Terrorism, identity and legitimacy: the four waves theory and political violence

Terrorism, Identity and Legitimacy

This book argues that the application of an interdisciplinary, evidence-­based explanation of terrorism, national identity, and political legitimacy may be the most effective method of understanding and combating political violence. Whether violence is local or global, it tends to be both patterned and innovative. It elicits chaos, but can be reduced to an orderly paradigm, model, or theory, depending on the methods and data scholars employ to understand it. The contributors in this volume draw from their experiences and studies of terrorists, mob violence, fashions in international and political violence, religion’s role in terrorism and violence, the relationship between technology and terror, patterns of terrorist “waves” lasting a generation, nation-­states struggling to establish democratic/elective governments, and factions competing for control within states in order to make sense of both national and international acts of political violence. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism studies, religion, sociology, war and conflict studies and IR in general. Jean E. Rosenfeld is an Academic Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Religion.

Series: Political Violence Series editors: Paul Wilkinson and David Rapoport

This book series contains sober, thoughtful and authoritative academic accounts of terrorism and political violence. Its aim is to produce a useful taxonomy of terror and violence through comparative and historical analysis in both national and international spheres. Each book discusses origins, organizational dynamics and outcomes of particular forms and expressions of political violence. Aviation Terrorism and Security Edited by Paul Wilkinson and Brian M. Jenkins

Millennial Violence Past, present and future Edited by Jeffrey Kaplan

Counter-­Terrorist Law and Emergency Powers in the United Kingdom, 1922–2000 Laura K. Donohue

Right-­Wing Extremism in the Twenty-­First Century Edited by Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg

The Democratic Experience and Political Violence Edited by David C. Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg

Terrorism Today Christopher C. Harmon

Inside Terrorist Organizations Edited by David C. Rapoport The Future of Terrorism Edited by Max Taylor and John Horgan The IRA, 1968–2000 An analysis of a secret army J. Bowyer Bell

The Psychology of Terrorism John Horgan Research on Terrorism Trends, achievements and failures Edited by Andrew Silke A War of Words Political violence and public debate in Israel Gerald Cromer Root Causes of Suicide Terrorism Globalization of martyrdom Edited by Ami Pedahzur

Terrorism versus Democracy The liberal state response, 2nd edition Paul Wilkinson Countering Terrorism and WMD Creating a global counter-­terrorism network Edited by Peter Katona, Michael Intriligator, and John Sullivan Mapping Terrorism Research State of the art, gaps and future direction Edited by Magnus Ranstorp The Ideological War on Terror World-­wide strategies for counter-­terrorism Edited by Anne Aldis and Graeme P. Herd The IRA and Armed Struggle Rogelio Alonso Homeland Security in the UK Future preparedness for terrorist attack since 9/11 Edited by Paul Wilkinson et al.

Leaving Terrorism Behind Individual and collective disengagement Edited by Tore Bjørgo and John Horgan Unconventional Weapons and International Terrorism Threat convergence in the twenty-­first century Edited by Magnus Ranstorp and Magnus Normark International Aviation and Terrorism Evolving threats, evolving security John Harrison Walking Away from Terrorism John Horgan Understanding Violent Radicalisation Terrorist and Jihadist Movements in Europe Edited by Magnus Ranstorp

Terrorism Today, 2nd Edition Christopher C. Harmon

Terrorist Groups and the New Tribalism Terrorism’s Fifth Wave Jeffrey Kaplan

Understanding Terrorism and Political Violence The life cycle of birth, growth, transformation, and demise Dipak K. Gupta

Negotiating With Terrorists Strategy, tactics and politics Edited by I. William Zartman and Guy Olivier Faure

Global Jihadism Theory and practice Jarret M. Brachman

Explaining Terrorism Causes, processes and consequences Martha Crenshaw

Combating Terrorism in Northern Ireland Edited by James Dingley

The Psychology of Counter-­ Terrorism Edited by Andrew Silke

Terrorism and the Olympics Major event security and lessons for the future Anthony Richards, Peter Fussey, and Andrew Silke

Terrorism, Identity and Legitimacy The Four Waves theory and political violence Edited by Jean E. Rosenfeld

Terrorism, Identity and Legitimacy

The Four Waves theory and political violence Edited by Jean E. Rosenfeld

First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

© 2011 Jean E. Rosenfeld for selection and editorial matter, individual contributors; their contributions The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN 0-203-83432-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13: 978-0-415-57857-8 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-83432-9 (ebk)

Contents



Notes on contributors Acknowledgments



Introduction: the meaning of political violence

ix xii 1

J ean E . R osen f eld

PART I

The Four Waves theory and global terrorism

11

1

13

Looking for waves of terrorism K aren R asler and W illiam R . T h ompson

2

Waves of international terrorism: an explanation of the process by which ideas flood the world

30

D ipak K . G upta

3

Technological and lone operator terrorism: prospects for a Fifth Wave of global terrorism

44

J e f f rey D . S imon

4

David Rapoport and the study of religiously motivated terrorism

66

J e f f rey K aplan

PART II

Terrorism: a closer view

85

5

87

Ripples in the waves: fantasies and fashions M arc S ageman

viii   Contents 6

The fourth terrorism wave: is there a religious exception?

93

M ic h ael B arkun

7

The Fourth Wave: comparison of Jewish and other manifestations of religious terrorism

103

A mi P eda h z ur and A rie P erliger

8

Action, reaction, and overreaction: assessing the impact of terrorism upon states

112

J o h n M ueller

9

Backlash: reactions against terrorism studies

123

L eonard W einberg and W illiam L ee E ubank

PART III

Identity, legitimacy, and political violence

135

10 Before the bombs there were the mobs: American experiences with terror

137

D a v id C . R apoport

11 The politics of collective identity: contested Israeli nationalisms

168

M yron J . A rono f f

12 South Africa’s paradox of violence and legitimacy

190

B arry M . S c h ut z

13 Legitimacy, culture of political violence and violence of culture in Ethiopia

212

N egussay A yele

14 Contextual issues in the study of domestic violence: a Malawi case study

232

R alp h A . Y oung

15 The myth of “institutional violence”

250

I v an S trenski



Select bibliography Index

255 258

Contributors

Myron (Mike) J. Aronoff is emeritus Professor of Political Science, Anthropology, and Jewish Studies at Rutgers University and has been a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan for the past two years. He has authored and edited a dozen books mostly on Israel and political anthropology. His most recent book is The Spy Novels of John le Carre: Balancing Ethics and Politics. He is co-­author with Jan Kubic of the forthcoming Anthropology & Political Science: Culture, Politics, and Identity. Negussay Ayele is Professor of Political Science from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, where he was department chair and coordinator of the Graduate Program for Social Sciences. He also served as Ambassador of Ethiopia to Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. He teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among his recent publications is Ethiopia and the United States – The Season of Courtship (Vol. I), and he is currently working on Volume II. Michael Barkun is emeritus Professor of Political Science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, New York. He has published ten books on millennialism, conspiracy theories, and their influence on the political system; and he serves on the editorial boards of several journals including Terrorism and Political Violence. William Lee Eubank is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada. He has published and presented papers on voting, computer algorithms, and terrorism, and two books on terrorism with Leonard Weinberg. Dipak K. Gupta is a Distinguished Professor in Political Science at San Diego State University, California, and the Fred J. Hanson Professor of Peace Studies. He is Director of the International Security and Conflict Resolution (ISCOR) program at San Diego State. He is the author of nine books on terrorism, public policy, and ethnic conflict, and is on the editorial board of several scholarly journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence and Democracy and Security.

x   Contributors Jeffrey Kaplan is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and Director of the UW Oshkosh Institute for the Study of Religion, Violence, and Memory. He is the author of eleven books on religious violence and millenarian terrorism and serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence. John Mueller is Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University. Among his books are Overblown and Atomic Obsession. Ami Pedahzur is a Professor at the Department of Government, University of Texas, Austin. His book, The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle against Terrorism, was published by Columbia University Press in 2009. Arie Perliger is Assistant Professor and Associate at the Combating Terrorism Center, US Military Academy at West Point. David C. Rapoport is emeritus Professor of Political Science, UCLA. He is the co-founder and current editor of the journal, Terrorism and Political Violence, and serves on five other journal editorial boards. His first book Assassination and Terrorism (1971) was followed by four others. Among his many articles are “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions” and “Moses, Charisma and Covenant” He founded the Center for the Study of Religion at the University of California, Los Angeles. Karen Rasler is Professor of Political Science at Indiana University and currently editor of International Studies Quarterly. Her interests are in general theories of international conflict and cooperation, political violence, internal wars, and war and state-­building processes. She has authored three books with William R. Thompson, including Strategic Rivalry: Space, Position, and Conflict Escalation in World Politics. Jean E. Rosenfeld, a historian of religions, is Assistant Researcher and Lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, Center for the Study of Religion. Her book, The Island Broken in Two Halves: Land and Renewal among the Maori of New Zealand, explores the impact of nativist millennial movements on the formation of a bi-­racial nation-­state. Marc Sageman is a forensic psychiatrist and sociologist. He served as adjunct Associate Professor at the School for International Public Affairs at Columbia University and as Principal of Sageman Consulting LLC. He is the author of Understanding Terror Networks and Leaderless Jihad. Barry M. Schutz is a former senior Africa analyst and current consultant with the U.S. Department of State. He is also a Visiting Scholar in The Center for African Studies at Stanford University. He has co-­edited two books, Revolution and Political Change in The Third World and Global Transformation and The Third World. Jeffrey D. Simon is President of Political Risk Assessment Co., Inc., in Santa Monica, California. He is the author of The Terrorist Trap: America’s

Contributors   xi Experience with Terrorism and has published numerous articles on a wide variety of terrorism topics. He also serves on the editorial board of Terrorism and Political Violence. Ivan Strenski is the Holstein Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. He is the former editor of the international journal, Religion. The author of numerous books, his recent research concerns religion and the political economy, as well as the religious roots of globalization and international law. William R. Thompson is Rogers Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Managing Editor of International Studies Quarterly. He has edited and co-­authored several books on the topic of globalization and the processes of change, including Systemic Transition: Past, Present, and Future and Causes of War. Leonard Weinberg is Foundation Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada and Senior Fellow at the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, Israel, as well as the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City. He is senior editor of the journal Democracy and Security, and the author of many books, including Right-­ Wing Extremism in the Twenty-­First Century, with Peter Merkl. Ralph Young retired from the University of Manchester as a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations. His fieldwork in Gabon and Zambia serves his primary interests in African and Third World politics. He has published articles on public sector reform, local government, the role of elections in democratization, and foreign aid.

Acknowledgments

Such a complex and interdisciplinary work of collected scholarship as this volume would not have been possible without the help of many hands and minds. We wish to thank the Sidney L. Stern Foundation for making this worthy project possible. We would also like to thank the Mellon Foundation for an Emeritus Grant in support of David C. Rapoport’s chapter. Our editors at Routledge, Andrew Humphrys and Rebecca Brennan and their skilled group, including Claire Toal and Ann King, have carried it to fruition. I am especially indebted to Nathan Gonzalez, who spent many long hours with me editing manuscripts and shaping this book. All of the authors were unfailingly patient no matter where on earth they happened to be at any moment. But everyone who contributed to Terrorism, Identity and Legitimacy would agree that they were each inspired by their mentor and colleague, David C. Rapoport, to pursue their passion for knowledge about difficult things by his indefatigable mind and spirit.

Introduction The meaning of political violence Jean E. Rosenfeld

Each chapter in this collection attempts to elucidate the puzzling phenomenon of political violence from its global to its local occurrences, from The International Jihad/al-­Qaeda to the traditional acceptance of and government indifference to domestic violence against women in Malawi. The rigorous analyses of terrorism and political violence presented in this volume vary not only in their evidence-­based findings, but the scholars who offer explanations differ markedly in their perspectives on the data. When a theory or a hypothesis attempts to push the knowledge envelope, a healthy discourse should develop about its ideas. The authors’ perspectives on terrorism and political identity and legitimacy reflect their diverse professions, from diplomacy to statistical analysis. Most contributors are political scientists, and many are trained in or have crossed into history, anthropology, psychiatry, sociology, religious studies, forensics, African studies, international relations, and conflict resolution. All have been influenced, to some degree, by the work of Professor emeritus David C. Rapoport, the first scholar in the United States to offer a course on non-­state terrorism, whose theoretical understanding of political violence spans a generation of research, writing, and teaching. Questioning conventional wisdom – which is only the provisional consensus at any given time – is a distinctive hallmark of Rapoport’s scholarship. Thinking about terrorism, what it all means, whether it is wholly random or patterned in its occurrences over thousands of years and in the modern world, where its “energy” comes from, whether and for how long it persists in a particular incarnation, who perpetuates it, how it changes, its professed “morality,” and its “transcendent purposes” have been some of the preoccupations of Rapoport, whose comparative studies of ancient and medieval religious terrorists in Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam alerted scholars to terrorism’s surprising persistence in human history. In short, terrorism is not new, but recurrent. It is no more deadly today than it was centuries ago, although technological advances in communication and transportation have given particular impetus to successive “waves” of terrorism in the past century and a quarter. Moreover, as weapons become more lethal and their means of delivery are refined by the innovative responses of terrorists to the defenses against them by nation-­states, the ancient practice of extra­legal violence in pursuit of political objectives intensifies as a global threat.

2   J.E. Rosenfeld Rapoport’s theory of the “four waves” of modern terror appears to explain best the data we have most recently gathered on international terrorist movements from the early anarchists in nineteenth-­century Russia to the radical jihadists of the present day (see Rasler and Thompson, Chapter 1). The victims of modern terrorist movements have been associated with nation-­ states, whose consolidated identities and political legitimization have varied in degree and type. For example, the anti-­colonial terrorists of the Second Wave were motivated by the perceived vulnerability of imperial powers after World War I (and, to some extent, World War II) to pursue national self-­determination, and their attacks succeeded, in part because their state targets did not want to expend the resources required to hold on to extraterritorial possessions. On the other side of the coin, since the breakup of colonial empires, many of the former colonies have struggled to establish stable and viable states. Political violence has been endemic in many parts of the world where traditional populations have endured autarchic rule for centuries or longer, as in Ethiopia, where the struggle for national self-­determination through partition from a hereditary monarchy by Eritrean insurgents represents a variant of Second Wave violence (see Ayele, Chapter 13). In some cases, Western hegemons ruled over collections of tribes that subsequently faced the difficult task of constructing a national identity where none had formerly existed and that faced a challenge to their traditions and customs by modern conventions regarding gender equality, as in Malawi (see Young, Chapter 14). Where “tribes” – Boers, Zulus, and an anti-­ apartheid coalition – competed to establish a national identity based on ­representative democracy, as in South Africa, the “paradox” of violence accompanying the march towards political legitimacy emerged as a surprise and a challenge (see Schutz, Chapter 12). Meanwhile in the West, the legitimacy of capitalist regimes was attacked by those who claimed to represent the “wretched of the earth” against imperial powers, leading to a Third Wave of New Left terrorism that engaged in kidnappings and assassinations of victims who symbolized the oppressors: businessmen and politicians (see Pedahzur and Perliger, Chapter 7). Accusing democratic states of “institutional violence,” left-­wing terrorists rebelled against the bourgeoisie, who included, in many cases, their parents’ generation. Rapoport found ancient references to rebellious youth and the use of “terror” against demonized enemies in the Hebrew Torah, the first five books of the Christian Old Testament. In the Exodus story of Moses and Pharaoh, the use of terror in the guise of plagues led to an oppressed minority’s release from bondage and, thus, in the earliest monotheistic scriptures, Rapoport discerned the roots of terrorism even as we know it today (see Kaplan, Chapter 4). Each wave of modern terror is believed to be energized by an overarching transcendent purpose that peaks and then dissipates, but the mechanics of the wave require a closer look at global terror as a phenomenon. Is the biblical generation of “forty years” the lifespan of a wave? What accounts for the dissipation of a wave? In the Fourth, or Religious, Wave of terror how far along are we

Introduction   3 today? Is religion or ideology an “exceptional” driving factor in terrorism, or can endlessly creative human beings break the “wave” paradigm itself and surprise us with something utterly new? These and other questions are taken up as authors reflect on such recurrent phases of collective, destructive human behavior. How do ideas turn lethal and spread around the world and by what specific means are they spread? Does internet technology accelerate the probability of deadlier waves in the future? Are the responses that states have thus far employed to counter the threat of religious terrorism effective or harmful? Is there a better means of preventing and extinguishing the current wave of terror? There are many questions and competing perspectives presented in this set of original, scholarly papers. Answers are proposed, weighed, and offered, but none are absolute. Questions of meaning are always open to further refinement, especially when the answers are sought in better and more complete datasets, comparative phenomena, surveys, interviews, and analyses. The first part covers terrorism in a global context. Karen Rasler and William Thompson identify and isolate a plurality of terrorist groupings from a database on terrorism spanning the years 1968 to 2004 and find that the data support Rapoport’s thesis that modern terrorism has occurred in four dominant and successive international waves, each lasting for about forty years. Although heterogeneous groups are found in each of the four “aggregations” of Anarchist, Nationalist (Anti-­Colonial), New Left/Marxist, and Religious terrorism, the dominant energy of a wave is discernible. It emerges, peaks, and recedes in a wavelike pattern. Combating an ideology presents a unique asymmetrical challenge to conventional armed forces. Dipak Gupta addresses the fundamental question of how such ideas as “jihadism”1 spread globally to harvest new recruits and fuel the Fourth Wave of international terrorism. He reports that “in their own minds terrorists are altruists,” and altruists may endure pain or death in pursuit of their transcendent goals. They are inspired by “community concern” more than material gain or secular power. Participation in a collective endeavor to save the world may inoculate them against weighing the pragmatic costs and benefits of their actions. He finds that the carriers of ideology take on specific roles as “messengers” in a specific “environment” to inspire “receivers” of a carefully crafted “message.” Although Gupta accepts the wave theory and integrates the “ripples” analysis of Marc Sageman, he questions the theory, as well. As one wave recedes, others, which we cannot predict, may be building. A subsequent wave may or may not be inspired by ideas carried around the world, as have the former waves, according to Jeffrey Simon, who is concerned with discerning a Fifth Wave of international terrorism, one that emphasizes Rapoport’s caveat that terrorists seek to employ surprising and endless innovations (see Simon, Chapter 3.) “If history repeats itself, the fourth wave will be over in two decades,” Rapoport wrote in 2004. Jeffrey Simon turns his attention to signs of an emerging Fifth Wave, noting the inventiveness of terrorists and the possibility that the next terrorist phase will not resemble its four predecessors. Technology, he argues,

4   J.E. Rosenfeld will be the “defining characteristic of the Fifth Wave,” not any one ideology, and “lone operators can become significant players,” because the internet gives access indiscriminately to information about targets and types of weapons. Regarding weapons, he posits that given the lack of accountability of a lone operator to any community of reference, it is possible that the future terrorist will employ more destructive methods, including CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear weapons) and escalate the number of casualties. He also notes that “the lone operator . . . is often ignored in assessing the terrorist threat,” although a 2009 report by the United States Department of Homeland Security regards the lone operator as the highest threat, especially after recent attacks that tend to support Simon’s Fifth Wave argument, which he anticipated long before the DHS report and latest acts by lone operators (Simon 2000). Although waves are international in scope and lone operator attacks have occurred, notably in the United States, there have been similar attacks in Italy as recently as 2006. Thus, he asserts, lone operator terrorism “is not just an American phenomenon.” In his informative review of the body of Rapoport’s work on terrorism, Jeffrey Kaplan notes that for over forty years, he has “demonstrated a persistant continuity of theme” that emphasizes the influence of religion (i.e., transcendent purpose) as the prevailing motivation for terrorist threats. His theoretical trajectory has its origins, surprisingly, in the Hebrew scriptures and the “terror” visited by Moses’s God on Egypt’s Pharaoh. One of Rapoport’s explanatory factors, “holy terror,” has persisted from his earliest studies to his latest explication of the Fourth Wave we are currently experiencing. It drives equally the “freedom fighter,” the anarchist, the cultic devotee of Kali, and ancient Israelite warriors. By comparing instances of ancient, medieval, and modern terrorism, Rapoport has prepared the groundwork of his theoretical understanding of a chimerical human phenomenon that requires diachronic as well as synchronic study. In the second part authors take a closer look at aspects and characteristics of contemporary terrorism and its response: counterterrorism: Marc Sageman’s primary study of Islamic terrorists, especially in diaspora communities located in Western democracies, has enhanced our general understanding of how a “wave” behaves. He focuses upon “the natural history of a terrorist wave,” asking, “Why does it acquire prominence at a certain place and time, and why does it fade over time?” His answer refines the thesis that religion drives the “energy” of the Fourth Wave, since he discerns three successive “ripples” thus far in jihadist operatives. The first ripple of “founders” were mature, educated, and socially prominent; the second ripple consisted of middle-­class expatriates who created a “common Muslim identity” as a means of overcoming their sense of alienation in the West; but the third ripple derives from a more acculturated, if less educated and affluent, diaspora group of young men who want to be heroes, but who are not notably religious (see Barkun, Chapter  6). They are “wannabes” and a “bunch of guys” who are recruited sometimes from the ranks of petty criminals. Sageman’s ripples suggest that the Fourth Wave is already receding, although the third ripple

Introduction   5 “may be far more violent against their own society” in the West and constitute a “homegrown threat.” Michael Barkun both examines and tests the thesis of religious energy as the stimulus of terrorism. He posits a “religious exception” to the duration of a forty­year wave, noting that Rapoport “harbored reservations about whether the current, religion-­driven wave . . . might possess unusual longevity because of the strength of religious communities.” Comparing holy terror to utopian communities and religious orders, Barkun tests the idea that the Religious Wave may exceed the lifespan of the first three waves, in part because religious groups “seek undivided and exclusive loyalty” from their members.2 Monastic orders endure for longer than terrorist waves. They are supported by institutional infrastructures.3 Another useful analogy for the Fourth Wave is the concept of religious “revivals” or “awakenings,” which “have clearly finite life spans, rarely more than a few generations.” The period­ icity of terrorism is supported by a variety of analogous examples supplied by Barkun, but the question of the duration of the Fourth Wave may still depend upon the fervor transmitted by one ripple in the wave to its successor. How does intrastate Jewish terrorism compare with religious terrorism around the world? What is distinctive or similar about Jewish terrorist groups and Islamic ones, for example? These are questions Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger set out to answer by compiling data on Jewish groups that were and are primarily “local,” rather than global. In accord with Thompson and Rasler, their data show that religiously motivated terrorism has increased in activity up until the present time among Jewish groups as well as among all other terrorist groups. In addition, they found that Jewish groups as well as other terrorist groups are motivated by political and territorial goals, not only by religious goals. Thus, the Religious Wave exhibits a somewhat surprising preoccupation with nationalism. Ideological terrorism, in general, presents a mixed bag of political and religious motivations among both Jewish and other Fourth Wave terrorist groups. Questioning conventional wisdom, John Mueller argues that the “overreaction” to terrorist acts has often cost victimized states more in terms of casualties and financial expenses than the acts themselves. He has amassed examples to make his contrary case that the wiser and less costly response to non-­state terrorism would be for states and peoples to refrain from counterproductive and self-­ destructive overreaction and to to exercise self-­control, restrain their reactions, and, in particular, their desires to react. His view deserves consideration, in part because the prevailing impulse would be to dismiss it as merely a “what if scenario” or “Monday-­morning quarterbacking.” In fact, testing our responses to terrorism by imagining an alternative approach forces us to evaluate our reactions in an unbiased manner. It is axiomatic that we cannot design new counterterrorism strategies and policies in a dynamic and evolving “war” without critically evaluating what has gone right and wrong in our past responses. Leonard Weinberg and William Eubank step back from a direct examination of the terrorist phenomenon to look closely at the way in which the study of

