals want to change political conditions and through what method?
What will they have to do to reach this objective? For both revolutionaries
and terrorists, the method of fighting may be the same—violence that targets the perceived enemy.10 However, their cause differs: terrorists attack
the general population, usually indiscriminately, whereas revolutionaries attack people they identify as enemies. Yet terrorist organizations would not
agree with the above statement since for them, “civilians” are actually coconspirators, somehow supporting the enemy, and therefore not innocent at
all. They target both combatants and those whom they view as accomplices
to combatants. For terrorists the end justifies the means. If their goal is to destroy a certain building, the presence of civilians in the structure is irrelevant as long as they fulfill their objective.
For revolutionaries, all means are not justified. They seem concerned
with who gets killed and whether they are civilians and noncombatants.
Terrorists attack innocent people to make a political statement, intentionally targeting them to cause fear and havoc. Revolutionaries, however, consider the innocent “illegitimate” targets.
Suicide Terrorists and Misconceptions
For postmodernists, terrorism—more specifically, suicide bombing—is a tactic that does not seem to follow a particular ideology. This misconception has to do with misinterpretation of a suicide bomber’s contextual belief system, which has more to do with social and cultural support than with isolation. According to postmodernists, before the advent of modern terrorism, guerilla groups followed a grand theory of class warfare and often fought to take over state power by strategically defeating the state and the military. Usually either Marxist or nationalist or a combination of the two, these groups had ideologies on a grand scale. Their political agenda called for (1) destruction of the state and (2) conquest of political power. Destroying the state—either the representative of a dilapidated capitalist system or the lackey of an imperialist nation, probably the United States—resolved most other political issues and cleared the way for constructing a new state. Much of the political belief system of these groups belonged to the Cold War dichotomy of world capitalism versus socialism. Today, according to postmodernists, terrorists and Islamic radicals do not hold such grand theories as their guiding viewpoint. According to Fukuyama, a movement that wishes to be taken seriously on the historical world stage must “ultimately . . . offer people something attractive, and this thing [radical Islam] seems to be attractive only to highly alienated people in very unsuccessful countries.”11 Fukuyama and Laqueur do not consider the ultimate, underlying reason why acts of terrorism have increased so much and so fast. The fact that terrorist organizations operate under the guiding principle of fighting an occupying enemy earns them the support of their community. The postmodernist misconception arises from treating terrorism as a cause and not a symptom. Most researchers make the following assumptions about suicide bombers: they live in poverty; they are not educated; they are brainwashed; they are unemployed; they are sexually deprived; they are Muslim fundamentalists; they are religious; they are male; and they are from Arab countries. According to Pape, however, none of those characteristics has a high correlation with suicide bombing—and even less with terrorism.12
Advantages of Suicide Attacks
For several reasons, suicide attacks have continued despite relentless
efforts to seek out groups that organize them: the attackers’ willingness to
die makes the act more destructive because they can conceal the weapon
(usually strapped around the waist or located in a truck or an automobile);
the perpetrators can easily infiltrate the place of attack without suspicion
because they are invariably part of the community; and there is no need for
an escape plan. Pape notes that from 1980 to 2003 only 3 percent of all
terrorist attacks were suicide acts but accounted for 48 percent of lost lives.13
Suicide attacks signify that more will come since those responsible have no
fear of retaliation. The more such strikes are based on ideology, the more
legitimate the attacker’s martyrdom—not necessarily in the religious sense
but as the ultimate sacrifice. The perpetrators have no qualms about breaching
any targeting taboo.
Pape argues that a high degree of correlation exists between national
liberation and suicide terrorism.14 Indeed, the latter is primarily an extreme
national-liberation military tactic carried out by organizations against the
presence of foreign forces and directed toward a strategic objective (the
withdrawal of enemy forces), as is the case, for example, in the following
countries (followed by the name of the country, in parentheses, whose forces
are present in or occupy that nation): Lebanon (Israel), West Bank/Gaza
(Israel), Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan military), Punjab (Indian government),
Kurdistan (Turkey, Iran, and Iraq), Chechnya (Russia), Kashmir (India),
Saudi Arabia (United States), Iraq (US and allied forces), and Afghanistan
(NATO forces).
In all of the above cases, suicide attacks have caused occupying forces
to retreat tactically and, at times, strategically.15 This is precisely why the
number of attacks has increased, from 10 per year in the 1980s to 50 per
year before the Iraq war and to 157 per year since 2003.
One can find concrete evidence of the relationship between suicide
terrorism and grand ideology in the writings and speeches of some of the leaders of these groups. For them, a direct connection exists between political
power and ideology. According to Velupillai Prabhakaran, leader of the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam in Sri Lanka, “Our martyrs were extraordinary human beings. They chose the noble cause of liberating our people.
Having lived and struggled for such a cause they finally sacrificed their
precious lives for that higher ideal. . . . Let us continue to struggle to expel
the enemy forces who have occupied our sacred land.”16 Additionally, in
2003 Chechen leader Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi addressed the oppression
of women and their reaction to their humiliation: “As you have seen and
noticed, most of the suicide attacks were carried out by women. . . . Their
honour and everything are being threatened. They do not accept being humiliated and living under occupation.”17
Essentially, a suicide attacker’s belief system includes three principal
criteria: political, social, and psychological. Politically, is suicide terrorism a
rational political-military strategy? Socially, does a community support and
encourage such acts? Psychologically, what type of person willingly sacrifices his or her life to commit the act?
One often thinks of the political rationalization argument in terms of
nationalism. It is rooted in belief in a community whose members share a
distinct set of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and historical characteristics and
who are entitled to govern their nation without interference from foreigners.
