6 - 12 December 2001
Issue No.563
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 6 - 12 December 2001 Issue No.563 |
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The new terrorism
Abdel-Moneim Said* examines the damage irrational non-state actors can cause
It has been almost three months since 11 September, and the world is still reeling in disbelief. The terrorist attack on America, and the attack launched in retaliation by the world's sole superpower on one of the world's poorest nations, seem to have shaken the cosy shelters of common sense and conventional thinking on international relations. This lightening-fast series of events -- a melt-down beginning at the core of the global reactor -- seems too impenetrable for conventional instruments of analysis. Moreover, everything is still in a state of flux. How can we predict the implications?
The world before 11 September was not static, of course. The process of globalisation continued, under some pressure, resulting from the global economic slowdown and its consequences for the hi-tech bubble after a decade of unprecedented expansion. Still, the slowdown did not seem serious. The world had just emerged triumphant from a severe economic crisis in southeast Asia, which could have damaged the global economy. The US's powerful economy, however, brought the dark tunnel to a swift end.
The conflicts in Palestine, Ireland, and Macedonia were all persistent; much needed to be done, but there too, nothing unusual had taken place.
The current situation, therefore, is extraordinary in every respect. The attack on the World Trade Center was not a traditional act of war, comparable for instance to the destruction of Dresden during World War II. Nor, by the same token, do US-British military actions against Afghanistan constitute traditional warfare. Afghanistan's land and wealth -- if it possesses either -- are not up for grabs by more powerful nations for material or strategic reasons. And the "war" on Afghanistan is entirely different from America's war against Vietnam, which was as traditional as any war could be during the Cold War period.
Today's situation, rather, can be understood best as a conflict between phenomena, not as a traditional battle between nation-states. The US embodies modernisation and globalisation, while Afghanistan represents parochialism and anti- globalisation, expressed through terror.
What has occurred since 11 September is still in a very early stage of evolution. Shocking as it was, the destruction of the World Trade Center could be just a first step toward yet more destruction and ruthless terrorist acts. The world has hundreds of nuclear power plants, thousands of airports and railway stations, and countless sites where chemical and radioactive materials are produced. All these are easy targets for terrorism. The anthrax crisis is but one example of biological terror that could sabotage agriculture and endanger six billion people, placing them at the mercy of terrorism's cruel insanity.
Recent events have also shown us that terrorism's sources are diverse. It is thus a grave mistake to attribute terrorism exclusively to Islamism. The world is full of chauvinists and racists. What binds all these trends is a profound resentment of the intermingling of peoples through the process of globalisation. Other opponents see globalisation and the changes it entails for both production and exchange as harmful to both developing and developed countries. These detractors include the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army in Japan, Bader Meinhoff in Germany, and the Black Panthers in the US. Along will all these, organised crime works its evil in drug trafficking and money laundering.
Modern nation-states -- and the world as a whole -- are more vulnerable than ever to the destructive effect of terrorist actions. The bombings in the US will cost far more than $40 billion in direct damages and compensation. Losses will be far greater in terms of economic stagnation, not to mention the immediate setbacks to tourism, insurance and aviation.
The most serious consequence of terrorism, however, could be in the very means adopted to combat it. Since 11 September, the world's most liberal countries have issued reams of legislation to curtail civil liberties. In a stagnating world economy with very few prospects of mobility or improvement, masses of disadvantaged and hopeless people would be and even easier prey for further terrorism. In other words, a security-oriented response to terrorism could eventually be self-defeating.
Terrorism now does not target individual sites, where casualties are limited to tens or even hundreds of victims. The new terrorism could inflict damage comparable to that incurred in a small-scale war. This is not to say that terrorism has become a threat to nation-states' existence, nor yet to regional integration; rather, that terrorism has become a source of mass hysteria that could eventually annihilate the core values of entire civilisations.
Furthermore, current events have shaken the assumption that terrorism is related to poverty to its core. The poor generally do not have the potential or even the will to change the world. Terrorism is affiliated with middle-income countries, which are unable to achieve its economic take off, and thus accuse the world of handicapping them.
The war against Afghanistan could unleash a series of changes in the world system. A settlement with the IRA, for instance, could be directly correlated with its outcome. This is not to say that all conflicts are open to easy resolution under such circumstances, of course; indeed, one has only to look at the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the conflict in Kashmir, to realise that protracted conflicts have the ability to reproduce new kinds and forms of adversity.
Although it is still too early to judge the magnitude of change the US is undergoing, the past two months suggest certain trends. Before 11 September, the slowdown in the economy was not perceived as a threat. Rather, it was seen as predictable if undesirable. In that light, the new administration's unilateral action is not entirely astonishing. The US was determined to pass its missile shield project despite opposition from both enemies and allies, and seemed to be relapsing into isolationism, taking shelter in its wealth, power, and apparent internal security.
Now, the US's preferred pattern of international intervention is undergoing considerable change, for several reasons. First, the severe imbalance of power between the US and Afghanistan in this specific case is hypothetical, for the US is not at war with Afghanistan, but with the elusive Al-Qa'ida network, which lacks organisational and geographical definition. Thus, the aim of the military strikes and the criteria of their success remain highly ambiguous, and the US does not want to face this sad situation alone.
Ambiguity, however, prevails not only in attempts to define victory and defeat, but also in identifying the kind of justice required. The moral justification for the war in Afghanistan is dubious. How many Afghans must die to avenge the World Trade Center victims? Morality, then, has been evacuated from the entire series of events, from the attacks on New York and Washington, to the war on Afghanistan.
Finally, 11 September brought into the spotlight a kind of terrorism with no political or social objectives. The terrorists did not claim a ransom or aim at a political target. The sought only to cause mass fear on the widest possible scale. This novelty opened the eyes of the world to the "other" of globalisation and technological progress. Liberal thought has consistently celebrated globalisation in all its manifestations -- the free movement of capital, labour and ideas. The new non-state actors associated with globalisation -- from transnational corporations to NGOs and the Internet -- seemed capable of breaking the coercive monopoly of the nation- state, and thus of opening new horizons of freedom and interaction.
The new terrorism however, has demonstrated that the nation-state is vulnerable to other, far less benevolent non-state actors: e.g., terrorist networks and organised crime. These new actors are not organisational or geographical entities. They do not abide by the even most elementary rules of international relations, and yet are not liable to deterrence, retaliation or punishment. The danger is that these irrational actors do not abide by the simplest cause/effect relationships; in other words, they do not care about the costs or benefits of their actions.
The world system, however, is based on the nation-state as the main actor, an actor both responsible and accountable for its citizens. Human history in the past four centuries has worked on regulating and negotiating the appropriate framework for inter-state relationships. Now that irrational non-state actors are seizing control of events, and challenging the world's only superpower, there is no way of knowing what will happen.
*The writer is director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
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