6   J.E. Rosenfeld terrorism has split into opposing camps during the past forty years. During the Third Wave of New Left terrorism inspired by Marxist ideology, a class of critics espousing a “wretched of the earth”4 rationale accused conventional terrorism experts of contributing to a politically motivated “terrorism studies industry” in support of the capitalist state. These critics tended to sympathize with the political objectives of terrorist revolutionaries. However, it is not sufficient to ascribe the rival discourses on terrorism only to left–right political alignments. A new journal of Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) also calls into question the analyses of conventional scholars of Fourth Wave, Religious terrorism, but it refrains from sympathizing with its subjects. Instead, it accuses its more conventional rivals of epistemological “subjectivity,” by deconstructing their “hegemonic discourse.” One reason why contemporary CTS proponents have ceased to “legitimize” the terrorist rationale in the Fourth Wave, the authors surmise, is that they have difficulty sympathizing with terrorists’ fundamentalist religious inspirations. The third part addresses the achievement of, or failure to achieve, a national identity or political legitimacy or both. Political violence accompanies these processes in various ways that call for better understanding. It can impede the emergence of representative government, a legal system in accord with human rights, and stable civic institutions. It can also push the process of nation-­ building forward. Political violence is sometimes employed by ethnic factions to protect their “culture” against perceived subjugation, and both domestic violence and political violence may be used to subjugate rival ethnic populations or women. One may expect violence to undermine legitimacy, but it is surprising to find that it may simply become tolerable as “crime” instead of “terrorism,” as in South Africa. One also expects political violence, ethnic cleansing, and revolutions to occur in the so-­called Third World, but history provides evidence that “mob violence” engaged in all three processes before the American Revolution (1775–1781) and after the American Civil War (1861–1865). As Rapoport has reminded us, “terrorism” is a post-­Enlightenment term, but an ancient human practice. Before the Jacobin “Reign of Terror” during the French Revolution, the Sons of Liberty engaged in attacks against British colonial governors and sympathizers, “tarring and feathering” their targets, unleashing mobs to invade their homes and threaten their lives and families, and unifying colonial Americans under the quasi-­religious symbol of the “Liberty Tree.”5 Americans remember them as freedom fighters, but Rapoport demonstrates that “mob violence” was regarded by the “mainstream” British media and government as terrorism. His unconventional pairing reveals paradoxical similarities between the Sons of Liberty and the post-­bellum Ku Klux Klan, which successfully achieved its political objective of defeating federal Reconstruction policies by using mob violence against northern “carpetbaggers” and enfranchised ex-­slaves. He also compares mob violence in early America with modern terrorism, unearthing a surprising relationship between building the United States of America and re-­establishing de facto racial inequality after the Civil War. Both instances of mob violence succeeded in constructing a national

Introduction   7 identity that became legitimized in the offices of an acclaimed representative democracy. It may surprise us to discover that the use of terror by clandestine or ethnically defined groups can significantly alter outcomes when states are struggling to be born or suffer a nearly lethal rupture. How terrorism, identity, and legitimacy connect and interact deserves more intensive study. While each society creates itself from its own traditions, myths, and history, there may be a more general “grammar” that informs the process of nation-­ building. Myron (Mike) Aronoff uses Israel as his subject of analysis of the construction of national identity and, from a close examination of its intrastate factions, extracts a “model” that could be applied to other emerging nation-­ states. This is a very instructive theoretical text that incorporates the understudied factors of religion, time, and space into a profound understanding of national identity. It also queries problems of violence: “Social identity becomes more important – and therefore politicized – when it is threatened by forces of domination and/or assimilation (like colonialism and globalization).” In addition, internal tensions between ethnic loyalties and attachment to the civil state are obvious not only in Israel where conflict between anti- and pro-­ Zionist factions can erupt in violence, but also in Malawi, where a traditional set of tribes feels threatened by a new Constitution that enshrines gender equality. Whether or not ethnic, tribal, and traditional factions can merge into one overarching loyalty to an institutionalized polity is always a critical question. How complex societies accomplish this feat is a more significant question for social scientists. Aronoff is a political scientist–anthropologist whose hybrid approach to the question is more fruitful than a singular perspective. Aronoff graphs his variables against perceptions of the various religious and secular groups in Israel that aggregate along the lines of political parties, but sometimes blur those boundaries. He finds a “tripartite typology of nationalism” where types of nationalism align with contrasting “perceptions of time and space, degrees of religiosity, and . . . collective security.” These perceptions contest with one another in the political arena, and they have “specific orientations to history and borders.” The clarity achieved by constructing a heuristic model for applying to other cases is admittedly at the expense of simplifying “a much more complex reality,” but Aronoff is able to formulate a useful paradigm without losing sight of the complexities and variations in the data. His discussion of time perceptions and myth interpretation enlarges our understanding of how political factionalism develops and influences nation formation. If one were to choose a single emerging nation to which Aronoff ’s model could most usefully be applied, it would be South Africa. There are similarities between Israel and the dynamic sub-­Saharan country. Both were founded among and by a population that consisted of old-­timers and newcomers and different tribes by means of wars over territory and autonomous rule. Barry Schutz evaluates the principle of legitimacy as developed by M.G. Smith and Guglielmo Ferraro as it apples to the nation-­state of South Africa. In particular, he examines the paradox of violence, terrorism, and crime that accompany nation-­building in this ethnically diverse state. In Ferraro’s terms, South

8   J.E. Rosenfeld Africa may be classified as a “pre-­legitimate” state. Schutz finds that the charismatic leadership of Nelson Mandela has been especially effective for the transition from the “revolutionary” rule of an Afrikaner minority to the democratic/ elective rule of the African National Congress. South Africa is a naturally occuring case study of how political legitimacy can develop out of revolutionary, autarchic regimes. Most interesting (especially in contrast to the case of Ethiopia) is how the factor of political violence accompanies that dynamic transition and whether or not violence is integral to the process of legitimization, or tends to vitiate it. In contrast to South Africa, Ethiopia is one of the world’s oldest, recognized nations. It is the homeland of Negussay Ayele, diplomat and scholar, who both documents and laments its long-­standing “culture of violence” and “violence of culture.” His discussions of the long history of monarchy and autocracy attributable to both tradition and modes of rule without viable institutions governing succession add to the existing scholarship about political legitimacy, whose examples are largely drawn in detail from Western countries. Ayele reaches back to the Politics of Aristotle to further our understanding of an African kingdom that the philosopher’s Greek contemporaries mentioned. His informative exposition of violence in Ethiopian politics and culture over millennia is offered as a fundamental explanation for the inability of the current Ethiopian democracy movement to effect a transition to fully legitimated rule. The problem of government legitimacy in Malawi, according to Ralph Young, is not situated in the Constitution (1995) of a new state or in the wobbly civil Ministry of Women, but in the rural and tribal population of agriculturalists that is stuggling to survive both a debilitating AIDs epidemic (14 percent of the population is infected) and a culture that protects “forced marriage” of young girls whose families cannot afford to feed them, and enables Malawi’s soaring rates of domestic violence and gender abuse. Far more women than men contract AIDs in Malawi. While women’s rights have been given lip-­service by the new state’s charismatic first president and its Constitution accorded women equal rights with men, as the designated “guardians of culture,” women too often accept the domestic forms of violence that retard Malawi’s progress towards economic viability and political stability. Poverty and discrimination against women go hand in hand. Given the impact of AIDs in sub-­Saharan Africa on the most productive sector of young adults (many of whom also provide for young children) and Malawi’s history of colonialism and tribalism, its future may depend on overcoming gender bias at the community level. While one may attribute Malawi’s dilemma to “institutional violence,” Ivan Strenski presents a cogent argument against the use of that term, because, he argues, the phrase itself can promote the occurrence of “real,” physical violence. It is a loaded term, a slogan adopted by revolutionaries as a riposte against the rulers’ accusations of “insurgency,” “militancy,” and “terrorism” applied during the Third Wave of New Left terrorism that peaked in the “Sixties” decade (1965–1975), largely in the developed West. Whether the perceived targets of “institutional violence” were those who protested racial inequality, the subju-

Introduction   9 gated poor, or, later in time, gender inequality and “double standards,” Strenski argues that these offenses do not rise to the level of offenses caused by the direct use of physical violence. He does not deny that “institutional violence” refers to some real thing, but asserts that the use of the term as a means of addressing grievances can itself call forth violence. It is a subtle argument, but worthy of reflection, since it reminds us that the evocative power of words can create the very phenomenon we try to eliminate in part, by coining the phrase. The contributors to this volume engage with subjects that are interrelated, but they adopt different perspectives towards the problems of social, religious, and political violence – all of which are themselves inextricably interwoven in the complex human collectives we endlessly create. It is the intrinsic human drive for meaning itself that can produce the provocation and response elicited by “mobs,” “terrorists,” “freedom fighters” or the state, and the phenomenon of generation-­long waves of global violence. But whether violence is local or global, it tends to be both patterned and innovative. It elicits chaos, but can be reduced to an orderly paradigm, model, or theory, depending on the methods and data scholars utilize to understand the beast. The application of an orderly, evidence-­based understanding of terrorism, national identity, and political legitimacy may be the most effective weapon we could employ in any “war on terrorism” now or in the future

Notes 1 I am following the practice of Dipak Gupta (Chapter 2) in referring to Muslim terrorists as “jihadists.” We do recognize that this is an imperfect label, albeit one that does avoid even less satisfactory terms, such as “Islamists.” Muslims regard jihad as a positive and much broader, nuanced religious practice. Unfortunately, Abdullah Azzam, Ayman al-­Zawahiri, and Usamah bin Ladin, inter alia, have reduced “jihad” to their limited interpretation of “jihad of the sword,” using a “proof text,” S. 9.5, that has also been truncated; and they have asserted jihad as a “sixth-­pillar” of Islam by expounding a notably heterodox exegesis. Thus, it is “jihadism” as elaborated in Faraj’s pamphlet, “The Neglected Duty,” (See Faraj in Jansen 1986: 159–129) which distinguishes al-­ Qaeda/the International Jihad from the Salafist school that repudiates the terrorists as apostates. 2 One notes, in this respect, that Usamah bin Ladin requires his followers to swear an oath of loyalty to him (Gerges 2005: 64). 3 In this regard, one notes the support for al-­Qaeda from some Islamic charitable institutions and Saudi-­financed madrassahs. 4 The phrase was taken from the title of a book by the Algerian National Liberation Front writer/activist, Franz Fanon (1961). 5 The cosmic tree is a symbol of the axis mundi in cultures throughout the world. It establishes a center that orients a human society to its bounded territory (homeland) by establishing directions, coordinates, and a “map” of it on the ground and in the mind. It also orients the collective to divine realms in heaven or under the earth, or both (see Eliade 1959: 35–47; Rosenfeld 2010).

10   J.E. Rosenfeld

Bibliography Eliade, Mircea (1959) The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Fanon, Frantz (1963) The Wretched of the Earth (Les Damnes de la Terre 1961, ed. Maspero: Paris); trans. Richard Philcox 2004. New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Gerges, Fawaz (2005) The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Faraj, Abd al-­Salam (1986) Appendix: Translation of Muhammad Abd al-­Salam Faraj’s Text Entitled “Al-­Faridah al-­Gha’ibah” (“The Neglected Duty”), in Johannes J.G. Jansen The Neglected Duty: The Creed of Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East, pp. 159–229. New York: Macmillan. Rosenfeld, Jean E. (2010) “Nativist Millennialism,” in Catherine Wessinger (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Millennialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Simon, Jeffrey D. (2000) “Lone Operators and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in B. Roberts (ed.) Hype or Reality: The “New Terrorism” and Mass Casualty Attacks, pp. 69–81. Alexandria, VA: The Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute.

Part I

The Four Waves theory and global terrorism

1 Looking for waves of terrorism Karen Rasler and William R. Thompson

Introduction Much is said about old and new terrorism.1 If one talked or taught about the subject even a decade ago, the stress was usually placed on how it was rational for terrorists to avoid killing too many people if the goal was to increase support for their political agenda. That particular generalization no longer seems very accurate.2 Public beheadings and events resulting in thousands of casualties are not intended to impress observers with the righteousness of their cause; yet at no point in time is terrorism activity entirely homogeneous. That is, jihadists are not the only groups who employ terrorist tactics. They compete for attention with Tamil separatists, old Marxists engaging in kidnapping for profit, and even the stray anachronistic anarchist. In any given decade, the nature of terrorist activity is less than monolithic. Since old and new forms of terrorism tend to occur at the same time, it is difficult to make generalizations that assume behavioral homogeneity. Should we make a distinction, therefore, between old and new terrorism? We argue in the affirmative. We begin with the assumption that terrorism is a tactic or family of tactics adopted by political groups engaged in asymmetrical struggles with more powerful groups – a point well developed in Table 1.1, which compares war, insurgency, and terrorism. The greater the symmetry between two opposing groups in conflict, the greater is the tendency for groups to pursue the war end of the continuum. The less the symmetry, the greater is the penchant of at least one group to favor the terrorism end. However, these generalizations do not imply that all groups engaging in terrorism will utilize precisely the same tactics, fight in the same locales, or demand the same things. We maintain that there is variation in the groups that utilize terrorist tactics from decade to decade as old groups win, are eradicated, or suffer exhaustion. As old groups disappear, new groups are apt to emerge, but not necessarily in the same places and for the same reasons. A metaphor for dealing with heterogeneity in terrorism groups and tactics is the wave. A wave is a buildup of surface water caused primarily by wind. Below the wave is a mass of water of varying temperature and visibility. The waves that  we see may look different than the body of water immediately below.

Often

Yes

Source: adapted from Merari (2007: 26).

No

Yes

Yes

Uniform

State symbols, political opponents and the public at large

Kidnapping, assassinations, car bombing, hijacking, etc.

Hand-guns, grenades, assault rifles and specialized bombs

Small (usually fewer than 10 people)

Terrorism

No

No

No, operations carried out world wide

No

No

Mainly physical attrition of the enemy Psychological coercion

Domestic legality

Yes

Control of territory

If conducted by rules

Physical destruction

Intended impact

Mostly military, police and administration staff, as well as political opponents

If conducted by rules

Mostly military units, industrial and transportation infrastructure

Targets

Commando type

International legality

Usually joint operations involving several military branches

Tactics

Mostly infantry type light weapons but sometimes artillery

Limited to the country in strife

Full range of military hardware (air force, armor, artillery)

Weapons

Medium (platoons, companies, battalions)

Guerrilla war

Recognition of war zones Limited to recognized geographical area

Large (armies, corps, divisions)

Unit size in battle

Conventional war

Table 1.1  Conventional war, guerrilla war, and terrorism

Looking for waves of terrorism   15 For  terrorism groups, waves mean that certain groups stand out as particularly salient in some respect, and that what is salient in one wave is not likely to be equally salient in preceding and following waves. As it happens, though, scholars tend to disagree about how many waves there have been and how best to identify the ones that have been seen.3 Since it is not possible to sort out all of the disagreements about terrorism waves in one article, we focus here on the first wave interpretation to appear in print (Rapoport 2004). After reviewing its key arguments, we conduct a limited test to see if terrorism manifests a wave-­like behavior in terms of which groups dominate terrorist activity, whether different groups favor dissimilar tactics, and what sort of damage different groups achieve. Our findings, limited to the 1968–2004 period, provide empirical support for the Rapoport model, which depicts succeeding waves of anarchism, nationalism, leftist/Marxism, and religious fundamentalism. Waves do indeed appear to characterize contemporary terrorist activity.

Rapoport’s model Rapoport’s argument is particularly distinctive because of its emphasis on generational waves of terrorism. Specifically, Rapoport observes four waves since the late 1870s – each one lasting approximately 40 years. The First Wave began in Russia and was largely the result of slow democratization processes. Russian anarchists conceptualized the idea and tactics for a strategy of overthrowing political systems by conducting serial attacks on public conventions. The predominant strategy in this First Wave centered on the assassination of authority figures, which anarchists sometimes financed through bank robberies. Changes in the world economy’s communication and transportation technology especially aided the emergence of this strategy in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. For instance, information on the terrorist attacks could be circulated relatively quickly just as anarchists could travel widely to carry out attacks and to encourage others to do the same. These technological changes also facilitated large-­ scale emigration from various parts of Europe to more democratic political systems, thereby creating sympathetic audiences abroad (see Table 1.2). World War I, precipitated in part by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-­Hungary, encouraged reforms and revolution, which depressed the incentives for anarchic terrorism. Meanwhile, the post-­war treaties also helped to delegitimize colonies and empires by breaking up the imperial and colonial structures of the losers and establishing supposedly temporary mandate arrangements. The winners, on the other hand, were able to hold on to their empires, but they were not able to eradicate the notion of national self-­determination. Hence, the Second Wave of terrorism focused on dissident efforts to secure European withdrawal from overseas territories, particularly in areas where some elements of the local public preferred their colonial status quo in comparison to what independence might bring (e.g., Ireland, Palestine, Algeria). Although World War II extended this Second Wave of terrorism, it decreased the ability of the European states to hang on to their empires and hastened the disintegration of

Guerrilla attacks on police European empires and military

Nationalist 1920s–1960s

Developed basic terrorism strategies and rationales

Special characteristics

U.S., Israel, and secular regimes Iranian Revolution, Soviet Casualty escalation, with Muslim populations invasion of Afghanistan Decline in the number of terrorist groups

Source: based on Rapoport (2004) discussion.

Suicide bombings

Increased international training/ cooperation/sponsorship

Religious 1970s–2020s

Viet Cong successes

Governments in general; increasing focus on U.S.

Post-1919 delegitimization Increased international support of empire (UN and diasporas)

Failure/slowness of political reform

Precipitant

New Left/Marxist Hijackings, kidnappings, 1960s–1990s assassination

Primarily European states

Elite assassinations, bank robberies

Anarchists 1870–1910s

Target identity

Primary strategy

Focus

Table 1.2  Rapoport’s four waves of terrorism

Looking for waves of terrorism   17 the remaining European empires. Consequently, this Second Wave of terrorism produced by nationalists and anti-­colonial groups tapered off. A Third Wave of terrorism which predominated in the last third of the twentieth century centered on Marxist revolution. It was also reinforced by the Viet Cong’s abilities to withstand the military might of the United States in Vietnam. Tactics such as assassinations came back into favor, along with hijackings of airplanes and public offices, as well as increasingly lucrative kidnappings of individuals whose release required concessions and/or ransoms. Within the Cold War context, training and support for terrorists became increasingly internationalized, as did the targets of terrorist attacks. The end of the Cold War and the international community’s sustained resistance to these terrorist demands eventually led to the phasing out of this wave by the 1980s. A Fourth Wave coincided with the confluence of two major events in southwest Asia. The first event occurred with the overthrow of the Shah in Iran, bringing to power Islamic clerics who sought to “export the revolution.” In the same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to save a client regime against an internal revolt, mobilizing Muslims to wage a holy war against the infidels. The Fourth Wave of terrorism quickly assumed a strongly religious orientation, initially centered on Islam. Eventually, terrorism spread to include actions from radical wings of other religions in reaction to militant Islam. In the process, a new tactic, suicide bombings, emerged, as did a strong emphasis on attacking U.S. targets in order to encourage American withdrawal from the Middle East. The general pattern is thus not one of random and unstructured violence. Each wave has a life cycle with initial expansion and contraction phases, which are influenced by the number of terrorist organizations in operation and the intensity of their attacks. Terrorist organizations that survive the contractionary phase of the wave in which they originated adapt by taking on the operational characteristics and tactics that appear in the next wave of terrorism. The duration of each wave depends upon myriad explanations: the presence or lack of successes attributable to terrorism, the resilience of terrorist organizations, and the effectiveness of states’ responses to terrorist claims and tactics. Duration may also be contingent upon generational differences associated with terrorists’ aspirations and calculations about what works and what does not seem to be efficacious. Or it may be that new generations simply find it easier to break with older strategies that have lost their allure. The central motivation for terrorism in each wave is distinctive, as are the tactics that are most likely to be employed. The violence is carried out by non-­state organizations and is directed at states and their populations deemed to be antagonistic to the aims of revolutionary organizations. Terrorists, including some of their targets, are apt to view their conflict as warfare, albeit an unconventional form of warfare. Yet, the one recurring pattern in terrorism waves is their limited duration. Each wave is likely to play itself out and to be replaced by a new wave of terrorism that is centered on a motivation which is as difficult to predict as the timing of the next upsurge.