Given the above, the chances of suicide attacks increase if a foreign power
occupies the nation militarily, if that power differs religiously and ethnically,
and if it controls resources (e.g., water, energy, etc.).
The social support of their community is essential for suicide attackers,
who are well integrated into the populace and share its collective goals.
They believe in the culture of martyrdom as a means of pursuing their
political objective. Such support allows them to avoid detection, utilize
walk-in volunteers, replenish membership, and establish contact in
schools, universities, and other social groups.18
Scholars usually cite individual or psychological motivation as the
main cause of acts of suicide. According to Rex Hudson, a suicide attacker
is detached from his society: “A demented loner is caught in the throes of a
depressive nightmare, possibly besieged by demonic illusions, which makes
escape through self-killing a desirable end in itself, especially if it is possible
to take out some imaginary tormentors at the same time.”19 On the other hand, suicide attacks qualify as altruistic suicide, committed
by an individual who is too much integrated into his or her society.20 Such
acts, which are culturally sanctioned and approved, enhance rather than
diminish social order, reflecting a high level of social integration and respect
for community values: “[Suicide bombers] are rarely brainwashed into accepting such missions through the heavy indoctrination associated with the
recent mass suicides by religious cults, but accept the task much like a soldier
who accepts a ‘suicide mission’ in an ordinary war.”21
Conclusion
Suicide terrorism is a military tactic used to reach a political objective. In most cases, the perpetrators seek national liberation from relatively long term foreign military occupation. Given the current military presence in a number of countries (e.g., the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan; Israel in Palestine and at times in Lebanon; Russia in Chechnya; and the Sri Lankan military in Sri Lanka), the number of suicide attacks will increase, especially as opposition groups become militarily weaker and less sophisticated, as guerrilla tactics fail, and as the enemy becomes stronger. New definitions of terrorism, which cast a wider net to include revolutionary groups, reflect such an increase. It has been a while since Daniel Bell argued “the end of ideology”— the withering away of all values and ideas in favor of pragmatic benefits. This view runs contrary to the core of the ideology of a suicide terrorist. Rather, terrorists—previously known as guerrilla fighters, liberation armies, or revolutionaries—are organized in the realm of tantalizing ideas. Terrorism— more specifically, suicide terrorism—indicates weaknesses in military tactics and logistics but not in tantalizing ideologies. This, in a sense, is a large, unifying worldview understandable in the context of an ideology not restricted to any fragment of a secular or religious understanding of the world but including religion, culture, and political alternatives that prevail in any society.
* The author received his master’s degree in sociology from Florida Atlantic University and a PhD in sociology from Florida International University. He has taught many courses in sociology, such as Sociology of Terrorism, Sociological Theory, Political Sociology, and Social Conflict at Florida International University, St. Thomas University, and the University of Miami. The author of the book Iranian Irony: Marxists Becoming Muslim (RoseDog Books, 2011), he has done research on Middle Eastern politics, religion, and political theory, in addition to American foreign policy in the Middle East. Currently he is conducting research on militarism and religion in the Middle East, specifically in Iran. ASPJ Africa & Francophone - 3 rd Quarter 2011 20 ASPJ AFRICA & FRANCOPHONIE look upon suicide bombing, or terrorism in general, as totalizing (grand) theory in terms of political ideology and culture.
Notes
1.For the purposes of this article, I use the terms suicide bombing and suicide terrorism interchangeably.
2. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, [1960]). 28 ASPJ AFRICA & FRANCOPHONE
3. Quentin Skinner, ed., The Return of Grand Theory in the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 11.
4. George Ritzer, Contemporary Sociological Theory and Its Classical Roots: The Basics (New York: McGraw Hill, 2009), 43.
5. Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005).
6. Ibid. 7. Hoffman: terrorism related to politics and power, the pursuit of power, the acquisition of power, and the use of power to effect political change. See Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006). Laqueur: the use of covert violence by a group for political ends. See Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Jenkins: illegitimate force used against innocents for political purposes. See Brian Jenkins, Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006). Livingstone: warfare on the cheap. See David Livingstone, Terrorism and the Illuminati: A Three Thousand Year History (Charleston, SC: Booksurge LLC, 2007). Stern: an act or threat of violence against noncombatants with the objective of exacting revenge and intimidating or otherwise influencing an audience. See Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (New York: Ecco, 2003). Schmid: combat against symbolic targets. See Alex P. Schmid and Albert J. Jongman, Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2005). Crenshaw: politically illegitimate attacks on innocent targets. See Martha Crenshaw, Explaining Terrorism: Causes, Processes, and Consequences (New York: Routledge, 2011).
8. Jonathan R. White, Terrorism: An Introduction (Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2002), 10, 11.
9. Walter Laqueur, “Postmodern Terrorism: New Rules for an Old Game,” Foreign Affairs 75, no. 5 (September/ October 1996): 34.
10. Some groups that make no distinction between combatants and noncombatants would qualify as terrorist organizations by definition.
11. Herb Keinon, “Fukuyama on Terrorism and Nation Building,” Jerusalem Post, 18 March 2004, http:// www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php?5236-Fukuyama-on-terrorism-and-nation-building.
12. Pape, Dying to Win, 23.
13. Ibid., 27.
14. Ibid., 29.
15. Pres. Ronald Reagan’s decision to pull American troops out of Lebanon, for example, was a direct result of the suicide attack on the Marine barracks in that country in 1983.
16. Pape, Dying to Win, 31.
17. Ibid., 31–32.
18. Ibid.
19. Rex A. Hudson, The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why? (New York: Globe Pequot Press, 2002), 33.
20. Emile Durkheim, Suicide: A Study in Sociology, trans. John A. Spaulding and George Simpson (London: Routledge Classics, 2002).
21. Pape, Dying to Win, 173.