18   K. Rasler and W.R. Thompson

Analytical questions Our immediate question focuses on whether terrorism reflects wave-­like qualities. In other words, can we discern waves of terrorism in the data on terrorist activity? Unfortunately, we lack long time series on terrorism at the present. What we have are compendiums of “illustrative” events, which cover various periods of time in addition to systematic databases that usually span shorter periods of time. The main problem with “illustrative” events lists is that the principles used to include or exclude terrorist events are unclear. However, the central problem with databased lists is the brevity of the time series. For instance, a series that encompasses 37 years is not all that appropriate for an empirical question which deals with 137 years of terrorism activity. Since there are no “illustrative” lists covering events over 100 years, we focus our inquiry initially on the contemporary period. At the same time, we acknowledge that our efforts to discern wave-­like patterns in terrorism are not the first attempt to do so. Although not directly focused on waves per se, Pedahzur, Eubank, and Weinberg (2002) examined the nature of terrorist group formation in the twentieth century. They concluded that the number of groups peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, reflecting at that time a mixture of nationalist, left- and right-­wing, and religious groups, but during the 1990s religious groups largely dominated new group formation. Enders and Sandler (2005) examined time series of terrorist activity and found breakpoints in the mid-­1970s, early 1990s, and 2001 that they attribute to various factors. An increase in deaths in 1975 is traced to a rise in the formation of terrorist groups around this time. The early 1990s increase in deaths is said to be due to the decline in left-­wing groups and to decreases in state sponsorship. After 9/11, Enders and Sandler find that bombings increased and hostage-­taking decreased. They hypothesize that groups became more interested in the amount of carnage that could be inflicted. While certainly suggestive, these explanations of breakpoints appear largely ad hoc.4 In another evocative study (2006), Thompson, who examined a list of terrorism events for the last 50 years of the twentieth century, found that nationalist events had declined from a high of 60 percent to less than a quarter (23 percent) of the total terrorism underway.5 Ideological terrorism (both left and right) had peaked in the 1960s at around 53 percent and declined to 27 percent. Religious activity had been nonexistent in the 1960s but had risen to 50 percent of the total by the 1990s. However, this analysis is based on an “illustrative list” and we cannot be sure that its numbers are partially accurate. One of the longer and more respected databases is International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events (ITERATE).6 It covers a large number of transnational terrorism events beginning in 1968 with coverage continuing into the present. Our dataset continues through 2004, offering some 37 years of contemporary activity. Our specific empirical question, therefore, is whether we find wave-­like activity to characterize this time period. Rapoport contends that the

Looking for waves of terrorism   19 waves are distinguished by generational-­length periods of ideological predominance. To test this notion, we need data on the identity of the groups engaging in terrorist activity. Since ITERATE does not provide information on the nature of the groups engaged in terrorism beyond the group’s name, if known, our first task is to categorize the 1,483 groups listed in the ITERATE database.7 Given the nature of the arguments in the wave literature, we are interested in the main identities of anarchist, nationalist, leftist/Marxist, and religious groups. Since available information on group identities and goals varies a great deal, we proceeded with very simple categorical cues: anarchists are opposed to the existence and regulatory activities of governments, nationalists seek political independence for some population (either vis-­à-vis a colonial power or on behalf of some component of the population seeking separatism); leftist/Marxists advocate an array of agendas encompassing social liberalism, socialism, and the more doctrinaire views of Marx or Mao; and religious groups espouse a specific sect or fundamentalist interpretation of non-­secular beliefs that has implications for political order. There are obvious gray areas of overlap in these simple categorizations. Nationalists can be leftist/Marxist and, on occasion, religious fundamentalists as well. To deal with this problem, we proceeded to code the group identities on the following basis: nationalist groups were coded as such if they were primarily secular and relatively neutral on the conventional ideological continuum. Leftist/ Marxists and religious fundamentalists are predominately tied overtly to their respective dogmas and are usually identified by other sources in precisely these terms.8 Each group on the long list of ITERATE groups was investigated using multiple sources, including looking at several online and hard copy databases on terrorist activity, “googling” the name of the group, and consulting studies of terrorism.9 Of the 1,483 total groups, 763 (circa 51 percent) could be identified as either anarchist (18), nationalist (186), leftist/Marxist (251 almost equally divided into the two subtypes), or religious (216).10 While other types of groups could be identified, almost half of the groups were too obscure to find any explicit discussion of their identities or goals.11 We suspect that many of these groups were very small in member numbers and did not engage in repeated activity. Figure 1.1 suggests, however, that the groups that we can identify are responsible for a respectable portion of the total activity (approximately 44 percent) and do not appear to be unrepresentative of any particular segment of time.12 The activity of the identified series is highly correlated with the total activity (r = 0.938).13 In addition to the four types of groups emphasized by Rapoport, we found groups that could best be categorized as rightist, racist, environmental, tribal, or state agents. For present purposes, we focus exclusively on the activities of the anarchist, nationalist, leftist/Marxist, and religious groupings. Beyond looking at the simple frequency of activity, we also follow Enders and Sandler (2005: 263) in grouping the incidents into three basic types: Bombing events include explosive, letter, incendiary, car, and suicide car bombings, missile attacks, and

20   K. Rasler and W.R. Thompson 600

500

400

300

200

100

0 1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

Initiated by All Groups Initiated by All Known Groups Only Initiated by Major Groups

Figure 1.1  Frequency of transnational terrorism, 1968–2004

mortar/grenade attacks; Hostage events include kidnappings, skyjackings, non-­ aerial hijackings, barricade and hostage-­taking missions; Assassinations encompass politically motivated murders. In addition, we look at the number of deaths, casualties (dead and wounded), and location and targets. If there are waves of terrorism, we should expect to find the following patterns discernible in the 1968–2004 period: 1 2 3 4

Anarchist terrorism was extremely low in frequency, or extinct. Nationalist terrorism would be declining. Leftist/Marxist terrorism should have first increased, peaked, and then declined. Religious terrorism would be increasing.

If waves of terrorism do indeed exist and certain groups favor different tactics, we also expect that the frequency of bombing, hostage-­taking, and assassinations will change over time. Since hostage-­taking was especially prominent in the New Left/Marxist era and some types of bombing appear to be quite prominent in the most recent era, we anticipate that hostage-­takings will decline and bombings will increase. We have no basic expectation about assassinations – a type of tactic historically linked to anarchists but certainly not restricted to the late nineteenth century.

Looking for waves of terrorism   21 5 6

The use of bombing will be increasing over time. The use of hostage-­taking will be decreasing over time.

One of the central arguments in the debate about old and new terrorism is that “old” terrorists sought to minimize deaths in order to avoid alienating audiences from whom they were seeking support for their political cause. “New” terrorists, in contrast, are less concerned with eliciting support from external audiences and more concerned with maximizing casualties. 7

Deaths and casualties from terrorist activity will be increasing over time.

Finally, if we find evidence of terrorist waves, we anticipate that leftist/Marxists will have increasingly focused their actions against the United States as the most affluent leader of the capitalist world. Religious groups, especially fundamentalist Islamic groups, will gradually, but not immediately, increase their focus on targeting the U.S. as an adversary. This gradual development of an anti-­U.S. focus is the result of two significant events: the U.S. support for the Afghani mujahidin against the Soviet Union and the Iranian Revolution. 8

Leftist/Marxist and religious terrorist groups will increasingly focus their terrorism against the United States during their respective “heydays,” or waves.

Analysis Is there evidence in the frequency of group activity that follows a wave-­like pattern? Table 1.3 and Figure 1.2 address this first question. Clearly, anarchist terrorism is a very minor concern and is becoming increasingly rare. Nationalist terrorism, the most predominant type of activity, is also fairly clearly on the wane. The data show that nationalist terrorism declined by more than half of the activity reported in the first half of our time period. The average amount of leftist/Marxist terrorism shows a more modest decline, but Figure 1.2 reveals that this pattern is misleading. Figure 1.2 shows that this type of terrorism increased from the 1960s through the early 1990s. Since then, leftist/Marxist activity has declined dramatically to the low levels of the 1960s. Figure 1.2, in fact, suggests something close to a full life cycle for this particular variety of Table 1.3  Means of group activity frequency, 1968–2004

Anarchist Nationalist Leftist/Marxist Religious

1968–2004

1968–1986

1987–2004

1.0 49.1 40.3 19.2

1.5 65.2 40.8 14.9

0.4 32.0 33.8 23.8

22   K. Rasler and W.R. Thompson Leftists/Marxists

Anarchists

12

80 70

10

60

8

50

6

40

4

30 20

2

10

0

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

Religious groups

Nationalists

120

1970

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

0

80 70

100

60

80

50

60

40

40

30 20

20

10

0

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

2000

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

0

Figure 1.2  Frequency of transnational terrorism by major groups, 1968–20041 Note 1 Terrorism includes: bombings, hostage-taking and assassinations.

terrorism, starting at a very low level, peaking, and then practically dying out. Religious groups, in marked contrast, began slowly in the 1970s and continued to ascend throughout the 1968–2004 time period. Overall, then, we have minor anarchist activity, decaying nationalist behavior, ascending and then rapidly declining leftist/Marxist activity, and ascending religious terrorism. We see these patterns as strongly supporting Rapoport’s wave hypothesis. The one caveat is that leftists/Marxists did not dominate the 1960s–1990s wave. Nationalist activity continued through this period as the leading type. However, it is also clear that secular nationalism frequencies were on the downswing at least from the mid-­1970s while leftist/Marxist activity was very much on the upswing. Since no one really contends that each wave exhibits only one type of group behavior, we view this finding as only a minor caveat on the wave argument. Our second question concerns the tactics employed by the four types of groups. Table 1.4 reveals that anarchists are no longer associated with assassina-

Looking for waves of terrorism   23 Table 1.4  Means of group tactics, 1968–2004 1968–2004

1968–1986

1987–2004

Hostage taking Anarchists Nationalists Leftists/Marxists Religious

0.5 8.4 10.5 6.0

0.1 11.1 10.9 5.6

0.0 5.7 10.0 6.5

Bombing Anarchists Nationalists Leftists/Marxists Religious

0.9 36.1 24.0 10.8

1.4 47.3 26.5 7.5

0.4 24.3 21.3 14.3

Assassinations Anarchists Nationalists Leftists/Marxists Religious

0.0 4.6 3.1 2.4

0.0 6.9 3.4 1.8

0.0 2.1 2.7 3.1

tions, or much else for that matter. Secular nationalists, however, were the leading source of bombings in the 1968–1986 period – a finding that we did not anticipate. On average, religious groups have yet to reach the record of nationalists or leftists/Marxists on transnational bombings. Yet, nationalist and leftist/ Marxist bombings have been declining while religious bombing is still increasing. A similar pattern emerges for hostage-­takings and assassinations. Secular nationalist and leftist/Marxist groups have been the primary, albeit declining, sources of these tactics. Leftists/Marxists have been slightly more responsible for hostage-­takings than nationalists. One important difference is that religious groups have seized the lead in assassinations in the 1987–2004 period and bypassed the nationalists in hostage-­taking. Classifying the tactics into three main categories reveals that while one type of group may have led for a while in utilizing one class of tactics or another, the distinctions between types of groups appear to be small. However, we realize that this finding may be an artifact of the aggregation procedure. We do not mean to suggest that all groups have been equally likely to employ suicide bombers, skyjackings, or beheadings. We believe that each wave can still have idiosyncratic tactical features, but in general all terrorist groups tend to engage in hostage-­takings, bombings, and assassinations due to the asymmetrical military context within which they operate. Which group(s) kill and wound more people? On this issue, we have strong confirmation of the notion that religious groups are more deadly, even controlling for the 9/11 deaths (see Table 1.5). In the 1968–1986 period, nationalists led the outcome category, killing 113 people per year on average. Leftists/Marxists killed less than half that number and religious groups only about one-­third.

24   K. Rasler and W.R. Thompson Table 1.5  Deaths and casualties from transnational terrorism 1968–2004

1968–1986

1987–2004

Deaths Anarchists Nationalists Leftists/Marxists Religious

0.2 106.1 37.7 88.9

0.2 113.4 44.4 36.6

0.3 98.4 30.6 144.1

Casualties Anarchists Nationalists Leftists/Marxists Religious

1.5 340.4 87.4 280.5

2.2 390.0 98.9 87.8

0.7 288.0 74.7 484.0

In the second period (1987–2004), nationalists were still killing nearly 100 people per year, leftist/Marxist bloodshed had decreased, but religious killing nearly quadrupled to 144 deaths per year on average. If we add in wounded victims, the same pattern holds. Thus, religious activity has definitely been raising the body count associated with terrorism while other groups have decreased their level of violence. We had earlier anticipated that the United States and Israel would increasingly be the targets of terrorism, especially terrorism committed by leftist/ Marxist and religious groups. Table 1.6’s results are mixed. Leftist/Marxist attacks in the 1968–1986 period led the four groups’ tendency to attack U.S. targets (see Figure 1.3). The level of anti-­U.S. activity declined in the 1987–2004 period but not enough to give up the lead. Religious group targeting of the United States tripled on average over our 37-year period, giving this group second place in the 1987–2004 era. Israeli targets of transnational terrorism were executed primarily by nationalist groups in 1968–1986, but were most likely to come from religious groups after 1987. On the other hand, European targets remain the leading focus of transnational attacks. Middle Eastern targets ran a close second in the Table 1.6  Mean targets of transnational terrorism U.S. Anarchists 1968–1986 Anarchists 1987–2004 Nationalists 1968–1986 Nationalists 1987–2004 Leftists/Marxists 1968–1986 Leftists/Marxists 1987–2004 Religious 1968–1986 Religious 1987–2004

Israel

0.37 0.0 0.28 0.0 15.2 14.8 5.2 1.7 19.8 1.2 14.7 0.28 3.3 1.3 9.9 2.6

European

Middle Eastern

1.2 0.17 36.9 26.8 10.6 6.8 7.3 10.2

0.05 0.06 26.3 5.2 2.6 6.9 6.2 8.1

Asian

African

0.11 0.06 1.3 2.5 1.8 4.3 1.6 3.8

0.0 0.0 1.9 1.4 0.89 0.11 0.79 1.1

Looking for waves of terrorism   25 50

40

30

20

10

0 1970

1975

1980

Leftists/Marxists

1985

1990

1995

2000

Religious groups

Figure1.3 Frequency of U.S. targets by Leftists/Marxists and religious groups, 1968–2004

1968–1986 period but have declined considerably since then. With the exception of anarchists, all of the three other types have increased the frequency of attacks on Asian targets. Transnational African targeting has not been all that prominent.

Conclusion After differentiating the ITERATE data on transnational terrorism by groups, we find that seven of the eight generalizations were supported. Anarchism was nearly nonexistent. Nationalistic groups had reduced their level of activity substantially. Leftists/Marxists had first increased their activity, peaked, and then declined markedly in the 1990s. Religious terrorism has been increasing throughout much of the past 37 years. We did not find that the frequency of bombings was increasing in the absolute sense.14 That generalization only applied to religious bombings. The frequency of hostage-­takings has declined somewhat. Deaths and casualties have definitely increased, due to the activity of religious groups. Finally, leftist/Marxist and religious groups increasingly focused their violence on the United States as a target, but these tendencies did not eclipse European and, earlier, Middle Eastern targets. All in all, we find these outcomes highly supportive of the wave approach to conceptualizing the history of terrorism and, in particular, the Rapoport (2004) interpretation. The ITERATE data, corrected for group identifications, show nationalist groups surrendering to leftist/Marxist groups that, in turn, have

26   K. Rasler and W.R. Thompson yielded to religious groups. These waves do not eliminate all traces of earlier wave behavior. On the contrary, traces of earlier waves are apparent – weakly as in the case of anarchism and quite strongly as in the case of nationalism. Thus, the intermingling of “old” and “new” terrorism is an old pattern – not something that is completely novel.15 Terrorist movements work much like sectors of economic growth. At any point in time there are old sectors dying off, new ones just getting started, and others proceeding more or less in their “normal” growth phase. At the same time, the decline in leftist/Marxist activity is quite abrupt in the 1990s. One possibility that deserves more examination is whether, for some if not all questions, we can talk of terrorist activity per se or whether we need to qualify our generalizations in terms of the types of groups that are carrying out the terrorist tactics. It is evident that the systematic data that we possess are characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity that may preclude our ability to aggregate all terrorist activity at any point in time, but especially in the past 40 years or so. It is most likely that the advisability of aggregation will hinge on the nature of the question being pursued. If we ask, for instance, whether deaths from terrorism are increasing or decreasing, aggregation is appropriate. Should we ask, however, why terrorist groups appear or disappear, aggregation would not help us answer this question. Another related implication is that we need to focus more closely on the life cycles of the waves and individual groups. Why do groups, once formed, become defunct or inactive? Some of the answers are obvious in the sense that a number of terrorists end up dead or imprisoned by governments, but that does not necessarily explain why their places fail to be filled by new recruits. There are rhythms that may have to do with generations, government suppression, or changing issue salience underlying the flow of terrorist activity for which we need to develop a better understanding.16 While it may be tempting to restrict our foci on contemporary behavior, we should also examine the earlier manifestations – if only to investigate the claims for waves preceding the late nineteenth century. But if terrorism comes in waves, the more waves that we can delineate and validate, the better are the chances of deciphering how terrorism waves work. We also need to find ways to assess possible systemic influences – wars, inspirations, globalization accelerations, and changing technology – on the coming and going of waves. It is not too difficult to present attractive hypotheses. It is another matter entirely to find ways of substantiating them.

Notes   1 An earlier version of this chapter was delivered at the Pisa meeting of the European Consortium for Political Research, September, 2007. We thank our discussant there, Ekkart Zimmerman, and our anonymous reviewers for their comments.   2 A representative sampling of discussions on new and old terrorism would include Hoffman (1999); Hudson (1999); Lacqueur (1999); Lesser et al. (1999); Lifton (1999); Crenshaw (2001); Jenkins (2001); Kennedy (2001); Benjamin and Simon

Looking for waves of terrorism   27 (2002); Gurr and Coleman (2002); Kegley (2002); Juergensmeyer (2003); Howard and Sawyer (2005); Mackaitis (2006); and Robb (2007).   3 There are at least four variably different arguments, three of which are keyed on the four-­ wave interpretation found in Rapoport (2004). Thompson (2006) adds two earlier waves, pushing the sequence back to the Napoleonic Wars. Sedgwick (2007) may be read as endorsing the two earlier waves loosely and inserting one between Rapoport’s First and Second Waves, although his perspective stresses opportunities for on-­the-job training of terrorists and major periods of global flux. Bergesen and Lizardo (2004) adopt a different approach altogether, emphasizing globalization, hegemonic decline, and imperial competition, but two of their waves correspond roughly to two of the waves found in the other three. Their third wave, associated with the period preceding the Thirty Years War, suggests an even earlier manifestation than the ones claimed by Thompson and Sedgwick. That makes eight possible waves and produces some interesting empirical problems, including one centered on causality. Who is right? How many waves have there been? How does one evaluate wave claims encompassing some 350 or so years? For that matter, are there really waves of distinct activity – as opposed to short-­lived concentrations of kindred activity? Assuming that there are waves, is it possible to differentiate the reasons for wave-­like activity? Finally, what difference do waves of terrorism make?   4 Another study of interest is Quillen (2002). Quillen, however, was reluctant to categorize bomber motivations and, therefore, does not speak directly to the question of varying group activity.   5 Thompson made use of the terrorism entries found in Combs and Slann (2003).   6 ITERATE focuses on systematizing the who, what, where, and outcome of transnational terrorist events. Each event is specified according to date, location, nature of incident, and number of people killed and wounded. Based largely on Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) sources as described in Mickolus et al. (2004), its main drawback is that it excludes events occurring within declared wars and military interventions, or against occupying military forces. Another drawback is manifested by the fact that ITERATE lists the New York and Washington D.C. 9/11 attacks as carried out by unknown attackers. Presumably, very early data codings are not updated when more accurate information becomes available. In this case, however, we would have had to control for the impact of the 9/11 events for the purposes of our study. Given this drawback, we do not need to do so and our tests should consequently be seen as conservative.   7 Actually, there are 1,485 coded “actors,” but not all of them are groups. “Unidentified Moluccan rebels,” for instance, could be one coded party believed to be responsible for a terrorist event. A number are coded simply as unknown actors. We treat these unknowns as unidentified groups, thereby exaggerating our ultimate failure to find all of the group identities. Approximately 36 percent of the terrorist events are not identified with any group. For a complete list of the groups and their categorization, please e-­mail William Thompson: [email protected].   8 The precise distinction between leftists and Marxists in the press and terrorism databases is treacherous. We tried to distinguish between them but are most comfortable clustering them as a single group.   9 We recognize that some of the names are incomplete and could certainly be spelled differently. Terrorist groups share one characteristic with Chinese and Korean cultures. There are few family names in China and Korea, making it very difficult to design distinctive names. Terrorist groups restrict themselves to a few code words that are altered slightly in the order of presentation. It is possible to find different groups in different regions with identical names. Since the English order of the words in a name is not always the same as the order in names expressed originally in French, Spanish, Arabic, and so forth, it is often difficult to trace group identities in virtual space. ITERATE provides some implicit assistance by listing the groups roughly according to the space in which they operate.

28   K. Rasler and W.R. Thompson 10 The number of religious groups suggests that the tendency to proliferate groups is not restricted to any specific type of group. 11 Yet keep in mind that if we had subtracted the events with no group identities at the outset, our 44 percent of groups identified accounted for 68 percent of the remainder of activity. 12 More correctly, we do not recognize too many temporal biases. Groups in the first four years in the series (1968–1971) are not well identified (the average is 30 percent). After 1971, the poorly identified years (less than 44 percent) occur in 1976, 1981, 1986, 1989, 1994, 1999, and 2004. While 1994 had 38 percent of the groups identified, 1993 was one of the better years with 60 percent of the groups identified. 13 We are actually able to identify a few more groups than the 763 but none of the categories yield enough entries to pursue at this point in time. Nor are they all that directly pertinent to our present question. Short of our joining a major power’s intelligence agency, we doubt that many more groups are likely to be identified. 14 Enders and Sandler’s (2005) study examined bombing and hostage-­taking as proportions of total activity. 15 Just how old the heterogeneity pattern is cannot really be assessed with currently available data. 16 See Cronin (2006) for an inventory of reasons for the endings of terrorist movements.

Bibliography Benjamin, Daniel and Steven Simon (2002) The Age of Sacred Terror. New York: Random House. Bergesen, Albert J. and Omar Lizardo (2004) “International terrorism and the world-­ system.” Sociological Theory, 22: 38–52. Combs, Cindy C. and Martin Slann (2003) Encyclopedia of Terrorism. New York: Facts on File. Crenshaw, Martha (2001) “Why America? The globalization of civil war.” Current History, 100 (650): 425–432. Cronin, Audrey K. (2006) “How al-­Qaida ends: the decline and demise of terrorist groups.” International Security 31(1): 7–48. Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler (2005) “After 9-11: is it all different now?” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 49(2): 259–277. Gurr, Nadine and Benjamin Coleman (2002) The New Face of Terrorism: Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction. New York: I.B. Tauris. Hoffman, Bruce (1999) Inside Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press. Howard, Russel D. and Reid L. Sawyer (2005) Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment: Readings and Interpretations. New York: McGraw-­Hill/Dushkin. Hudson, Rex A. (1999) Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why? The 1999 Government Report on Profiling Terrorists. Gulford: Lyons Press. Jenkins, Brian M. (2001) “Terrorism and beyond: a 21st century perspective.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 24: 321–327. Juergensmeyer, Mark (2003) Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kegley, Charles W. (2002) The New Global Terrorism: Characteristics, Causes, Controls. Upper Saddle Valley, NJ: Prentice Hall. Kennedy, Paul (2001) “Maintaining American power,” in Strobe Talbott and Nyan Chanda (eds) The Age of Terror. New York: Basic Books.

Looking for waves of terrorism   29 Lacqueur, Walter (1999) The New Terrorism: Fanaticism and the Aims of Mass Destruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lesser, Ian O., B. Hoffman, J. Arquila, D.F. Ronfeldt, M. Zanini, and B.M. Jenkins (1999) Countering the New Terrorism. Santa Monica, CA: Rand. Lifton, Robert J. (1999) Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shirikyo, Apocalyptic Violence and the New Global Terrorism. New York: Metropolitan Books. Mackaitis, Thomas R. (2006) The “New” Terrorism: Myths and Reality. New York: Praeger. Mickolus, E.F., T. Sandler, J.M. Murdoch and P. Flemming (2004) International Terrorism: Attributes of Terrorist Events, 1968–2004. Dunn Loring, VA: Vinyard Software. Pedahzur, Ami, William Eubank and Leonard Weinberg (2002) “The war on terrorism and the decline of terrorist group formation: a research note.” Terrorism and Political Violence, 14(3): 141–147. Quillen, Chris (2002) “A historical analysis of mass casualty bombers.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 25(5): 279–292. Rapoport, D.C. (2004) “Modern terror: the Four Waves,” in Audrey K. Cronin and James M. Ludes (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Robb, John (2007) Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. New York: Wiley. Sedgwick, Mark (2007) “Inspiration and the origins of global wars of terrorism.” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 30(2): 97–11. Thompson, William R. (2006) “Emergent violence, global wars, and terrorism,” in Tessaleno Devezas (ed.) Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

2 Waves of international terrorism An explanation of the process by which ideas flood the world1 Dipak K. Gupta

Waves of international terrorism Advancements in sciences come through painstaking observations. Scientists’ astute observations of the seemingly chaotic world pave the way for what is known as “knowledge creep,” where the boundary of our accumulated knowledge increases by recognizing patterns that were previously indistinguishable. Terrorism research is certainly no exception to this rule. One of David Rapoport’s most significant contributions to our advancement of knowledge has been his finding of the four waves of international terrorism. Rapoport defines waves with three characteristics: (1) a cycle of activities characterized by expansion and contraction phases, (2) covering multiple nations, and (3) “driven by a common predominant energy that shapes the participating groups’ characteristics and mutual relationships” (2006: 10). By studying the history of terrorism since the 1880s, Professor Rapoport identifies four distinct waves fueled by the common ideological fervor emanating from anarchism, anti-­colonialism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism, with the first three waves each lasting for around 40 years. Although the wave theory has gained a firm footing in the extant literature (Sageman 2008a) on terrorism, to my knowledge, not much effort has gone into the examination of the causes of terrorism and the process by which mega-­trends of politically motivated violence saturate nearly every corner of the earth. In contrast, however, research on diffusion ideas and their acceptance by the target population has a rich history going back to mid-­twentieth century (Rogers 1962; Brown 1981). Recently, a number of scholars and journalists have made important contributions to the understanding of the process by which ideas spread, and, in the the nascent field of terrorism studies, the literature on “radicalization” has simply exploded in volume. By culling research in disparate fields of inquiry this chapter hopes to contribute to the understanding of this process of diffusion of ideas across the globe. I argue that this spread is analogous to the spread of infectious diseases (Youde 2007; Price-­Smith 2009), where the path of infection is neither uniform nor random, but follows a specific logic. As examples, I examine the experience of al-­Qaeda and Islamic radicalism. Due to space and time constraints, I will touch upon only the salient points and paint an impres-

Waves of international terrorism   31 sionistic picture rather than a detailed analysis. However, before we delve into the question of how, let me address the question, why do people follow these mega-­trends of ideas?

The why of mega-­trends If the global spread of radical political ideology seems surprising, we should note how other ideas flow freely and inundate our societies. From fashions to toys – bell-­bottom pants to cabbage patch dolls – trends seem to appear suddenly from nowhere. Most young men and women succumb to the craze and, when the fashion ebbs, the photographs of their younger days become a source of amusement to their children a generation later. In the Western cultural ethos the idea of individualism is pervasive. In our daily affairs the assumption of self-­utility maximizing individuals as islands of rational calculation, independent of community, culture, or creed, stands as self-­ evident truth. In our unquestioned assumption of fundamental human nature, the picture of the me-­centric individual, in the words of the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1970: xi), becomes a “positive consciousness of knowledge,” which he defines as “a level that eludes the consciousness of the scientists and yet is a part of scientific discourse.” Despite this conscious and unconscious acceptance of individualism, current advancements in the fields of experimental psychology (Kahneman and Tversky 1984; Haidt 2006), evolutionary biology (de Waal 2006), and cognitive sciences (Damasio 1994; Pinker 2002; Westen 2007) clearly demonstrate the importance of group behavior in our decision-­ making processes. Even among economists, the primary proponents of the assumption of self-­utility maximization, some are becoming cognizant of the importance of group psychology and interdependent utility functions, where one person’s behavior is predicated on the actions of others in the associative group (Becker 1996; Lerner 2007; Frank 1998). This diverse body of research clearly demonstrates that as social beings we all crave to belong to groups and, when we do, we derive great satisfaction by adhering to their explicit rules and implicit norms. We are happy being altruistic toward members of our chosen groups and opposing, sometimes violently, the rival groups. In fact, in the Maslovian hierarchy of needs, the need to belong is recognized as second only to the physical needs of keeping our bodies and souls together (Maslow 1968). Furthermore, some argue that people follow cultural dictates not only because they generate personal utility, but because through “doing” (or “consuming”) they “become” somebody (Schuessler 2000). So when we choose to wear a certain article of clothing, buy a certain gadget, or drive a certain car, we not only derive pleasure that the consumed goods generate for us (the instrumental part of our demand), they also help us establish our identity (the expressive aspect of our demand) as members of our chosen groups. Similar to these consumers, the participants in a global terrorist movement, beyond satisfying their own personal needs – varying from power, prestige, monetary gains, salvation, or even the 72 virgins in heaven – become the person they want to be as

32   D.K. Gupta members of the group in which they claim their membership. As a result, when an idea gains momentum, the number of people seeking its affiliation by being part of the community increases. Therefore, Hoffman (1999) is correct in asserting that when people join dissident organizations and take part in violence which we now commonly attribute as “terrorism,” they act not so much upon their private motivations as out of a broad community concern. In other words, in their own minds all ideological terrorists are altruists. This fundamental difference distinguishes terrorists from common criminals, who are motivated only by their personal gratification (Gupta et al. 2009). Our natural proclivity to form groups and work for their collective welfare is biologically imprinted in us, which accounts for the human need to join global trends of all sorts, including waves of international terrorism. Let us now turn our attention to the process by which the ideas spread.

How do ideas spread? I present my arguments in Figure 2.1. Simply put, the analysis of the diffusion of ideas can be separated into two broad parts: inspiration and opportunity. I further divide the process of becoming inspired into four components: the messengers, the environment, the message, and the receivers. The idea of taking part in a violent movement can spread, but how does the inspired individual actually join a particular group? Since joining a movement is a matter of inspiration and opportunity, I have divided the process into its sub-­parts. Inspiration

The messengers Individuals Connectors, mavens, salesmen

The Environment The society Incentive structure The context History, culture religion, economics, politics, geography

The Message

The Receivers

Stickiness factors Simplicity, storyline, primal fear

Ideologues, mercenaries, captive participants

The benefactors

Opportunity

Figure 2.1  An integrated model of the diffusion of ideas.

Waves of international terrorism   33

The messengers Journalist Malcolm Gladwell (2002) asks an important question: How do ideas spread? How do we arrive at the tipping point, after which a new idea, a fad, a fashion, or an ideology floods the world? Gladwell studied the success of such “goods” as the popular footwear hush puppies and the children’s show Sesame Street. When we examine the process by which a wave of international terrorism spreads throughout the globe, we find that this is the same process by which commercial ideas spread, some of which end up becoming global while others remain localized; some make great impacts, but most others disappear within a very short time. Based on Gladwell’s process by which little things can make a big difference, we find the workings of three broad forces: (1) the messenger(s), (2) the message, and (3) the context. Social thinkers from the time of antiquity have argued that gross imbalances within the social structure, such as poverty, income inequality, and asymmetry in power lead to political violence. However, when these factors are put to empirical tests they, despite age-­old assertion of their salience, produce only ambiguous results or weak correlations. The reason for this puzzling dissonance rests with the fact that the factors of deprivation – absolute or relative – only serve as the necessary conditions for social unrest. For the sufficient reason, we must look into the role that “political entrepreneurs” play to translate grievances into concrete actions by framing the issues in a way which clearly identifies the boundaries of the aggrieved community and its offending group (Gupta 2008). Gladwell calls political entrepreneurs the connectors, the mavens, and the salesmen. The connectors are the primary nodes of a communication network. These are the people who know a lot of people and are known by a lot of people by dint of who they are (position, power, money, etc.) or by personal attributes. Maven is a Yiddish word meaning the “accumulator of knowledge.” The mavens are the so-­ called “theoreticians” of a movement, the pundits and gurus, who can provide a cogent explanation of the current crisis based on their knowledge and observations. The salesmen are those who through their power of persuasion can attract groups of followers. Although there are no specific boundaries separating these three groups of key individuals, any analysis of a global movement will clearly identify people with characteristics of all three. Since the number of people who initially get involved is small, Gladwell calls it “the power of the few.” However, an analysis of the spread of ideas indicates that Gladwell’s scheme is incomplete and there are several other important factors behind the start of a mass movement. A Fourth Wave movement, al-­Qaeda, serves to illustrate how ideas are spread globally. However, a look at the other, previous waves reveals that they follow the same pattern. The grievances of the Muslim community (ummah) have been acute for at least a century, since the Ottoman Empire slipped into the pages of history books. After an impressive run of 1,000 years and beginning with the expulsion of the Moors in 1492 by the Spanish monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Islamic Empires experienced defeat for the first time. The following 500 years

34   D.K. Gupta saw a steady decline, completed after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire broke apart. Its defeat did not immediately create violent rebellion along the lines of religious fundamentalism. The collective frustration and anger felt in the Muslim world found its expression mostly through nationalistic yearnings, primarily as a part of the second, Anti-­Colonial, wave of international terrorism. The so-­called “jihadi” movement took shape slowly through the writings of such mavens as Hasaan al-­Bannah and Said Qutb.2 Although they failed to make much political impact outside of Egypt during their lifetimes, their writings inspired the scion of one of the wealthiest Arab families, Usamah bin Ladin. If we examine bin Ladin’s life, we can clearly see why he would be the great “connector.” As a student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, he was greatly influenced by his teachers, Abdullah Azzam, and Muhammad Qutb, the younger brother of the fiery Islamist, Said Qutb. His vast wealth and his connections to the Saudi royal family gave bin Ladin a platform that an ordinary person would not have had. As a result, when the Afghan war started, with his influence and familiarity with the rich and the powerful, he could establish al-­Qaeda, “the base,” which served as the bridge between the mujahidin fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan and their families in the Arab countries. Furthermore, he quickly established linkages with the Pakistani Inter-­Services Intelligence (ISI), which served as the conduit for the CIA to deliver money and weapons to the Afghan fighters. Apart from his personal wealth, bin Ladin was able to tap into the vast amount of charity money (zakat), generated within the Arab world, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations. Through his immense connections and seemingly inexhaustible funds, bin Ladin was able to attract a large number of other connectors and mavens such as Ayman al-­Zawahiri, Abdullah Azzam, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad who served as the salesmen of his jihadi ideology. Together, the mavens, the connectors, and the salesmen began the foundation of the Fourth Wave of international terrorism.

The environment We must address the question of whether messengers, mavens, and salesmen are “made” or “born.” Although by 1900 neoclassical economics had become astute in analyzing market demand and supply, a knowledge of market forces did not enhance our understanding of the large forces that cause periodic booms and busts, nor did it provide insight into the evolution of economic development. To explain these larger forces, economist Joseph Schumpeter (1912) introduced the concept of entrepreneurs, those rare individuals who can take innovations and advances in technologies and create large enterprises that move an economy (or the global economy) along. However, he did not ask: Why do these entrepreneurs arrive on the global stage from certain countries at specific periods of time? Economist William Baumol (1990) answered that it is the incentive structure within an economy that creates what he calls “productive,” “unproductive” or even “destructive” entrepreneurs. But Baumol does not examine the case of radical political; he argues (1990: 893) that

Waves of international terrorism   35 while the total supply of entrepreneurs varies among societies, the productive contribution of the society’s entrepreneurial activities varies much more because of their allocation between productive activities such as innovation and largely unproductive activities such as rent seeking or organized crime. Using historical examples from Ancient Rome and China, the European Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, Baumol points out that societies which provide incentives for creative activities, which may go against the accepted norms, practices, and ideologies, produce creative entrepreneurs, while those that develop institutional restrictions on free ideas tend to produce unproductive or destructive entrepreneurs. We can extend his logic to see that in the Arab/Islamic nations where the expression of even moderate dissent or frustration can take place only within the confines of religious discourse, the expression of ideas is limited. Thus, these societies have channeled their frustration, anger, and a perception of humiliation through religious fundamentalism. Even in the democratic West, the hysteria created by the 9/11 and other attacks and a prolonged involvement in warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped radicalize their youth, particularly in France and England (Sageman 2008b, and Chapter 5, this volume).

The context There may be great messengers, but the “stickiness” of their message depends upon the sociopolitical, historical, and cultural context. Rapoport (2006) points out three historical and cultural factors for the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in his Fourth, or Religious, Wave. He argues that the Iranian Revolution of 1979 (i.e., 1400 AH, the beginning of a new Islamic century) and the Afghan War paved the way for it. The success of the Ayatollah Khomeini in bringing fundamental change to Iran by driving out the Shah, the closest U.S. ally in the Islamic world, gave a tremendous impetus to many Muslim radicals who chose the path of jihad of the sword to drive out the infidels and the apostates. Second, a millenarian vision of the arrival of a redeemer (mahdi) coincided with the Iranian Revolution, giving the fundamentalists a propitious sign to rise up in the name of Allah. Finally, the mujahidin won the Afghan war against the mighty Soviet military. In their victory the religiously inspired fighters totally disregarded the role that the covert U.S. and Pakistani operation played and took it as yet another sign of their inevitable triumph. Terrorism does not happen in a vacuum. The evolution of a violent movement is the outcome of a prolonged dynamic interaction between the target government and the dissident group. By overemphasizing the actual threat, time and again, governments fall into the trap of overreaction, which only reinforces the terrorist movement (Mueller 2006, and Chapter 8, this volume; Gupta 2008).

36   D.K. Gupta

The benefactors One of David C. Rapoport’s most insightful findings (Rapoport 1989) was that although many terrorist groups pop up in the course of history, similar to the small businesses in an open economy, over 90 percent disappear within the first few years of their birth. I have argued (Gupta 2008) that groups that are able to avert this extremely high mortality rate are blessed by a steady source of income. By looking at the list of groups that have survived the tests of time, we see that they were able to secure funding from a number of different sources. Some were successful because they received support from an organized government (e.g., Hizbollah from Iran, Lashkar-­e Taiba from the Pakistani government, etc.), some had steady support from prosperous diaspora organizations; some Islamic groups were able to draw upon the religious tradition of zakat, which enjoins Muslims to contribute a part of their income for the spread of Islam (e.g., to al-­Qaeda or Hamas). There were also groups that could tap into the endless financial gains from illicit drug trade (the FARC in Columbia, the Sendero Luminoso in Peru, the Taliban in Afghanistan, etc.). Groups that failed to receive monetary support or raise money through illicit operations experienced quick death.

The message The information age bombards us with innumerable pieces of information every single day. As we see, listen and/or read them, relatively few penetrate our consciousness. We may, for example, see a billboard while driving, a commercial while watching television, or listen to a lecture, yet we may recall nothing about each message moments later. On the other hand, we recall something we have heard, seen, or read many years ago. What causes some messages to stick? The secrets of stickiness have been researched by psychologists, communications specialists, and scholars from diverse disciplines. Heath and Heath (2007), for instance, identify six factors that cause messages to stick, arguing that a memorable message must be simple, concrete, credible, and have contents that are unexpected, they must appeal to our emotions, and should contain a compelling storyline. Simplicity is one of the foremost requirements of a “sticky” message. In the area of political communication, where a leader attempts to inspire a large number of people, sticky messages depend on the simplicity of thought. When we look at the messages of bin Ladin, we can clearly understand that in his vision Islam is under threat from the infidel West, the Jews, and their collaborators in the Muslim world. All his communications, long and short, contain this message (Lawrence 2005). These messages are not simply a litany of grievances, but are concrete in their action plan: namely, it is the religious duty of every Muslim to join the jihad against those who are putting the followers of the Prophet in peril. A message is “unexpected” when the leader “connects the dots” for the listeners and explains clearly the confusing world in which they live. To many in the

Waves of international terrorism   37 Arab/Muslim world the message must come as a revelation, where they begin to see how the unbelievers have been undermining their rightful place in history. Through extreme cunning the infidels have not only sapped the energy of the Islamic Empire, but are also plotting to destroy it militarily, politically, financially, and even spiritually. This sudden realization often recruits new believers to the cause. Coming from the son of one of the wealthiest families, living an ascetic life, waging war against injustice, bin Ladin cuts a messianic image in the minds of many in the Arab/Muslim world. This image, carefully chosen by al-­Qaeda, gives his messages an immense and immediate credibility. As human beings we remember messages that evoke emotions, particularly one that paints the portrait of an impending threat. Fear is most often the primary motivator for collective action. Evolutionary biologists bolster the findings of prospect theory offered by Kahneman and Tversky (1979). Prospect theory simply states that in the process of evaluating benefits and costs of an action, human beings often place a far greater weight on the fear of a loss than the prospect of a gain. Thus Haidt points out: If you were designing a fish, would you have it respond as strongly to opportunities as to threats? No way. The cost of missing the sign of a nearby predator, however, can be catastrophic. Game over, end of the line of those genes. (2006: 29) Therefore, fear moves us in a profound way. It should come as little surprise that the messages of bin Ladin are strewn with dire predictions of a destroyed Islamic world which is sure to pass when the believers fail to act (Olsson 2008). Finally, memorable messages come with stories. Experimental studies show that when two similar messages are presented to an audience, one with supporting statistics and the other with a suitable story, the latter inevitably sticks more than the former (Pennington and Hastie 1988). Any good public speaker knows the power of a storyline. Thus, when someone invokes the name of the former British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, we immediately understand the folly of trying to appease an implacable enemy. Like all other political communicators, bin Ladin uses stories in his speeches that are full of allusions familiar to his audience – in his case from Islamic history. Thus, when he calls Westerners “the Crusaders,” or George W. Bush “Hulagu Khan,” he translates their intentions and persona for his intended audience. Thus, throughout history, the mavens have concocted coherent stories, by borrowing from religion, history, and mythology, with complete sets of heroes and villains, good and evil, allies and enemies that have resonated with the masses. The connectors have spread the message far and wide, and the salesmen have recruited eager volunteers.

38   D.K. Gupta

Opportunity In my explanation of waves I have included the charismatic connectors, the knowledgable mavens, and the energetic salesmen. Although they explain the spread of ideas, fashions, or ideologies, there is one significant gap in the puzzle with regard to the spread of radicalism. While ideas spread and inspire many who receive the messages, only a few actually join radical groups. The literature shows that regardless of how inspired they are, few people join violent dissident groups as a result of an epiphany; most join slowly over time through friendship and kinship (Horgan 2005; Sageman 2008b). When people are deeply affected by the suffering of their own people or by listening to inspiring speeches, etc., they seek out friends or relatives through whom they get involved in political activism (O’Duffy 2008). Yet, one curious phenomenon has generally escaped the notice of most researchers: there is a significant difference in the rates of actual activism among the various national groups. Thus, while many young men and women from a Pakistani background join these movements, few from the Bangladeshi or Indian community do so. Young men and women from the Maghreb community similar to the Pakistanis find ways also to become active in the movement. This differential rate may be the outcome of opportunity. Let me explain. Pakistan was created with a deep scar in its collective mind. Apart from the trauma of horrific mass killings that preceded partition from India, it also inherited the persistent problem of Kashmir. Since the inherent logic of the partition, based on religion, might have dictated that Kashmir would join Pakistan, history did not go that way. As a result, Pakistani leaders framed the Kashmir issue as an integral part of its national identity. Facing a much stronger enemy, Pakistan turned to the jihadis and, in effect, outsourced its war of attrition (Swami 2007). Since these terrorist training camps were established and administered with the full support of the Pakistani government and its intelligence service, the ISI (Stern 2003), they operated in the open; those who wanted to join them had full knowledge of their location. Similar training camps, built around extreme versions of Islam, flourished in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with blessings and resources from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states during the Afghan war against the Soviet military, and they became the ready destination of all the “wannabe” jihadis. These camps provided unprecedented opportunities to the inspired all over the world. By providing opportunities to the inspired, Pakistan quickly became known as the most dangerous place on earth. Sageman finds that most of the violent activists are not only of Pakistani background; a disproportionate percentage comes from Mirpur district, a small area in Pakistani-­controlled Kashmir (2008b: 85). These findings attest to his earlier (2004) “bunch of guys” hypothesis, where a group of (mostly) men join to create a cell, and they stick to their own group norms (Sageman 2004, and Chapter 5, this volume). These men may come together at a mosque, initially for no reason other than finding halal food or looking for people of their own language and culture. As they get to know one another many of them find a strong

Waves of international terrorism   39 bond in a common enemy. Slowly they may form an informal group of like-­ minded individuals. Soon, in their vilification of the enemy they establish a bond among themselves. They seek out information that confirms and reinforces their beliefs from the media and from the internet. In effect, they create their own “echo chamber,” where only acceptable voices are heard and opinions reinforced. Those who disagree or have contrary opinions quickly peel off, leaving behind a hardcore group that increasingly becomes more radicalized. They read, listen, or view only materials that buttress their own worldview. These sorts of groupings are common in all social settings. However, if these radicalized members find a way to act upon their conviction, a terror cell is born. Leaders emerge as the groups form. These cells act as the nodes in a larger network by making contact with other groups or the central core of a movement. As ideas spread, inspiration meets opportunity to produce terrorist attacks. This is why the establishment of strong Taliban and al-­Qaeda-dominated regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan pose a serious security threat to the rest of the world (Hoffman 2008; McConnell 2008). Similarly, the failed states of Yemen and Somalia have become the destiny of those who are seeking to join the “jihad” against the infidels, non-­believers, and apostates.

Conclusion David Rapoport’s most important contribution to the study of terrorism has been his recognition of the waves of international terrorism. The problem of violent political dissent is as old as organized society. Yet, the identification of a distinct pattern in the seemingly chaotic data on terrorist activity over more than a century provides us with an important step toward understanding and eventually managing the risks of terrorism. The discussion of the wave theory inevitably raises two related questions. If we are in the middle of the Fourth Wave of religious extremism, when will it come to an end, and, when it does, what will be the nature of the Fifth Wave? When we examine the evidence, it appears that the past three waves have each lasted for approximately 40 years, almost the lifetime of a generation. However, that by itself should be no guide as to how long the current wave, or for that matter, any single wave may last. The wave theory is only a tool of deeper understanding of the global spread of terrorism, but it is largely devoid of predictive capability. Societal events do not behave with the regular oscillation of a trigonometric function. Furthermore, there is nothing in Rapoport’s definition of waves that precludes other ideas from percolating simultaneously. Within the First Wave, the seeds of the second were already germinating. In fact, if one looks carefully at the history of each wave, it is often difficult to separate the nationalists/anti-­colonialists of the Second Wave from the anarchists of the First Wave. Similarly, many of the anti-­colonial movements were inspired by the Marxist/Leninist ideas of the Third Wave. It is surprising that many atheist ideas of communism coexist comfortably with national and religious ideas in the current radical Islamist wave. Juergensmeyer points out:

40   D.K. Gupta In looking at the variety of cases, from the Palestinian Hamas movement to al-­Qaeda and the Christian militia, it is clear to me that in most cases there were real grievances: economic and social tensions experienced by large number of people. These grievances were not religious. These were not aimed at religious differences or issues of doctrine and belief. They were issues of social identity and meaningful participation in public life that in other context[s] were expressed through Marxist and nationalistic identities. (Juergensmeyer 2003: 141; emphasis added) The three categories of collective identity – nationalism, religious affiliation, and economic class – are but jumbled-­up constructs of what Benedict Anderson calls “imagined communities;” the building blocks of our intense desire to form groups and identify shared enemies. Therefore, the Fifth Wave, if it comes as a distinct spread of common ideas, should exhibit a collective consciousness based on ethno-­nationalism, religious identity, or economic class. In all probability it would contain elements of all three. Although nobody can predict the timing or the nature of future waves, one thing is absolutely certain; the destructive capabilities of the dissident groups are likely to significantly increase with time. As Professor Rapoport (1984) has clearly shown, terrorism and violent group uprisings have been part and parcel of human civilization from its recorded birth. However, with increasing technological innovations, what has significantly changed is our ability to inflict pain and suffering on an ever-­larger number of those we choose to hate. Our future survival will depend on how well we can manage the destructive power of groups, since group formation has been integral to human nature. We don’t know what the next wave is going to be or its exact nature, but in an increasingly interconnected world we can be assured that apart from all other problems, waves exhibiting shared identity will periodically test our resolve. Thus, we are grateful to Professor Rapoport for providing us with the analytical tools to recognize them and find ways to mitigate their destructive capabilities.

Note 1 Parts of this chapter were initially published in Perspectives on Terrorism: www. terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php?option=com_rokzine&view=article&id=66&Iternid =54. 2 The word jihad has a specific religious connotation. Not all Muslims accept the way the radicals have used the term. By accepting the term to label radical Islam, we may actually give it more legitimacy than it deserves. However, since all other alternatives to the expression, such as “Salafis,” “fundamentalists,” “extremists,” or “literalists” carry their own limitations, I will use the term “jihadi” in this chapter, being mindful of its political and religious limitations.

Waves of international terrorism   41

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42   D.K. Gupta Mueller, John (2006) Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: Free Press. O’Duffy, Brendan (2008) “Radical Atmosphere: Explaining Jihadist Radicalization in the UK.” PS, 41(1): 37–43. Olsson, Peter A. (2008) The Cult of Osama: Psychoanalyzing Bin Ladin and His Magnetism for Muslim Youths. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International. Pennington, Nancy and Reid Hastie (1988) “Explanation-­based Decision Making: Effects of Memory Structure on Judgment.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 14: 521–533. Pinker, Steven (2002) The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. New York: Viking. Price-­Smith Andrew T. (2009) Contagion and Chaos. Diseases, Ecology, and Natonal Security in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rapoport, David C. (1977) “The Politics of Atrocity,” in Yonnah Alexander and Seymore Finger (eds) Terrorism: Interdisciplinary Perspective. New York: John Jay Press, pp. 17–33. Rapoport, David C. (1984) “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions.” American Political Science Review, 78(3): 658–677. Rapoport, David C. (1988) “Messianic Sanctions for Terror.” Comparative Politics, 20(2): 195–213. Rapoport, David C. (1989) Inside Terrorist Organizations. New York: Columbia University Press. Rapoport, David C. (1992) “Terrorism,” in M.E. Hawksworth and Maurice Kogan (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Government and Politics. London: Routledge. Rapoport, David C. (2005) “Four Waves of Terrorism,” in Dipak K. Gupta (ed.) Terrorism and Homeland Security. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Rapoport, David C. (2006) “Before the Bombs There Were Mobs: American Experience with Terror.” UCLA: unpublished manuscript. Rapoport, David C. (2008) “Before the Bombs There Were The Mobs: American Experiences with Terror.” Terrorism and Political Violence, 20(2): 167–179. Rapoport, David C. and Yonah Alexander (eds) (1982a) The Morality of Terrorism: Religious Origins and Secular Justifications. New York: Pergamon Press. Rapoport, David C. and Yonah Alexander (eds) (1982b) The Rationalization of Terrorism. Frederick, MD: Althea Books. Robb, John (2007) Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Rogers, Everett M. (1962) Diffusion of Innovation. New York: The Fress Press of Glencoe. Sageman, Marc (2004) Understanding Terror Network. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sageman, Marc (2008a) “Ripples in the Waves.” Paper presented at David Rapoport’s Festschrift. UCLA. June. Sageman, Marc (2008b) Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-­first Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Schuessler, Alexander (2000) A Logic of Expressive Choice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1912) The Theory of Economic Development. Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot. English edition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934. Stern, Jessica (2003) Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. New York: Ecco.

Waves of international terrorism   43 Swami, Parveen (2007) India, Pakistan, and the Secret Jihad: The Covert War in Kashmir. London: Routledge. Westen, Drew (2007) The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding The Fate of the Nation. New York: Public Affairs. Youde, Jeremy (2007) South Africa and the Politics of Knowledge. Aldershot: Ashgate.

3 Technological and lone operator terrorism Prospects for a Fifth Wave of global terrorism Jeffrey D. Simon Introduction David Rapoport’s “The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism” is one of the most important pieces ever written in the vast literature on terrorism (Rapoport 2004). What Rapoport did in his classic study was take the complex phenomenon of terrorism and put it in a historical context that not only explained different periods of international terrorism, but also set forth theories and concepts that may be used to attempt to anticipate the future of terrorism. That is no easy task. There haven’t been many assessments and articles written about Rapoport’s “Four Waves” theory, although this volume initiates a discourse about his important thesis (see Rasler and Thompson, Chapter 1, this volume). Despite the numbers of scholars, policymakers, and others who have joined the field of terrorism studies after the 9/11 attacks, there does not appear to be a great deal of interest in the history of terrorism. In today’s instant access and information-­ overload society, we are inundated with analyses of current affairs but pay scant attention to what we may learn from what has transpired in the past. Rapoport’s vision of “waves” of terrorism and, more specifically, of four distinct waves of international terrorism since the late nineteenth century provides us with a wealth of ideas and concepts that can be analyzed and debated by historians, political scientists, and others interested in this global, endless phenomenon. One of the intriguing questions that his classic study raises is how long will the current wave, the Religious Wave, last, and what, if anything, will replace it. This chapter focuses on the prospects for a Fifth Wave of terrorism and explores the impact that wave may have upon governments and societies around the world.

Rapoport’s four waves of modern terrorism Dividing more than 125 years of terrorism into four neat categories is a daunting task. It naturally opens one up to criticism over how and why a certain period is given a specific label when other types of terrorist groups and movements were also active during that time span. However, Rapoport’s conceptualization of four waves of modern terrorism – Anarchist, Anti-­Colonial, New Left, and Religious –

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   45 offers a framework to assess how terrorism has evolved over this time. Rapoport defines a “wave” as a cycle of activity in a given time period – a cycle characterized by expansion and contraction phases. A crucial feature is its international character; similar activities occur in several countries, driven by a common predominant energy that shapes the participating groups’ characteristics and mutual relationships. (Rapoport 2004: 47) The First Wave of modern terrorism, according to Rapoport, began with the Anarchist movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This was followed by the Anti-­Colonial Wave, which began in the 1920s, the New Left Wave, which began in the 1960s, and the Religious Wave, which began in 1979. There can be overlap in the waves as one ebbs and another emerges. However, the lifespan of a wave is a generation, or about 40 years, “a suggestive time frame closest in duration to that of a human life cycle, in which dreams inspiring parents lose their attractiveness for children” (Rapoport 2004: 47). Rapoport correctly points out that a wave does not consist of just one type of movement to the exclusion of all others: Each wave’s name reflects its dominant but not its only feature. Nationalist organizations in various numbers appear in all waves, for example, and each wave shaped its national elements differently. The Anarchists gave them tactics and often training. Third-­wave nationalist groups displayed profoundly left-­wing aspirations, and nationalism serves or reacts to religious purposes in the fourth wave. All groups in the second wave had powers that had become ambivalent about retaining their colonial status. That ambivalence explains why the wave produced the first terrorist successes. In other waves, that ambivalence is absent or very weak, and no nationalist struggle has succeeded. (Rapoport 2004: 47–48) We therefore see how in Rapoport’s concept of the wave there are multiple types of groups and movements, but one type of movement is more prevalent than others. Other key factors of a wave are the interactions of five principal actors: terrorist organizations, diaspora populations, states, sympathetic foreign publics, and with the exception of the Anarchist Wave, supranational organizations (Rapoport 2004: 50; see also Sageman, Chapter 5). While waves have multiple properties and characteristics, Rapoport argues that they share one important feature. They all need some type of grand event or incident to help galvanize and launch the global movement. For example, Rapoport points out that the wounding by Vera Zasulich of a Russian police commander who had mistreated political prisoners in 1878 inspired the Russian Anarchist movement, particularly her proclamation that she was a “terrorist, not

46   J.D. Simon a killer” after she threw her weapon to the floor (Rapoport 2004: 50). She was acquitted at her trial and treated as a heroine after she was freed. German newspapers reported that the pro-­Zasulich demonstrations meant that a revolution was imminent in Russia (Rapoport 2004: 70, fn. 23). The Versailles Peace Treaty that ended World War I precipitated the Anti-­Colonial Wave as the “victors applied the principle of national self-­determination to break up the empires of the defeated states” (Rapoport 2004: 53). The Third Wave, the New Left Wave, found its inspiration in the Vietnam War and the effective role of the Viet Cong in its battles with American and South Vietnamese troops. The war led to the formation of radical groups in the Third World and in the West, where the war stimulated enormous ambivalence among the youth about the value of the existing system. Many Western groups – such as the American Weather Underground, the West German Red Army Faction (RAF), the Italian Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army, and the French Action Directe – saw themselves as vanguards for the Third World masses. The Soviet world encouraged the outbreaks and offered moral support, training, and weapons. (Rapoport 2004: 56) The Fourth Wave, the Religious Wave, was launched after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which, along with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that same year, led to religious extremism in many parts of the world. The Iranian revolution, as Rapoport points out, “was clear evidence to believers that religion now had more political appeal than did the prevailing third-­wave ethos because Iranian Marxists could only muster meager support against the Shah” (Rapoport 2004: 62). The Ayatollah Khomeini regime in Iran “inspired and assisted Shiite terror movements outside of Iran, particularly in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Lebanon” (Rapoport 2004: 62). All waves share the same objective of challenging political legitimacy by calling for a new order of revolution, but as Rapoport points out, the meaning of revolution is understood differently in each wave. The Anti-­Colonial Wave viewed revolution as national self-­determination, while the Anarchist and New Left Waves defined revolution as “a radical reconstruction of authority to eliminate all forms of [in]equality” (Rapoport 2004: 50). Groups in the Religious Wave turn to sacred texts or revelations for their interpretation of revolution (Rapoport 2004: 50). Another important feature in Rapoport’s conceptual framework of waves of terrorism is that the groups active in each wave used a particular tactic, sometimes inventing it themselves, in their terror campaigns. Assassination by dynamite was the innovation of the First, or Anarchist, Wave, with the perpetrators often dying themselves due to their proximity to the target during the bombing. The Second, or Anti-­Colonial Wave witnessed groups using more hit-­and-run and guerrilla tactics against troops, while the Third, or New Left Wave groups utilized hostage-­taking in the form of airline hijackings and kidnappings. Extremist groups in the Fourth, or Religious Wave have effectively

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   47 used the tactic of suicide bombings on land, sea, and air (Rapoport 2004: 51, 54–55, 56–57, 62). With the Religious Wave now into its fourth decade, the question naturally arises as to when, or if, it will fade away as did the previous three waves. As noted above, Rapoport argues that the life cycle of a wave is a generation, or about 40 years, meaning that the Religious Wave should be over by the 2020s. He does, however, qualify any prediction for the demise of the Fourth Wave due to the unique characteristics of religious extremism: No matter what happens to al-­Qaeda, this wave will continue, but for how long is uncertain. The life cycle of its predecessors may mislead us. Each was inspired by a secular cause, and a striking characteristic of religious communities is how durable some are [see Barkun, Chapter 6]. Thus, the fourth wave may last longer than its predecessors, but the course of the Iranian revolution suggests something else. If history repeats itself, the fourth wave will be over in two decades. That history also demonstrates, however, that the world of politics always produces large issues to stimulate terrorists who regularly invent new ways to deal with them. What makes the pattern so interesting and frightening is that the issues emerge unexpectedly – or, at least, no one has been able to anticipate their tragic course. (Rapoport 2004: 66)

The Fifth Wave: technological terrorism Anticipating the next wave opens up the debate concerning the prospects for a Fifth Wave. Monumental events or new, controversial issues or policies can occur at any time, providing the stimulus for another wave of terrorism even before the Fourth Wave dissipates. It may also be the case that a major event isn’t needed to launch a new wave. Terrorism scholar Jeffrey Kaplan, for example, argues that a Fifth Wave is already underway, characterized by groups disillusioned with international politics and instead turning inward, becoming “particularistic, localistic, and centered on the perfection of a race or tribal group” (Kaplan 2007: 545). Jonathan Fox writes that before the Fourth Wave is over, “a fifth wave with a new ideology will likely emerge, perhaps one based on the new anarchist groups which currently protest globalization” (Fox 2006: 27). What, though, if the Fifth Wave will not have any predominant ideology, group, or movement? What if the Fifth Wave has no resemblance at all to its four predecessors? It may be that we are so focused on the idea of a wave containing groups, ideologies, doctrines, etc., that we are missing the emergence of a new and entirely different wave of terrorism; a wave that is destined to grow in both scope and impact in the coming years. Of course, this is not to say that the Fifth Wave will be lacking in terrorist groups with political, religious, ethnic-­ nationalist, and other objectives. What I argue is that no single type of terrorist ideology will dominate the Fifth Wave in the same way that Anarchism, Anti-­Colonialism, New Left

48   J.D. Simon ideology, and Religious fundamentalism dominated the preceding four waves. Rather, it will be the influential role of technology that will be the defining characteristic of the Fifth Wave. This is a departure from Rapoport’s wave theory, which was centered on ideas and ideologies. This departure, however, seems justified if we acknowledge the increasing global reach of technology, particularly the influence of the internet. Just as dynamite was a precondition for modern terrorism in that it helped launch the Anarchist Wave, so, too, is the internet a precondition for launching the “Technological Wave.” The internet is the “energy” for the Fifth Wave, continually revolutionizing the way information is gathered, processed, and distributed; the way communications are conducted and social networks are formed; and the way single individuals, such as lone operators, can become significant players by using the internet to learn about weapons, targets, and techniques. Understanding the link between technology and terrorism is a key to understanding the dynamics of the Fifth Wave. It would be hard to dispute the fact that we are today in the midst of a technological, information, and communication revolution that is affecting all aspects of life, including the dynamics of global terrorism. Terrorism has long been linked to the irreversible march of technology. Rapoport points out how changes in communication and transportation patterns, particularly the use of the telegraph, daily mass newspapers and railroads in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, helped spread the Russian anarchist movement to other parts of the world. Events in one country would be known within a day or so in all other regions. Russian anarchists also used the new technology of the railroad to travel to other countries to gather support and sympathy for the movement. Mass transportation also facilitated emigration, which created diaspora communities that the anarchists were able to tap into for their own objectives. “Subsequent [technological] innovations,” Rapoport writes, “continued to shrink time and space” (Rapoport 2004: 48–49). The link between terrorism and technology is based on a simple principle: namely, that technological advancements in all fields do not discriminate among  their users. Innovations in weapons, communications, information systems, etc. are there for all to take advantage of, including terrorists. Technology has provided terrorists with a continuing improvement in their weaponry, beginning with the daggers of ancient times and then guns, dynamite, and more  recently, plastic explosives, shoulder-­fired anti-­aircraft weapons, and sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Jeffrey W. Lewis even argues that the tactic of suicide bombing is a form of technology itself, with technology defined as: a dynamic interactive process incorporating both living and non-­living elements. The human beings in suicide bombing operations, whether on foot, in a truck, in a boat, or in an aircraft, are the liveware that control and guide the ordnance in exactly the same manner that electronics and software guide America’s precision munitions. (Lewis 2007: 225)

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   49 Terrorism may also be thought of as an endless technological race with counterterrorist authorities trying to stay one step ahead of the terrorists. As soon as new devices are designed and installed to detect weapons or protect against an attack, terrorists can change their tactics or use more sophisticated and lethal weapons to defeat them. While technology has long played a significant role in terrorism, it may become even more important in a Fifth Wave as technological innovations soar to the forefront of terrorist activity and counterterrorist response. This could occur at the same time that competing ideologies, causes, movements, and groups create a level playing field, with no single type of terrorism qualifying to be the heart and soul of the Fifth Wave. Therefore, the Fifth Wave is not likely to have any ideological label attached to it as did the previous four waves; rather, it can properly be known as the Technological Wave. One aspect of Rapoport’s wave theory that remains unclear is, how do we know when one wave is over or in decline and another one is emerging? As noted above, Rapoport argues that when a wave’s “energy” can no longer influence the formation of new groups and when there are changes in the perceptions of generations, political concessions, and resistance, that wave disappears. Yet, while we can count the number of groups that are created during a wave, it is harder to measure the perceptions of generations, political concessions, resistance, and so forth. And the fact that no new groups are formed during a wave does not necessarily mean that that particular wave is in decline. A few powerful and influential groups can carry a wave a long time. It therefore seems that the determination of whether a wave is over or in decline and a new one is emerging is a subjective one. That, in turn, explains why we may expect to see debates continuing for some time concerning the fate of the Religious Wave. It would appear, however, that a wave is over or in decline when there is no longer the same degree of attention and reaction given to it by governments, societies, and the media that it had experienced in the past. Terrorist activity associated with the wave may continue, but if something else in the world of terrorism is creating fear and reaction in many parts of the world, then we may have the emergence of a new wave. The principle of always having to do something more spectacular or different than what transpired before has applied throughout the history of terrorism. Terrorists escalate their violence or perpetrate a new and different type of attack when they perceive that the public and governments have become desensitized to the “normal” flow of terrorism. By perpetrating a violent act that causes more casualties than previous incidents or by trying something new, terrorists are guaranteed widespread publicity for their cause and reaction from various parties. That is why the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks in the United States should not have been surprising. There had already been numerous suicide attacks on the ground, such as the car and truck bombings that occurred in Lebanon in the 1980s, and a suicide attack at sea against the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. It was therefore only a matter of time before terrorists escalated their violence to include suicide attacks from the air (Simon 2001: vi). The Religious Wave will undoubtedly continue to garner attention and reaction for several more years. Even if there is a decline in the number of incidents,

50   J.D. Simon threats, etc. associated with religious extremism, or a decline in the formation of new, religious extremist groups associated with the current wave, it only takes one major attack to put a group or movement back on the front burner of public and government attention. Speculation nevertheless abounds as to how the Religious Wave may finally end. Among the many views offered for how Islamic extremism can be effectively countered, that of Kanan Makiya and Hassan Mneimneh is noteworthy (2001). They describe how al-­Qaeda distorted the teachings of Islam in a document that it required all the participants of the suicide attacks of 9/11 to read so that they would not waver in the days before the attacks.1 According to Makiya and Mneimneh, The uses and distortions of Muslim sources in the hijackers’ document deserve careful consideration. If arbitrary constructions of seventh-­century texts and events have inflamed the imagination of such men, we should ask whether the ideas in the document will become part of the tradition that they misrepresent. To take the shell of a traditional religious conception and strip it of all its content, and then refill it with radically new content which finds its legitimation in the word of God or the example of his prophets, is a deeply subversive form of political and ideological militancy . . . Well before the September 11 attacks, many Muslim intellectuals realized that bold and imaginative thinking must come from within the Muslim tradition in order to present social and political ideas that Muslims will find workable and persuasive. The tragic events [of 9/11] . . . have shown all the more clearly how urgently such ideas are needed. (Makiya and Mneimneh 2001: 318) The role of moderates in Islamic communities worldwide in countering the message of al-­Qaeda and other Islamic extremists will be key in bringing about an end to the Religious Wave. So too will be improvements in the economic and social conditions of alienated Muslim youth who are drawn to the extremists’ rhetoric (see Sageman, Chapter 5). In addition, the years ahead are likely to see a lessoning of the U.S. government’s rhetoric on terrorism, already evident in the Obama administration’s decision shortly after taking office in 2009 to jettison the term “war on terror” (Wilson and Kamen 2009), which had basically been about Islamic terrorism. Furthermore, the urgency of other issues, such as the economy and the impending withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, may serve to shift the focus of the United States away from the threat of religious terrorism. It may also be the case that part of the “energy” of a wave lies in the afterglow of a major attack by a group associated with that particular wave. The afterglow can foster a continual perception of the threat as more pervasive than it really is. The 9/11 attacks solidified the Religious Wave, gave it more energy, and have sustained it for the first decade of the twenty-­first century. But at what point is the energy more about perception than reality? When government proclamations about terrorism deal primarily with the religious dimension, and when

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   51 media reports inundate the public with the dangers of Islamic extremism, and when every arrest or death of an Islamic extremist becomes headline news, then it is not surprising that the religious dimension overshadows all other terrorist threats. While religious terrorism is undoubtedly still a major part of international and foreign domestic terrorism,2 there are many other types of terrorist movements and terrorist threats today that are significant and tend to be overlooked by our focus on religious terrorism. For example, narcoterrorism continues to thrive in Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan, and other countries, often transcending political or religious motivations. Ethnic nationalist and separatist terrorism may be found throughout the world, including in Kashmir, where Indian and Pakistani militants fight over the fate of the disputed territory; in Sri Lanka, where remnants of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – who were fighting for a separate state and were defeated by the Sri Lankan Army in 2009 – may still be expected to continue to wage a campaign of terrorism in the years ahead; and in Spain, where the weakened Basque separatist group ETA has nevertheless been able to continue a long and violent campaign against the Spanish government. It is not just narcoterrorism and ethnic nationalist and separatist terrorism that is being eclipsed by the focus on religious terrorism. “Single-­issue terrorism” (e.g., ecoterrorists who commit acts in the name of the environment) also provides an important source of political violence today. There is also the prospect for terrorism in the future to be related to global warming. As a group of retired U.S. generals and admirals stated in a recent report, [W]hile the developed world will be far better equipped to deal with the effects of climate change, some of the poorest regions may be affected most. This gap can potentially provide an avenue for extremist ideologies and create the conditions for terrorism. (CNA Corporation 2007: 13) Furthermore, it is not clear if we can correctly categorize all the violence in Iraq as part of the Religious Wave. Not all extremists there are fighting for religion. There is also a nationalist dimension to the attacks in that they are aimed against a foreign occupation. It should also be noted that the war in Iraq has totally confused the issue of defining terrorism and determining who is a terrorist. At first, those committing bombings and other violent acts in Iraq against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces, civilians, and others were described by the U.S. government and most media outlets as “terrorists.”3 Now, however, the perpetrators of the attacks are described as insurgents or militants, with the term “insurgents” usually applied to the Sunni extremists, while “militants” usually refers to the Shiite extremists. Regardless of the future course of the Religious Wave, the Technological Wave is already making its mark. If we expand Rapoport’s vision of a wave to include the entire spectrum of terrorism and counterterrorism activities, then it  becomes clear that we are on the brink of, and probably already in, the

52   J.D. Simon Technological Wave. We can see it evolving in all aspects of terrorism, from the rapid growth in the use of technology by governments and militaries for surveillance, detection of weapons, counterterrorist operations, and other purposes, to its use by a wide variety of terrorists. No one type of terrorist movement has a monopoly on the use of technology. For example, virtually every terrorist group has a website and is utilizing the internet for recruitment, spreading its message, for communications, and for a variety of other purposes. In terms of weapons, insurgents in Iraq have used sophisticated IEDs in their attacks. The insurgents have proved to be technologically adaptable as they have switched from first using remote-­controlled IEDs to using long wires buried in the ground, also known as “command wires,” to detonate the bombs after U.S. troops were able to successfully jam the remote-­controlled devices. Another indication of the technological savvy of the Iraqi insurgents is their use of explosively formed penetrators (EFPs). The EFPs: fire a slug of high density metal at between 4,000 and 6,500 miles per hour with much more energy than roadside bombs made from artillery shells. The penetrator’s high velocity punches a relatively small hole in a vehicle’s armor, then sprays occupants inside with a stream of shrapnel. (Schogol 2007) The IED and EFP technology is likely to be exported around the world as many insurgents leave Iraq and take their terrorist campaigns to other countries. The Fifth Wave will not only witness extremists from Iraq using sophisticated IEDs and EFPs in different countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Somalia, to name just a few, but will also include other terrorists who have their own agendas and who learn how to make the latest IEDs and EFPs from the veterans of the Iraqi insurgency. They may also acquire the knowledge even without the cooperation of the militants from Iraq, since it is difficult in the world of terrorism for one group or cell to keep weapons technology a secret from other extremists. Furthermore, there won’t be the billion-­dollar effort in other countries, which the U.S. is currently devoting in Iraq, to neutralize and defeat the IED and EFP threat. That will make it easier for extremists to use these and other technologically sophisticated weapons in their attacks. State sponsors of terrorism will be another source for the proliferation of technological expertise in weaponry and tactics to terrorists during the Fifth Wave. Foreign governments, naturally, have the technological capabilities to provide sophisticated weapons to the terrorists of their choice. Iran is already supplying weapons, including EFPs, to militants in Iraq. State sponsorship of terrorism was a high-­profile issue during the 1970s and 1980s when the Soviet Union aided various terrorist movements in its Cold War with the United States. Iran, Libya, and Syria also provided various support to terrorists, including Libya’s use of its own intelligence agents in the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 that killed 270 people in the air and on the ground. State sponsorship of terrorism receded as a high-­priority issue in the United

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   53 States and other nations with the rise of al-­Qaeda, which has basically been an independent Islamic extremist movement. While the Taliban provided Usamah bin Ladin’s group with sanctuary and training facilities in Afghanistan prior to the October 2001 U.S. invasions of that country, al-­Qaeda still had the capabilities to launch terrorist attacks without any state support. In the coming years, though, independent terrorist movements such as the Abu Sayyaf Group, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, and many others are likely to be joined by a variety of terrorist groups and cells that receive support from foreign governments. In addition to the usual suspects such as Iran and Syria, we cannot discount the prospects for a radicalized, anti-­Western regime eventually taking hold in Iraq in the post-­U.S. occupation era. A return to Cold War policies by Russia, including providing various degrees of support for terrorists, is another possibility. Furthermore, the uncertainty in the future make­up of many regimes in volatile regions, including Pakistan, all add to the increased prospects for a resurgence of state-­sponsored terrorism during the Fifth Wave.

Lone operators and technological terrorism While state-­sponsored terrorists represent one end of the spectrum of potential key players during the Technological Wave of terrorism, at the other end is a type of terrorist that is often overlooked. This is the lone operator, sometimes referred to as the “lone wolf ” terrorist (Simon 2000a). One of the characteristics that separates terrorism from all other types of conflict is the ability of a single individual to commit a violent act, or threaten to do so, and at times receive the same degree of attention, reaction, and fear that larger, more established terrorist groups usually attain. The lone operator, however, is often ignored in assessing the terrorist threat, since many definitions of terrorism require that an act of violence be committed by two or more people with a political, social, or religious objective. Yet, in terms of the effect that a violent act committed by a single individual can have upon society and government, there is sometimes little difference between the threats and activities of the lone operator and those of organized terrorist groups. For example, Theodore Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber, generated fear among the public over a 17-year period beginning in 1978 by sending package bombs to targets and threatening other violent acts, including attacks on airlines. Three people were killed and 23 others injured in his long campaign of violence, which led to changes in the way packages are sent through the U.S. postal service and to heightened security measures at airports. Another example of an effective lone operator attack was the 1982 Tylenol poisoning in the United States, a case that has yet to be solved but which authorities believe was the work of a mentally ill individual who laced Tylenol capsules with cyanide, causing the deaths of seven people. That single act of product tampering (and the wave of copycat extortion threats that followed) created concern throughout the country about the safety of pharmaceutical products and

54   J.D. Simon led to new legislation and government regulations requiring tamper-­resistant packaging on many different products. The 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the United States were also believed to be the work of a lone operator. The FBI claimed in 2008 that Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist who had worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and who had later committed suicide, was responsible for those attacks. The anthrax letter attacks once again demonstrated the impact that a single individual can have upon government and society. There was heightened concern throughout the country that a new form of bioterrorism had been introduced, namely sending anthrax spores through the postal system. The innovative nature of lone operators is not surprising. They have been among the most creative and innovative in terms of terrorist tactics, introducing new forms of violence, which the larger and more established terrorist groups eventually emulate. For example, the first mid-­air plane bombing and the first wave of hijackings in the United States were the actions of lone operators. The impact of those incidents upon the country at that time (the first mid-­air plane bombing occurred in 1956 and the first wave of hijackings occurred in 1961) was the same as if they had been committed by organized terrorist groups. There were public and congressional demands that steps be taken to improve airport security and that policies be implemented to try to bring an end to this new form of violence. A recent spate of lone operator attacks in the United States illustrates how this type of terrorism may evolve in the Fifth Wave. Involved in the attacks in 2009 and 2010 were the following: a white supremacist who killed three policemen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and another white supremacist who attacked the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., killing a security guard; an anti-­abortion militant who assassinated a late-­term abortion doctor in Wichita, Kansas; an American Muslim convert opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who killed one soldier and wounded another outside a Little Rock, Arkansas, recruiting station; an army psychiatrist about to be deployed to Afghanistan who killed 13 and wounded more than 30 other people at an army base in Fort Hood, Texas; and an anti-­government extremist who killed himself and one other person by crashing his small plane into an Internal Revenue Service office building in Austin, Texas.4 That no single ideology defined the perpetrators of all of these attacks indicates that Fifth Wave terrorism by lone operators is likely to cut across different ideologies and motivations. In addition, in the case of the white supremacists, technology in the form of the internet provided a continual forum for communication, propaganda, and fueling the flames of hatred on various web pages, illustrating technology’s link to the Fifth Wave.5 Furthermore, a 2009 report from the Department of Homeland Security stated that “lone wolves and small terrorist cells embracing violent rightwing extremist ideology are the most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States” (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2009: 7). Lone operator terrorism is not just an American phenomenon. In Italy, engineer Elvo Zornitta was charged in October 2006 with being the Italian

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   55 Unabomber. Although Zornitta did not succeed in killing anyone, there were several injuries in the bombings, which included placing small explosives in pens, candy containers, egg boxes, bubble-­blowing tubes, and other products used by children. No motive was ever given for the attacks, and the case against Zornitta was eventually dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence. Another significant lone operator in Europe was Franz Fuchs, who waged an individual letter-­ bombing and pipe-­bombing campaign in Austria and Germany from 1993 to 1997. Fuchs, an unemployed engineer, targeted immigrants and those who were helping immigrants, including religious and public officials. His 29 bombings resulted in four deaths and dozens of injuries. In Britain, David Copeland, a Neo-­Nazi, became known as the “London Nailbomber” for setting off three bombs packed with nails over a 13-day period in April 1999. Three people were killed in the bombings and 139 others were injured. Copeland had learned from the internet how to make the nail bombs. He placed the bombs in gay and minority neighborhoods in London, telling police after his arrest that he wanted to start a racial war (COT, Instituut voor Veiligheids – en Crisismanagment 2007). In May 2008 another British lone operator, who was utilizing nail bombs, was injured in a failed suicide attack in a restaurant in Exeter. Nicky Reilly was preparing three nail bombs in the restaurant’s bathroom when one accidently exploded in his hands. Authorities believed that Reilly, who had converted to Islam, had been “encouraged” to commit terrorist acts by literature and individuals via the internet (BBC News: 2009). The lone operator will have at his or her disposal a seemingly endless supply of information necessary to produce sophisticated weapons or launch innovative attacks during the Technological Wave. The internet will contain even more reports, websites, and other information than it does today for the lone operator to utilize in researching, planning, and implementing an attack. Virtually every publication on any topic, including technical journals on weapons for the savvy and smart lone operator, will be available online as the internet continues to grow. Logistics will also become easier for lone operators in terms of pinpointing targets. Maps of airports, diagrams and blueprints of buildings, and other information about potential targets will become even more available from the internet and other sources. There will also be information available that could aid in planning an attack with chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons.6 An individual working alone will be able to gain access through the internet to various information, particularly on chemical and biological warfare agents – some of which may be used to assist them in acquiring or producing such weapons. This information includes the chemical composition of various chemical warfare agents, how to obtain the precursors for such agents, how to produce biological warfare agents at home, and what laboratories and other facilities may have chemical and biological agents stored for research and other purposes. There are several additional reasons why the lone operator will be a candidate for using CBRN weapons during the Fifth Wave. First, one of the constraints that inhibits many terrorist groups from venturing into this type of terrorism – concern

56   J.D. Simon about alienating the group’s own supporters or constituency – is not present in the case of lone operators. Since they do not rely upon any segment of the population for financial, logistical, or political support, lone operators do not have to worry about any potential negative reactions to an incident. For example, Muharem Kurbegovic, who became known as the “Alphabet Bomber” in Los Angeles during the summer of 1974, threatened to use nerve gas in attacks on Los Angeles and Washington D.C. He claimed to be the leader of a fictitious group that he  named “Aliens of America.” In one of the numerous messages he left with the media, he said that “[w]e do not ask American people to support us; in fact, we don’t give a damn whether they like what we have to offer or not” (Simon 2000b: 71–94). Another reason why lone operators, like Bruce Ivins, are candidates for using CBRN weapons is that they are not burdened by any group decision-­making processes or inter-­group dynamics that can sometimes stifle outlandish creativity in formulating plans and operations. Lone operators are, therefore, free to think up any type of scenario they want and try to act upon it because they are accountable only to themselves. Related to this is the fact that since they are not part of a group, lone operators will not be concerned, as would be some groups, about a potential government and law enforcement crackdown following an incident that could lead to the virtual elimination of the group through arrests. And if a lone operator is suffering from a mental illness, then he or she will not even think rationally about the risks and consequences of using such weapons. Lone operators are also a threat concerning the use of CBRN weapons because they are unlikely to be discovered by law enforcement or intelligence agencies prior to an attack. Since they work alone, there will be no communications between members of a group to intercept, nor will there be any members of a group to arrest from whom further information can be gained. The years it took the FBI to identify and arrest the Unabomber and to identify the perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks illustrate the difficulty in capturing lone operators in a timely fashion. In addition, since most of the detection systems for weapons of mass destruction that are currently being developed can only issue a warning after a chemical or biological agent has been released, not before, the lone operator would be free to walk into any facility with an aerosol can of anthrax without being stopped. And if an individual chooses to release a chemical or biological agent in an outdoor area, then he or she would not even have to worry about security measures. Chemical and biological agents, therefore, provide the lone operator with a weapon that he or she could feel confident would not be discovered prior to an attack, and which could be easily transported to the target area without needing any help from others. In that regard, a weapon of mass destruction is actually easier for a lone operator to deal with in terms of logistics than would be an attack involving a large bomb or any other large conventional weapon. Thus, as we look at the likely candidates for using CBRN weapons, particularly chemical and biological weapons, lone operators – given their creativity, their lack of moral or political constraints, and their ability to avoid detection

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   57 and arrest – would be among the most dangerous type of future terrorist perpetrator. The potential use of these weapons by lone operators raises the question as to whether CBRN attacks will be the tactical innovation of the Technological Wave. As noted above, Rapoport points out that each wave was associated with a particular tactic that was used extensively by the groups active in that wave (dynamite assassinations during the Anarchist Wave, hit-­and-run guerrilla operations during the Anti-­Colonial Wave, hijackings and kidnappings in the New Left Wave, and suicide attacks in the Religious Wave). What, then, may we expect in terms of tactical innovations in the next wave of terrorism?

Tactical innovations in the Fifth Wave The most likely new tactic that will be introduced during the Technological Wave is a major, successful attack with a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon. There has yet to be a major, successful CBRN attack. The 2001 anthrax letter attacks that killed five people cannot be considered a major attack due to the limited number of casualties. Similarly, the Japanese religious cult Aum Shinryko failed in its attempt to cause a large number of deaths when it released Sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system in 1995. Had the Aum Shinryko cult manufactured a more potent batch of the nerve agent and had they used a better delivery method for the release of the Sarin, the death-­toll would have been much higher than the 12 people who died.7 Instead, the cult members simply left several punctured containers of Sarin on the floor of five subway trains. The failure of Aum Shinryko to launch a more lethal CBRN attack is pointed to by several observers, including Rapoport, as evidence of why CBRN attacks are beyond the capabilities of terrorist groups: Its [Aum Shinryko’s] assets were valued at $1 billion and it had 50,000 members world-­wide. Because Aum was a religious group, Japanese law placed serious obstacles on police inquiries even though Aum members had murdered several individuals, including members of the group. Finally, with no previous experience of groups exploring chemical or biological agents, the police ignored complaints about awful odors coming from the main commune. Despite all these advantages, which no terrorist group ever had or perhaps ever could have, Aum’s record as a terrorist group was poor. . . . The subway incident captured our attention. But Aum made nine attempts before and then two attempts after the major subway incident. Twelve attacks but none succeeded, and ultimately Aum itself was crushed. All this suggests that successful chemical and biological efforts are much more difficult than conventional wisdom suggests, at least now, and that the ‘poor man’s atomic bomb’ remains costly and unreliable. Perhaps Aum’s failures will discourage others; if not, prospective users are unlikely to match Aum’s effort, let alone exceed it. (Rapoport 2001: 22)

58   J.D. Simon Yet the large size and seemingly unlimited resources of Aum may have actually worked against the cult in its efforts to launch a successful chemical or biological terrorist attack. Large, well-­financed terrorist groups are not necessarily the most efficient in terrorist operations. Bureaucratic politics, factions, and divisions in the group, lack of focus and coordination, inter alia – all could add to the problems that a large group faces in planning and implementing a terrorist operation. The 50,000 members of Aum and the group’s large cash flow were not necessarily advantages in conducting terrorist operations. The problem could be a matter of having too much money to spend and not having a clear understanding of the problems that may arise in perpetrating a major chemical or biological terrorist attack. Aum was relentless in its research to find effective weapons to use in its attacks. It had looked into conventional weapons such as explosives and AK-­74 assault rifles and had experimented with electrodes, drugs, and mind control. Members of the group, including the scientists working on developing chemical and biological agents, were also constantly striving to please their leader and guru, Shoko Asahara (Kaplan and Marshall 1996: 94–96, 289). The group was basically involved in a “fishing expedition” to find the most effective weapon. The ineptitude of the group in its delivery system for the Sarin – just leaving it on the floor of the subway train – indicates that the group had not researched or correctly understood the dispersal issues regarding chemical and biological agents, but simply decided upon Sarin to use in its attack. It is the dispersal issue, in fact, that is one of the major obstacles which terrorists face in using chemical, biological, or radiological weapons. Issues of wind direction, sunlight, and temperature all come into play, particularly with the dispersal of micro-­organisms. Yet, the Technological Wave is likely to see more groups and individual terrorists experimenting with dispersal techniques as more technical information becomes available on the internet and from other sources.8 In addition to the dispersal problem, other barriers to terrorist use of biological weapons include acquiring a suitable agent and producing an appropriate quantity of the agent. However, as a threat assessment conducted by analysts at Sandia National Laboratories points out, “The ever increasing technological sophistication of society continually lowers the barriers, resulting in a low but increasing probability of a high consequence bioterrorism event” (Frerichs et al. 2004: 3). We should also not underestimate the effect that a failed attack or even a hoax can have upon governments and societies. The relative failure of the Tokyo subway attack by Aum Shinryko in terms of casualties nevertheless spread fear and anxiety around the world and led to a multi-­billion-dollar effort in the United States and elsewhere to combat chemical and biological terrorism. A hoax should also not be dismissed as irrelevant to the threat of terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. Even when a threat turns out to be a hoax, it still means that an individual was thinking seriously enough about chemical or biological weapons to figure out scenarios on how to use the weapons. The more that individuals are thinking about different ways to initiate a chemical or biological agent attack, the more likely it is that some of them will actually carry

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   59 out their threats. A creative and innovative hoax could also give other terrorists, who learn about the hoax from media accounts, new ideas about how to use chemical or biological warfare agents. One terrorist’s hoax can become another’s actual attack (Simon 2000a: 79). One of the uncertainties regarding CBRN terrorist attacks in the Fifth Wave is that we do not know if the first major successful terrorist attack with a weapon of mass destruction will involve a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attack, or even a combination of the four basic types of CBRN weapons. In addition, within each category of CBRN, we do not know the specific tactics or weapons that terrorists and extremists are likely to use. For example, with respect to bioterrorism, tactics and weapons may range from aerial dispersal of anthrax spores and release of ricin in the ventilation system of buildings or arenas to the deliberate spread of smallpox by an infected suicide terrorist. With respect to chemical terrorism, we may experience anything from a repeat of the Aum Shinryko use of Sarin in a subway system to the sabotage of a vehicle carrying chlorine gas. Radiological and nuclear terrorism may include the use of a radiological dispersal device, also known as a “dirty bomb” (a conventional explosive combined with radiological material), or the use of a suitcase nuclear bomb (Simon 2008a: 3–4). CBRN terrorism today is basically a blank slate waiting to be filled in by extremists as they gain access to technology and more confidence in their ability to effectively use weapons of mass destruction. Another potential tactical innovation in the Technological Wave would be successful cyberterrorist attacks. As with CBRN terrorism, this is a threat that many have talked about for years, but which has not yet materialized. Terrorists can use the internet and other communication and information systems that are linked by computers to cause disruption and chaos in government, businesses, and everyday life. Among the scenarios are terrorists sabotaging air traffic control systems and thereby causing airplane crashes; sabotaging electric power systems, thereby causing power blackouts; or sending computer viruses around the world that cause disruption or even collapse of international financial and banking systems. As terrorism scholar Gabriel Weimann points out, Although the fear of cyberterrorism may be manipulated and exaggerated, we can neither deny nor ignore it. Paradoxically, success in the [formerly termed] ‘war on terror’ is likely to make terrorists turn increasingly to unconventional weapons, such as cyberterrorism. And as a new, more computer-­savvy, generation of terrorists comes of age, the danger seems set to increase. (Weimann 2004) The prospects for cyberterrorism among future terrorists are imagined in the following assessment by computer science expert Dorothy Denning: [T]he next generation of terrorists will grow up in a digital world, with ever more powerful and easy-­to-use hacking tools at their disposal. They might

60   J.D. Simon see greater potential for cyber terrorism than do the terrorists of today, and their level of knowledge and skill relating to hacking will be greater. Cyber terrorism could also become more attractive as the real and virtual worlds become more closely coupled, with automobiles, appliances, and other devices attached to the Internet. Unless these systems are carefully secured, conducting an operation that physically harms someone may be as easy as penetrating a Web site is today. (Denning 2001) It would seem unrealistic, therefore, to expect computer security defenses to remain impenetrable to a major cyberterrorist attack in the Technological Wave. Whether it is a lone operator with the skills and hostile intent, or a terrorist group that decides it would serve their purpose to launch a “new” type of attack that would gain worldwide publicity, the threat of cyberterrorism is likely to increase over the coming years. Terrorist tactical innovations in the Fifth Wave will also be driven by technological advancements in counterterrorist operations. This is likely to force terrorists to adapt by becoming more technologically savvy themselves. And even when terrorists use simple, creative ways to try to defeat the latest counterterrorist technology, they will still have to understand the technology that is involved with the security and surveillance devices and other gadgets. One example of the challenges facing terrorists in the Technological Wave will be how to counter and defeat biometric technologies. Biometrics is one of the fastest growing fields in both counterterrorism and business security. Billions of dollars are being spent globally to design and implement biometric devices and software. Biometrics is essentially the measurable physical or behavioral characteristics that can be used to identify people. These include physiological characteristics such as fingerprint scanning, face recognition, iris scanning, retina scanning, hand geometry recognition, and palm print recognition. Among the behavioral characteristics targeted in biometrics are voice recognition, signature dynamics, keystroke dynamics, gait analysis, and facial expression recognition. Not all of the potential biometrics are being used today. We may expect, however, more to come into play in the coming years and new ones to be created. Each biometric device will challenge terrorists to design strategies to defeat it. The use of multiple biometrics will challenge terrorists to be even more creative. There are several ways in which terrorists may attempt to defeat the biometric technologies. These include creating fake biometrics, such as the well-­publicized case where a researcher created a fake finger using the gelatin found in Gummy Bears and a plastic mold and was able to fool fingerprint detectors four times out of five. This became known as the “gummy” finger. Terrorists may also use fingers and other body parts from people, either living or dead, in an effort to defeat the biometric technologies. Terrorists may also attempt to provide poor-­ quality biometric data, sabotage biometric devices and databases, or infiltrate and compromise people working the biometric devices and databases.

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   61 Terrorists will also be challenged to design strategies to overcome the continually evolving counterterrorist surveillance equipment used by military and others combating terrorism. These include state-­of-the-­art eavesdropping technologies that aid in information and intelligence gathering. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), robots, and “smart” weapons, as well as other technological inventions will all be used increasingly in the battle against terrorism. So, too, will the fusion of multiple sensors aimed at identifying and tracking terrorists. This will force terrorists to learn about these technologies in order to avoid detection and capture. Another development that will influence tactical innovations by terrorists in the Fifth Wave will be the continued growth of the informal networks of terrorists that have sprung up throughout the world. Terrorism scholar Marc Sageman has aptly coined the phrase “leaderless jihad” to describe the Islamic extremists who do not rely on direction or orders from al-­Qaeda or any organized terrorist group (see Sageman, Chapter 5). According to Sageman, this new generation of Islamic extremists is quite different from its predecessors: It consists mostly of would-­be terrorists, who, angered by the invasion of Iraq, aspire to join the movement and the men they hail as heroes. But it is nearly impossible for them to link up with al Qaeda Central, which was forced underground after 9/11. Instead, they form fluid, informal networks that are self-­financed and self-­trained. They have no physical headquarters or sanctuary, but the tolerant, virtual environment of the Internet offers them a semblance of unity and purpose. Theirs is a scattered, decentralized social structure – a leaderless jihad. (Sageman 2008: 37–38) This “leaderless jihad” is the latest evolution of the “leaderless resistance” concept that was popularized in the 1990s by white supremacist Louis Beam and was used to explain right-­wing extremism in the United States (Kaplan 1997). What we have today throughout the world, however, and which is destined to grow in the coming years, is, basically, “leaderless terrorists.” These include the lone operators discussed above, as well as environmental extremists and anti-­ abortion militants, among others. They will exist along with today’s hierarchal and decentralized terrorist groups, but will add to our challenges in combating terrorism. While centralized and even decentralized groups provide governments and others dedicated to fighting terrorism with a concrete object to focus their policies on, the “leaderless terrorists” are more problematic. They are difficult to identify, track, and arrest. It is also difficult to proclaim a “war on terrorism” against leaderless terrorists. Sageman’s observation that “face-­to-face radicalization has been replaced by online radicalization” (Sageman 2008: 41) rings true not only for many Islamic extremists, but also for other extremists with different ideologies and causes. The Technological Wave, and its likely further breakthroughs in communications and information technology, will make “leaderless terrorists” a permanent fixture in the world of terrorism.

62   J.D. Simon

Conclusion The Fifth Wave of terrorism is upon us and will impact governments and societies for many years to come. Each of the four waves in Rapoport’s framework had a major terrorist attack or a series of major attacks that helped define the wave.9 The Anarchist Wave, for example, saw several high-­profile assassinations in Russia, including that of Tsar Alexander II, and several major attacks in the U.S., including the 1920 Wall Street bombing by the Galleanists (Simon 2008b). The Anti-­Colonial Wave saw, among other major incidents, the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which had served as the headquarters for the British mandate in Palestine, by Menachem Begin’s group, Irgun. The New Left Wave contained numerous major attacks, including the simultaneous hijacking of four planes in 1970 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the blowing up of Pan Am Flight 103 by Libyan agents in 1988. And of course, among the major incidents of the Religious Wave have been the 9/11 attacks. The Technological Wave, we have argued, is likely to be associated with a range of innovative attacks, including CBRN terrorism and cyberterrorism, as advances in technology become available to terrorists and other extremists. The likelihood of a major CBRN attack is the most disturbing possibility, since the death-­toll could be in the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. That makes efforts to prepare for such contingencies a critical priority. The irony of bioterrorism, in particular, is that more lives can actually be saved in the aftermath of a bioterrorist attack than in the aftermath of a conventional terrorist attack. Whereas most of the fatalities in a conventional terrorist bombing occur immediately or shortly after the explosion, in a bioterrorist attack the incubation period for the virus, bacterium, or toxin could be several days. Accurate diagnosis and speedy treatment could save many lives. The emergency response by the medical and health communities will therefore be one of the most important factors in mitigating the consequences of a bioterrorist incident (Simon 1997). Rapoport’s four-­wave model has provided us with a conceptual lens for understanding the history of terrorism, evaluating current trends, and speculating about the future. That the future of terrorism is already upon us can be seen by the rapid march of technology, impacting upon virtually all aspects of our lives, including those of terrorists and those whose job it is to combat the threat. Technology and terrorism will remain intertwined in the Fifth Wave, a wave that should have enough energy to last a very long time.

Notes 1 Three handwritten copies of the document were found by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The first was found in a car used by one of the hijacking teams that was left outside Washington’s Dulles International Airport; the second in a piece of luggage belonging to hijacker Mohammad Atta (the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center) and that, by accident, did not get placed on the plane from Boston’s Logan Airport; and the third in the wreckage of the plane that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania (Makiya and Mneimneh 2001:303).

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   63 2 There have been numerous major terrorist attacks since 9/11 that are part of the Religious Wave, including the bombings in Madrid, London, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, India, Morocco, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, to name a few. However, secular terrorist attacks are also prevalent around the world. 3 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used the term “dead-­enders” to describe the initial violent attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq (Rumsfeld 2003). President Bush, however, preferred to use the term “terrorists.” In October 2003, Bush said that “[t]he best way to describe the people who are conducting these attacks are cold-­blooded killers, terrorists (sic). That’s all they are. They’re terrorists” (Bush 2003). 4 There was also an attempt by a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to blow up a plane over Detroit, Michigan on December 25, 2009. Abdulmutallab is believed to be affiliated with a Yemen-­based branch of al-­Qaeda and, therefore, would not be considered a “lone operator” as we are using the term here. However, this case does indicate how single individuals with help from organized groups can carry out major terrorist plots that might not be discovered by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. 5 I would like to thank Jean Rosenfeld for bringing this point to my attention. Technology’s link to the Fifth Wave was also evident in the case of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the man responsible for the Fort Hood shootings, who had been communicating through e-­mails with an Islamic extremist cleric prior to the attack. It may also be seen in the case of Joseph Stack, the perpetrator of the Austin, Texas plane crash, who posted an anti-­government suicide note on the internet before he launched his attack on the IRS office building. After the incident, many people expressed support for Stack’s beliefs and actions by posting messages on Facebook and Twitter (see Martinez 2010). The internet was also crucial in the activities of Collen LaRose, who used the pseudonym “Jihad Jane” on her Facebook page and tried to recruit extremists online through e-­mails. She was also involved in a plot to assassinate Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist, who had portrayed the Prophet Mohammad in a derogatory manner in one of his cartoons. She also traveled to Europe in an effort to form her own terrorist cell (see Calabresi 2010; Sapsted 2010). 6 For a different viewpoint from that of the author on the threat of CBRN terrorism, cf. Rapoport (in Sokolski and Ludes 2001: 14–33) and Rapoport (2004). 7 There were, however, a large number of people injured in the attack, many of whom still suffer from physical and emotional problems. 8 In a report I wrote on bioterrorism in the late 1980s, I identified what I believed to be the major characteristics of any group or individual that would use biological weapons. These were groups or individuals that had a general, undefined constituency whose possible reaction to a biological weapon attack does not concern the terrorist group; a previous pattern of large-­scale, high-­casualty-inflicting incidents; demonstration of a certain degree of sophistication in weaponry or tactics; and a willingness to take risks (Simon 1989:17). We can add to these criteria a perception that conventional terrorist attacks are no longer effective and that a more lethal form of violence or a new technique is needed. Among those that could be described as meeting at least some of these criteria would be doomsday religious cults, global revolutionary groups, Neo-­Nazi and white supremacist groups, state-­sponsored terrorist groups, and lone operators (Simon 2008a: 3–4). 9 It should be noted that in terms of waves of terrorist attacks, the American experience with terrorism has been rather unique. While many countries during each of Rapoport’s four waves experienced a series of major attacks within a short time period, sometimes days or a few weeks, the United States has been relatively free of major, sequential attacks on U.S. soil. This means that there has always been time for the initial shock of the first major attack to gradually wear off. This allows the public to regain some of its confidence in the ability of the government to deal with the terrorist threat and for emergency workers and other first-­responders to recover from the stress of dealing with the incident. A sense of normalcy in the country is therefore gradually restored before

64   J.D. Simon the next attack occurs. Thus the public and emergency service personnel are not prepared psychologically for any type of major terrorism campaign on U.S. soil. And should that first campaign be one involving weapons of mass destruction, then in addition to all the practical problems that will arise during the crisis, there will be the added problem of an American public witnessing for the first time ever its government unable to prevent a continual series of major attacks and the emergency services dealing for the first time with a continual series of major incidents. The loss of public confidence in the government while a major terrorism campaign with weapons of mass destruction unfolds will make it that much more difficult for federal, state, and local authorities to deal with the crisis (Simon 2008b).

Bibliography BBC News (2009) “Nail-­bomber Given Life Sentence,” January 30. Online. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7859887.stm (accessed July 9, 2009). Bush, G.W. (2003) President Bush, Ambassador Bremer Discuss Progress in Iraq, October 27. Online. Available at: http://merln.ndu.edu/merln/pfiraq/archive/wh/ 20031027–1.pdf (accessed June 9, 2008). Calabresi, M. (2010) “Why the Jihad Jane Case is a Win for the Patriot Act,” Time, March 11. Online. Available at: www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1971245,00.html (accessed March 16, 2010). CNA Corporation (2007) National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, The CNA Corporation. Online. Available at: http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/SecurityandClimate_Final.pdf (accessed May 12, 2008). COT, Instituut voor Veiligheids – en Crisismanagement (2007) Lone-­wolf Terrorism, Final draft 6/7/2007, Case Study for Work Package 3. Online. Available at: www.transnationalterrorism.eu/tekst/publications/Lone-­Wolf%20Terrorism.pdf (accessed March 5, 2008). Denning, D.E. (2001) “Is Cyber Terror Next?” Social Science Research Council, November 1. Online. Available at: www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/denning.htm (accessed May 16, 2008). Fox, J. (2006) “The Future of Religion and Domestic Conflict,” paper presented to the Society for International Development, Netherlands Chapter, June 26. Online. Available at: www.sid-­nl.org/archive/lectures/2005_2006/SID_2005_2006_09_Fox.doc (accessed March 3, 2008). Frerichs, R.L. , Salerno, R.M., Vogel, K.M., Barnett, N.B., Gaudioso, J., Hickok, L.T., Estes, D., and Jung, D.F. (2004) Historical Precedence and Technical Requirements of Biological Weapons Use: A Threat Assessment, Sandia National Laboratories, SAND2004–1854, May. Kaplan, D.E. and Marshall, A. (1996) The Cult at the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum. London: Arrow Books. Kaplan, J. (1997) “Leaderless Resistance,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 9(3): 80–95. —— (2007) “The Fifth Wave: The New Tribalism?,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 19(4): 545–570. Lewis, J.W. (2007) “Precision Terror: Suicide Bombing as Control Technology,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 19(2): 223–245. Makiya, K. and Mneimneh, H. (2001) “Manual for a ‘Raid,’ ” in R.B. Silvers and B. Epstein (eds) Striking Terror: America’s New War. New York: New York Review of Books, pp. 301–327.

Prospects for a Fifth Wave   65 Martinez, E. (2010) “Joe Stack is a ‘True American Hero’: Facebook Groups Support Domestic Terrorist.” Online. Available at: www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/19/crimesider/entry6223132.shtml (accessed February 22, 2010). Rapoport, D.C. (2001) “Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse,” in H. Sokolski and J. Ludes (eds) Twenty-­first Century Weapons Proliferation. London: Frank Cass, pp. 14–33. —— (2004) “The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism,” in A.K. Cronin and J.M. Ludes (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 46–73. Rumsfeld, D.H. (2003) Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, San Antonio, TX, August 25, Veterans of Foreign Wars. Online. Available at: www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=513 (accessed June 3, 2008). Sageman, M. (2008) “The Next Generation of Terror,” Foreign Policy, March/April: 36–42. Sapsted, D. (2010) “ ‘Jihad Jane’ Was Tracked by Amateur Internet Sleuths,” The National Newspaper, March 16. Online. Available at: www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs. dll/article?AID=/20100317/FOREIGN/703169948/1002/NEWS (accessed March 16, 2010). Schogol, J. (2007) “DOD report says EFP attacks are up in Iraq,” Stars and Stripes, September 19. Online. Available at: www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=56 408&archive=true (accessed May 6, 2008). Simon, J.D. (1989) Terrorists and the Potential Use of Biological Weapons: A Discussion of Possibilities, R-­3771-AFMIC. Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, December, p. 17. —— (1997) “Biological Terrorism: Preparing to Meet the Threat,” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 278(5): 428–430. —— (2000a) “Lone Operators and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in B. Roberts (ed.) Hype or Reality: The “New Terrorism” and Mass Casualty Attacks. Alexandria, VA: The Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, pp. 69–81. —— (2000b) “The Alphabet Bomber,” in J.B. Tucker (ed.) Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons. BCSIA Studies in International Security, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 71–94. —— (2001) The Terrorist Trap: America’s Experience With Terrorism, 2nd edn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. —— (2008a) “The WMD Terrorist Threat: Some Givens, Some Changes, and Some Uncertainties,” in L.A. Dunn, Project Leader, Next Generation Weapons of Mass Destruction and Weapons of Mass Effect Terrorism, SAIC, DTRA01-03-D-0017/Task Order 18, January 31 Appendix III, pp. 1–6. —— (2008b) “The Forgotten Terrorists: Lessons from the History of Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 20(2): 195–214. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Intelligence and Analysis (2009) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment, April 7. Online. Available at: www.fas.org./irp/eprint/ rightwing.pdf (accessed April 22, 2009). Weimann, G. (2004) “Cyberterrorism: How Real is the Threat?,” United States Institute of Peace, Special Report No. 119, May. Online. Available at: www.usip.org/resources/ cyberterrorism-­how-real-­threat (accessed May 14, 2008). Wilson, S. and Kamen, A. (2009) “ ‘Global War On Terror’ is Given New Name,” The Washington Post, March 25. Online. Available at: www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-­dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818_pf.html (accessed June 23, 2009).

4 David Rapoport and the study of religiously motivated terrorism Jeffrey Kaplan

Introduction This chapter critically examines the publications of Professor David C. Rapoport. Beginning with the early “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant” (1979), the chapter follows the development of Professor Rapoport’s study of religiously motivated terrorism, noting the deep strains of religiosity and biblical knowledge that permeate much of his writing. The chapter culminates with the impact of the Four Waves thesis on the field of terrorism studies. I will offer a brief analysis of the development of David Rapoport’s work, focusing heavily on the unique application of biblicism to modern Political Science.1 This immersion in sacred text in a period where the secular state university system in America strove mightily to separate religion from the Humanities and Social Sciences had the natural effect of making some of Rapoport’s early work little known beyond the circle of students who were fortunate enough to take part in his UCLA seminar “Politics in the Bible.”2 This emphasis on the importance of religion in contemporary political life positioned Rapoport to comprehend the emergence of religion as a motive force in terrorism decades before the 1979 Iranian Revolution confronted the field with irrefutable evidence that religion was neither dead, nor was it – as many terrorism scholars continue to this day to insist – a mere excuse for politics in clerical guise (so as to manipulate the uneducated and unwary).

A biblical interlude At a time when the Iranian Revolution was not even a gleam in Imam Khomeini’s eye (see Khomeini and Algar 1981), students in Professor Rapoport’s “Religion and Politics” seminar were reading one of his seminal articles, “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant.” The article does not directly address the issue of terrorism, which is why most scholars of terrorism missed it (Rapoport 1979: 126–143). This is unfortunate in that the text is the logical precursor to  any study of Western terrorism. As Rapoport notes: “Scholars rarely read the  literature written by terrorists” (Rapoport 1988b: 32). To this one might add  that even fewer scholars read the Bible. Yet the Bible, its stories and

Religiously motivated terrorism   67 themes,  suffuse Western culture; it is inextricably interwoven in the Western Zeitgeist – the ether which we all breathe and share. Its narratives and symbols  are part of the glue that gives Western culture its coherence. In his study  of Moses through a Weberian lens Rapoport suggests ideas that would become the seed-­bed of the study of religious terrorism. On a profound level, parts of the Hebrew Bible itself could be thought of as the first and still most effective manual detailing the roots and motivations of religiously inspired terrorism. Rapoport, at the University of California Los Angeles, provides a reading of the Bible that is both reverent and ultimately secular. His interpretations, as true to the spirit of the faith as they are to the spirit of the present age, laid the groundwork for his later work on ancient terrorism. The article, well in the mainstream of contemporary scholarship, is nonetheless faithful to the Hebraic heritage which the text embodies. Professor Rapoport is the product of modern academia, the intellectual heir of the maskilim (Enlighteners), rather than those who memorize the text. The maskilim’s antecedents were the Midrashic rabbis whose exegesis is today the lifeblood of the Yeshiva (Heilman and Cohen 1989; Heilman and Friedman 1991: 197–264; Stadler 2009). This proves yet again the well-­known adage of Eric Hoffer in his timeless work, The True Believer: “For though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious” (1951: xiii). Little wonder, as Rapoport would demonstrate in his 1984 comparative article “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions,” that in the Jewish Sicarii we find the first recorded instance of modern terrorism (Rapoport 1984: 658–677). The Sicarii, probably an offshoot of the biblical Zealots, spearheaded the messianic uprising against Roman rule in the first century CE that ended in the mass suicide at Masada, the destruction of the Second Temple, and the exile of the Jewish people from the Holy Land; they were the first recorded instance of terrorism in its modern form. It is the wisdom, depth, and poetic beauty of the Hebrew Bible, read through the lens of faithful but ultimately modern figures, that is the foundation for the religious terrorism of today. From the disaster of the ancient Sicarii assassins to the more successful terrorist cum statesman Menachem Begin to the violent radicals of yesterday’s Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful) and today’s so called Hilltop Youth in modern Israel, it is, arguably, the Hebrew Bible that has inspired the emergence of modern religious terrorism. What motif of modern terrorism and religiously motivated violence is not first found in the Hebrew Bible? To name a few of the most prominent themes as read through the lens of modern terrorism studies, the human race begins with an act of rebellion against an overweening and all-­powerful authority: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. (New American Bible, Genesis 3:6)

68   J. Kaplan Relative deprivation theory (Gurr 1970) is here too: And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto Jehovah. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. . . . And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. (Genesis 4:3–5, 4, 8) The Hebrew Bible also provides an infallible blueprint for ethnic cleansing or outright genocide: I will send my terror before thee, and will discomfit all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beasts of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy border from the Red Sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness unto the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand: and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me; for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. (Genesis 23:27–33) This biblical interlude has been restricted to Genesis, since it is in this chapter that Professor Rapoport’s “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant” is rooted. Both ancient and modern terrorist movements rely to an even greater degree on Exodus and Numbers for their global visions, and on Leviticus for legal and moral imperatives.3 The themes Rapoport develops from Genesis are more subtle. In public forums Rapoport cites his early series of programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1971, which were later published under the title Assassination and Terrorism, as the formal genesis of his study of terrorism (Rapoport and Canadian Broadcasting System 1971). A close reading of “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant,” however, makes it clear that the seeds of this study far pre-­date this radio series and are rooted in the Hebrew Bible. What is perhaps most surprising about “Moses, Charisma and Covenant” is what is not in the article or, more accurately, what is noted in a passing, albeit positive mention. For an article that relies so heavily on Weberian conceptions of religious charisma, Weber’s towering Ancient Judaism is not a primary part

Religiously motivated terrorism   69 of Professor Rapoport’s discussion (Rapoport 1979: 139). Instead, Rapoport applies Weber’s ideas on religious charisma to the biblical text itself, seeing it in a quite different light than his contemporaries – a hallmark of his scholarship to this day. This willingness to eschew the popular trends of academic discourse is what has distinguished Rapoport’s work throughout his career.4 Invariably, the field catches up with Rapoport. Eventually. . . . Professor Rapoport begins “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant” with a bold challenge to the field of political science: “[the Bible] will be treated as a coherent entity in the hope of reclaiming it as a political commentary for a discipline which seems to have forgotten it” (Rapoport 1979: 124). Here he begins the work that would come to fruition in his comparative work on ancient religious terrorism by reclaiming religious tropes and motifs in order to apply them to contemporary scholarship, specifically in the political science field, although the application of the idea has far wider import. He notes with some exasperation the discomfort of modern intellectuals with the concept of God, which, until quite recently, has resulted in keeping the Bible out of contemporary discourse. One could see this discomfort in the writings of the first generation of maskilim (Altmann 1998; Feiner 2004; Schatz 2007: 137–146) no less than in the plaintive labeling by the FBI in the siege of Waco of modern-­day, would-­be messiah David Koresh, whom they viewed as a spouter of “Bible babble” (Tabor and Gallagher 1995). As the text of “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant” develops its themes, the seeds of the modern conception of terrorism appear seemingly at random throughout the text. Typical is the “Terrorism 101” truism (first put into practice by the Sicarii nearly a millennia after the Torah is thought to have been written) that the key to successful terrorism is to induce the government to overreact: “They [The Jewish Elders] must be shown that Pharaoh will always act outrageously” (Rapoport 1979: 128). Indeed, one of Rapoport’s most distinctive contributions to the study of modern terrorism is his unique ability to demonstrate the continuity between ancient models and modern events. In the Bible no less than in the present day, concessions by the government give increased hope to rebels, who in turn increase their demands. This situation makes compromise impossible, worsens the rebellion, and causes violence to escalate until the rebels are exterminated or, as in the Moses narrative, the will of the ruler or state collapses and ‘reparations’ are offered to induce the rebels to cease hostilities. Ironically, this was Moses’ original demand: Pharaoh finally, offers to concede the principle of YHWH worship, but wants to restrict its exercise in order to prevent political developments which he cannot control. In this context, however, any concession would be interpreted as appeasement, making Israel feel that victory is within reach. Moses will not compromise. He even makes additional demands that Egyptians provide animals for Hebrew sacrifices. A beleaguered Pharaoh openly admits that he has “sinned,” but inconsistently will not yield – producing

70   J. Kaplan more hope and anger in Israel and greater confusion and demoralization in Egypt. In the final and most dreadful plague (the killing of the first born) Pharaoh not only yields all, he also orders Israel out. The Egyptians are so anxious to get rid of the Hebrews that many allow them to “borrow” valuables, capitulating, in effect, to “reparation demands.” (Ibid.: 129) Perhaps the most telling point of this rich article and a starting point for Rapoport’s terrorism studies is his contention that the Moses narrative demonstrates that the loyalty of the adherent to the group must transcend all other ties, even those primordial loyalties of blood and kinship. The faithful, the True Believer, the terrorist – all of these must be prepared to die, and more important, to kill even his or her own family in the interests of the higher cause: “When Moses orders Israelites to kill worshippers of the Golden Calf, each is instructed to kill his ‘brother, neighbor and kin’ to drive home the point that maintaining the fundamental community bond is a paramount personal responsibility” (ibid.: 137). The Sicarii would do just this. So, it turns out, would the Branch Davidians, the followers of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple, the esoteric believers of the Solar Temple, and the seeming multitudes of suicide bombers today (Bloom 2005; Lewis 2006; Haldeman and Wessinger 2007; Moore and McGhee 2007; Berko 2009).

Cultural history, generational politics, and challenging the dominant paradigm As “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant” indicates, there is a continuity to be found in the primary themes that mark Rapoport’s unique contributions to the field of terrorism research. In the corpus of this work, starting with Assassination and Terrorism in 1971 and running through “Before the Bombs There Were the Mobs: American Experiences with Terror” in 2008, these linking threads of ideas were clear. Interestingly, these themes were nascent in his prolonged, first published meditation on the topic of terrorism, the CBC broadcasts that produced the former text. A thin book at 84 pages inclusive of footnotes, Assassination and Terrorism is now out of print and very hard to obtain.5 The original text included an essay “Generations in America,” which was originally published in an anthology, and he added as well Nechayev’s “Revolutionary Catechism,” a piece then hard to find but today ubiquitous on the internet. The text of Assassination and Terrorism expounds on the topic of assassination, following the concept through the ages with the assurance of a cultural historian.6 In the process, the skeletal structure of his seminal articles on comparative terrorism emerge, as does his first use of the concept of ‘waves’ in the context of terrorism. The text concentrates on anarchist terrorism and the left-­wing terrorism of the 1960s, both of which used assassination as a primary tactic (it was the signature tactic of the anarchist terrorists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and, next to plane

Religiously motivated terrorism   71 hijacking, the tactic of choice for the left-­wing movements active at the time when the lectures were being written). As interesting as the ideas of Assassination and Terrorism are, it is too easy to overlook the added essay, “Generations in America” (Rapoport and CBC 1971: 66–78).7 On the surface the piece is a dated engagement in the then-­ popular discourse which sought to find a political or psychological explanation for the youth rebellion of the 1960s. The rebellion of youth against their parents’ generation is a frequent theme in the Bible – the Hebrew Bible’s motif of the prophet versus the king is its highest flowering. In the New Testament, youth rebellion is seen as a sign of the imminent End of Days: But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-­control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. (2 Timothy 3:1–5) The article opens with a Hebrew Bible quote from Ezekiel and, in reference to the parents of these young would-­be revolutionaries, includes one of Revelation’s most powerful motifs – one that would become ubiquitous in the pro-­life Rescue Movement and throughout the radical Right in the decades of the 1980s and 1990s: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth” (Revelation 3:15–16). But of greatest import is that the article itself uses generational theory – the cornerstone of Rapoport’s wave theory. The ideas presented in this article are so close to the work of Arthur Schlesinger on the generational theory of American politics (1986: 25–50) that if he was not directly influenced by Schlesinger’s ideas, the two were certainly working along parallel lines.8

Religion as a motive force and the primacy of text David Rapoport has always maintained that religion is a motive force for the catalysis of a terrorist campaign and that, moreover, religious zeal can sustain a terrorist movement over extended periods of time, allowing it to survive considerable adversity. Religion is thus a rational motivation for terrorism. It is neither delusional, nor is it a factor which is cynically employed by an elite leadership cadre as a tool to manipulate a following of uneducated True Believers. Rapoport’s work demonstrates conclusively a point still not fully grasped in the field5– that religion is more than simply an excuse for politics (cf. Laqueur 2001; Schmid and Jongman 2005; Hoffman 2006). Religion is a powerful motive force in itself, and one for which men and women are willing to fight and ultimately to die. Moreover, the terrorist in this conception is more than the “violent

72   J. Kaplan intellectual” as Bruce Hoffman insists. Rather, the terrorist has a broad popular base whose appeal to sacred text is sincere and potentially appeals to vast swathes of the population (Hoffman 2006: 38; cf. Kaplan 2010: 23–24). It was this insistence, coupled with a lifetime steeped in the serious reading of the Bible and the cultural historian’s joy in following ideas through history, that brought Rapoport’s seminal articles of the 1980s to fruition. In “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions” (Rapoport 1984: 658–677), “Terror and the Messiah: An Ancient Experience and Some Modern Parallels” (Rapoport 1982: 13–42), and “Messianic Sanctions of Terror” (Rapoport 1988a: 195–213), religious terrorism was neither a theoretical abstract nor simply an aberrational revolt against the modern world. In these writings, to borrow a term from the French historian of religion Danièle Hervieu-­Léger, religiously motivated terrorism in the Western traditions is as old as the monotheistic Western religious traditions themselves – truly, terrorism as a chain of memory has been with us always (Hervieu-­Léger 2000). David Rapoport’s work demonstrates conclusively that religious terrorism has not only been a constant in global history but, of greater contemporary import, it is a rational phenomenon we have not only seen before, but which we can study and understand. It is, in the terminology of historian of religions Jonathan Z. Smith, part the known and knowable (Smith 1982: 12–20). Of this trilogy, “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions” stands out. It is the first truly comparative study of three historic religious terrorist groups – indeed, it was one of the first studies of religious terrorism at all. This is remarkable given the fact that the 1979 Iranian Revolution had inspired formerly quiescent or isolated Islamist voices to call for struggle against the Western powers (which then included the Soviet Union) and to have some realistic prospects for success and eventual victory. “Fear and Trembling” remains remarkably pertinent to the present day, and has proven over time to be one of the most memorable readings for successive generations of my own students. The key to its timelessness is the finding that “modern” terrorism is not modern at all. Save for the gaps in technology and communications, nothing that these ancient groups did tactically or strategically would be strange to any contemporary group, from al-­Qaeda to the miniscule forces of the American radical Right. Rapoport’s methodology follows ideas and concepts back to their earliest recorded roots, and then traces them forward through their various permutations to reach the present day. This technique, coupled with his insistence on the primacy of sacred text as a source of hope, of practical strategic and tactical insights, and of the assurance of ultimate triumph regardless of how unpromising the current balance of forces, proved fruitful even if it would take the field some time to catch up. It never fails to come as a shock to contemporary students that terrorism did not begin with the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Rather, its first recorded appearance was with a heretofore unknown group called the Sicarii – a band of Jewish Zealots who lived at a time approximately contemporaneous with Jesus. To long-­time readers of Rapoport’s work, on the other hand, nothing could be

Religiously motivated terrorism   73 more logical. Fired by Torah and the promise of immediate messianic redemption, along with a political program that might at a pinch appeal to the less pious of the community,9 the Sicarii emerge as the first recorded practitioners of terrorism in its fully modern form. Their story, indeed, comes down to us primarily from the works of Josephus, a Jew writing as the Romans’ interpreter of this strange and, as Moses discovered to his cost, uniquely “stiff-­necked people,” the Jews (Josephus and Whiston 1987).10 In “Fear and Trembling,” coverage of the Ismaeli Shi’ite kingdom that produced the Assassins – though lacking the wonderfully fanciful (and perhaps even historical) details of the orgiastic delights provided to the aspiring assassin to give him a taste of the pleasures of heaven as promised in the Qu’ran as the reward for the martyred faithful – Rapoport makes the point that terrorism can be multigenerational, and successful over a long period of time (See Lewis 2003).11 The Assassins could operate as “sleepers” in modern parlance, working their way into the confidence of the target until activated, at which time they would strike, making no attempt to escape. The Ismailis are a natural and effective choice for the comparative lens of this article, given their marked similarities to the Sicarii. Not so obvious is the choice of the Thugs, a centuries-­old Hindu sect who would strangle their victims in honor of the goddess Kali. Unlike the Sicarii or the Ismailis, they had no obvious grievances and made no demands, political or religious. Rather, their acts appear to have been undertaken to maintain cosmic order with an almost Girardian logic (Girard 1977; Aho 1994; Van Woerkens and Tihanyi 2002). It might have been more useful to select a Christian group, keeping the analysis in the Western context in order to demonstrate that Christianity has spawned its own historical terrorist groups. A rich selection might be made among the dualistic heresies of the Middle Ages, although perhaps the best example of terrorism in the fully modern sense would the case of the Taborites, the Bohemian movement that grew out of the reformist Hussite movement in the first years of the fifteenth century. The Taborites later split between the Taborist true believers and the Adamites, a “Free Spirit” heresy that had appeared in Europe periodically for centuries (Kaminsky 1967; Lerner 1972). Rapoport’s article “Messianic Sanctions for Terror” (1988a) brought messianism and its Christian variant, millenarianism, into the field of terrorism studies. Much had been written on both topics, with the work of Norman Cohn on the medieval world of Christian millenarian violence being perhaps the most influential and Gershom Scholem’s work on Jewish messianism having the greatest impact (Colin Cohn 1970; Scholem 1973). Rapoport brought these ideas and thus the literatures that spawned them into terrorism studies – again, at a time when terrorism scholars still found it hard to believe that religion could be the “real” motive force for terrorism. This is not surprising. Generals are infamous for fighting the last war under contemporary and utterly different circumstances. Politicians and their staffs rerun the last successful campaign, despite a changed political terrain. Terrorism scholars are no less fixated on the past. When Rapoport’s articles on messianic terrorism began to appear in the 1980s, terrorism scholars were still very much under the spell of the movements

74   J. Kaplan of the 1960s and early 1970s. And why not? If the heyday of the groups themselves had passed in terms of radical chic, the era was still marked by the Reagan years and what would later prove – although it was impossible to know this at the time – the climactic stages of the Cold War. The rhetoric coming out of both Moscow and Washington was still that of bipolarity backed by nuclear balance – actually, imbalance, but we didn’t know that either at the time (Gaddis 1997, 2005). Thus, the terms “terrorism” and ‘political terrorism’ were so synonymous that few scholars felt the need to make a differentiation. Groups like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and its various constituent factions, most of them as secular and nationalist as Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, Muhammar Qaddafi’s activities, and the actions of older European nationalist terrorist groups like the Basque ETA or Northern Ireland’s IRA, could all be comfortably grouped together with the surviving European left-­wing terrorist groups from the1960s.12 In fact, with the Iranian Revolution of 1979 a new world had been born. I was living in the region at the time, and was in Iran for the early stages of the Revolution. Its impact and the changes it would bring were astonishing, but were both real and undeniable to those of us on the scene. Incredibly, much of the terrorism literature continued to see religion as a mask for political action rather than as a motive force. In religious studies, the secularization theory – which surfaced in the pop theology reflected in the April 8, 1966 Time Magazine cover story asking the rhetorical question on its cover “Is God Dead”? – had mesmerized terrorism scholars as much as it had others in the academy of the day (Altizer 1967). The idea that religion had the power to move men to take up arms and to fight – indeed to triumph – over impossible odds was considered simply too anachronistic to be taken seriously. Thus, the Hizbollah attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine compound at Beirut Airport in 1983 could be understood in Cold War terms, and the Afghan Mujahideen fighting with covert CIA assistance the Soviet invasion of their homeland could be understood as rough, bearded freedom fighters battling bravely against communist tyranny with the aim of building a Western-­style democracy in a new Afghanistan. In this Cold War context David Rapoport’s work stood virtually alone in insisting on the importance of religion as a vital force in the modern world. The field, as we know, moved gradually toward accepting his view after the Iranian Revolution emboldened a number of disaffected elements of Middle Eastern Shi’ite and Sunni societies who, dispirited by the failure of Arab nationalism, returned to the certainties of their faith. Of these newly religious activists a faithful few took up the gun and set forth to create a world cleansed and remade in the image they believed was originally intended by God. A decade later, the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan produced, not a fledgling democracy, but a ruinous civil war out of which emerged the Taliban. Rapoport’s work saw these developments as a continuity – a part of a historical chain – and the field soon gravitated toward his view. That gradual recognition of Rapoport’s pioneering work became increasingly paradigmatic in the wake of 9/11. If only more people had been listening earlier, the cataclysmic attacks of that day might have been averted. In 1999, fully two

Religiously motivated terrorism   75 years before the 9/11 attacks, Terrorism and Political Violence published a special issue on aviation security, which warned of many of the weaknesses exploited by the 9/11 hijackers (Wilkinson and Jenkins 1999). Rapoport’s participation as a founding editor of Terrorism and Political Violence, which remains the flagship journal in the field of terrorism studies, is perhaps his most fundamental contribution to the field. Published first by Frank Cass, and currently by Taylor & Francis, Terrorism and Political Violence has consistently opened its pages to the work of established scholars, young researchers and graduate students alike, providing not only a forum for cutting-­ edge terrorism research, but creating a remarkable multidisciplinary intellectual community.

A new look at terrorism and WMD Like “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant,” Rapoport’s 1999 article “Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse” has received too little attention. This is hardly surprising, as at the time it appeared that the U.S. intelligence community might aptly be described as a budget in search of a mission. The Cold War was over, and with 9/11 two years in the future terrorism remained a marginal phenomenon. The 1995 Aum Shinrikyo attack on the Tokyo Subway using sarin gas momentarily raised the dread specter of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) falling into terrorist hands (Reader 2000). That such a thing could happen on American shores was never doubted. Dubious WMD plots had been uncovered, perhaps the most fanciful of which was the discovery of a barrel of cyanide on the grounds of the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) compound when the BATF and the FBI arrested members on April 21, 1985. The press was soon reporting that the cyanide was intended to poison the water system of a major American city, although anyone with knowledge of the chemistry involved (including CSA leaders, according to my interviews with the group) knew that it would be so diluted as to eventuate in, at best, a few dead fish.13 The only time WMD was employed in the United States was in the case of a poisoned salad bar in Oregon on the eve of an election in which the Rajneesh community, a new religious movement,14 attempted to gain control of the city council (Aveling 1999; Palmer and Sharma 1993). With these precedents in Japan and the U.S., the intelligence agencies had a mission, and a considerable amount of money was poured into the effort to prevent terrorists or violently inclined new religious movements from acquiring WMD capabilities. This, of course, assumed that these movements were interested in attempting to develop this capability in the first place.15 At the height of this terrorist and WMD panic, Rapoport’s “Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse” (1999) attempted to bring reason into the debate (see also Zubay 2005; Prelas and Peck 2005; Mauroni 2006). Through careful examination of the use of WMD by states from World War I to the present day, the article demonstrated convincingly that WMD (with the obvious exception of nuclear weapons) have never been particularly effective or decisive, noting with

76   J. Kaplan respect to the Iran–Iraq War in 1980: “Iraqi gases killed 5,000, but the Iranians suffered 600,000 dead altogether. Gas, thus, killed less than 1%” (Rapoport 1999: 52). Indeed, the massive use of these agents in the Iran–Iraq War could not turn the tide of battle, and Sadaam Hussein was ultimately forced to withdraw his forces from Iranian soil. Professor Rapoport then turned to the massive difficulties faced by terrorist groups attempting to develop or acquire such weapons, and of the even greater challenge of finding a means to deploy them in an effective way. The article wisely avoided the area of nuclear capability. It was a time when the international black market made fissionable materials from the former Soviet Union available for a price and when A.Q. Khan, a renegade Pakistani nuclear scientist, was selling his expertise to the highest bidder. Rapoport concluded, very much against the tide of the time, that conventional explosives were more efficient, more destructive, and more of a threat to the United States than any WMD, and that greater precautions and far greater resources should be more effectively devoted to this threat. Parenthetically, while agreeing with Rapoport’s conclusions, I nonetheless demur. Would a terrorist not benefit as much from the mere threat of WMD as the reality of conventional weaponry? There is something about WMD that instinctively terrifies us. After all, as the history of terrorism has continually demonstrated, terrorism, to be effective, need not be about running up impressive body counts. Rather, Terrorism 101 simply states that the terrorist act is a message and the terrorist a messenger. The violence of the act may be real or implied, and the degree of its effectiveness is more a matter of the perception of a particular audience than the number of victims it generates. With this in mind, the mere threat of WMD has the potential to generate as much fear in a target audience as does a mass casualty strike using conventional – and thus easily conceptualized – weapons.

Mob terror and the four waves In “Before the bombs there were the mobs: American experiences with terror” (see Rapoport, Chapter 10), Rapoport uses Richard Hofstadter as a seer able to shed light on the often unfathomable recesses of human behavior (Hofstadter and Wallace 1970: 3–4). The article equates the Sons of Liberty, heroes of the American Revolution, with the decidedly less lionized Ku Klux Klan in an examination of mob violence as a form of terrorism. The piece, irreverent, well researched, and full of insight into the phenomenon of terrorist violence, demonstrates once again Rapoport’s commitment to value-­free scholarship and his willingness to question conventional modes of thinking. The comparison of the Sons of Liberty in pre-­revolutionary America with the post-­Civil-War Ku Klux Klan is both enlightening and startling for U.S. citizens, who are raised to lionize the Founding Fathers as statesmen-­turned revolutionaries and to damn the KKK as racial terrorists. I suspect it will be, not for the first time in Rapoport’s long and illustrious career, some time before this piece is fully appreciated.

Religiously motivated terrorism   77 “Modern Terror: The Four Waves” has become the standard that we use to identify the Zeitgeist, which links disparate global terrorist movements into a coherent succession of “waves” – “wave” thus providing a lens through which to frame the comparative study of terrorist movements (Rapoport 2004: 46–73).16 Wave theory has become ubiquitous in terrorism studies, and to rehash it at length to the readers of this volume would be redundant. All know it, and all have formed a view of their own (Kaplan 2007: 545–570; see also Rasler and Thompson, Chapter 1). “Modern Terror: The Four Waves” brings together all of the elements of Rapoport’s more than 40 years of study and publication (indeed, the biblically-­ evocative, 40-year cycle will resonate throughout the theory as the approximate lifetime of a wave). Here is the cultural historians’ fascination with an idea brought through time and the “spirit of an age” of which Huizinga wrote so lyrically, the generational conflict that is the warp and woof of the Hebrew Bible’s most powerful imagery, and the recognition that from seemingly insignificant events great movements grow. Thus sometimes quite obscure events catalyze a wave. Of these, none is lesser known than the attempted assassination of the Governor of St. Petersburg by Vera Zasulich, who would proudly announce to a sympathetic court that she was a terrorist, not a killer, and Zasulich would, with this action and these words, usher in the First or Anarchist Wave of modern terrorism (Rapoport 2004: 50).17 With the receding of the Anarchist Wave, the Anti-­Colonial Wave, the Leftist Wave, and arriving at last at the current Religious Wave, each wave ebbs and flows in a logical progression. Each, at least until the Religious Wave, followed the same roughly 40-year pattern, and each spawned a handful of movements that survived their respective waves and adapted themselves to modern times (often in the form of a hybrid between the original terrorist ideals that fired its early leadership and some form of criminality which enriches the now not so True Believers) (Charters and Walker 2004). Rapoport’s “Four Waves” article is visionary, and by virtue of this quality, combined with Rapoport’s collegiality and complete openness to criticism, remains something of an open text – a work continually in progress. For example, at recent conferences he has evinced an increasing recognition that the Religious Wave is somehow different from its predecessors, and that, based as it is on a civilization rather than on the shallow degree of support enjoyed by Bruce Hoffman’s “violent intellectuals,” it is likely to go on for a good deal longer than 40 years. Similarly, after more than 40 years, Rapoport’s work has shaped, defined, and indeed invented the study of religious terrorism.

Notes   1 I would like to thank Dr. Susan Brewer for her vitally helpful reading and editorial critique of the text.   2 The 1960s and 1970s saw the secularization thesis become a dominant paradigm in religious studies departments, as the traditional ‘seminary model,’ which emphasized the study of texts, gave way to more thematic approaches to the study of religion.   3 The most powerful and enduring model for ancient and modern terrorist movements is

78   J. Kaplan in fact from Numbers in the person of Phineas (Phinehas), whose slaying of a Hebrew man and his Midianite lover may be interpreted as a reflection of the Jewish aversion to exogamy, which is seen as leading invariably to assimilation and, thus, presents a clear and present danger to the survival of the Jewish people and Yahweh worship. To terrorist movements through the ages however, in both ancient and modern Israel and in the U.S. as well, Phineas is the exemplar par excellence of the divinely ordained utilization of deadly force to carry out God’s will. The key passage is: And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. (Numbers 25:7–8)

The ancient Zealots, the modern Israeli settlement movement – and such disparate movements in the U.S. as the radical Right (which spawned a fanciful state-­of-mind organization called the Phineas Priesthood based on the writings of Richard Kelly Hoskins) and the Rescue Movement in its internal discussions of the acceptability of the use of deadly force to stop abortion – all used Phinehas as a model. (For a sampling of various aspects of this issue, see Hanauer 1995: 245–270; Kaplan 2000: 242–244; Sankey 2004: 457; Mahan and Griset 2008: 56).   4 Controversy attaches itself to any work that goes beyond the mainstream intellectual currents of the time in which it is published. This article is no exception to the rule, as may be discerned by the commentary (and at times rebuttals) to the article found in the responses of Rolf Kneirem (1979: 144–145) and Reinhard Bendix (1979: 146–147). A rather remarkable aspect of Professor Rapoport’s work is his willingness to engage critics in constructive dialogue before and after publication of an article, making the final product all the more insightful for his unassuming collegiality.   5 An Amazon.com search on June 1, 2009 could find only four used copies available.   6 This ease with history is in my own view what most separates Rapoport’s writings – thoroughly grounded as they are in the discipline of political science – from the writings of most political scientists. For the fullest flowering of the cultural historian’s art, see the flowing poetic prose of Huizinga (1985). Like Huizinga, Rapoport seizes upon an idea, following it as deep into history as his sources will allow, noting its permutations as the ages pass and it enters the contemporary world, and then cautiously uses the data to project the idea or process into the future. This process would culminate in his wave theory of terrorism.   7 The piece originally appeared in Crick and Robson (1970).   8 Schlesinger posits a cyclical pattern in American politics in which about every 40 years the nation swings from cycles of public and governmental activism in social or foreign policy crusades to those of inward-­looking private acquisition in which public interests are subordinated to the accumulation of private wealth and security by American families.   9 The reference here is to Hellenized Jews. A substantial number of these assimilés lived in Palestine in this era, and were considered more of an enemy by Jewish Zealots than the Romans. Such is the traditional Jewish antipathy to Jews attracted to the seductive ways of the stranger. Josephus has much to say on the subject, and they played a great part in the events unleashed by the Sicarii (Hengel 1980). 10 “And Jehovah said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-­ necked people” (Exodus 32:9). Josephus was in fact history’s first fully modern political consultant. He was however inconsistent as an historian, giving slightly differing versions of key events, sometimes in the same document! His writings are easily found on the internet, though I still cling to my copy of Josephus and Whiston (1987).

Religiously motivated terrorism   79 11 For the juicy details, see the latest reprint of Bernard Lewis’ 1968 monograph on the topic (Lewis 2003). The textual basis of the belief is the promise of houris, virginal female creations (not as is often assumed in the West the souls of human women). These eternally virginal beauties are the reward to the martyr for the faith. They appear in highly poetic suras (passages or verses) at several points in the Qu’ran (e.g., S. 44: 54). 12 On a popular level this view of a Moscow-­based “terrorist international” was best summarized and marketed by Claire Sterling (1981). Academics were just as enamored of the model. See the various articles in the conference proceedings from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Ra’anan 1986). 13 Former members asserted during my interviews that the poison was intended to coat bullets, providing the CSA with a macabre calling card for their dreams of assassination of perceived racial enemies (see Coates 1995: 136–154; Kaplan 2000: 71–75; FBI n.d.). 14 The half-­baked idea seems to have been to sicken rather than kill local voters while simultaneously busing drunks and drug addicts from San Francisco to rural Oregon to sign them up as voters and thus swing the election to Rajneeshi candidates. The ploy resulted in jail terms for the group’s largely female leadership and a change of name and emphasis for the leader and group to Osho – an NRM which eschews politics in favor of sex. 15 The FBI and the federal government began to reach out seriously to scholars of religion shortly after the Waco tragedy (Kaplan 2002: 97–109). European intelligence agencies became interested after Aum Shinrikyo. On the United States see Barkun (2002: 97–109). 16 Rapoport is currently (as of 2010) working on a monograph-­length exploration of wave theory. 17 In the best of all possible worlds, I would have preferred Fenya Kaplan to have been accorded the honor which Professor Rapoport bestows on Zasulich. Kaplan hunted bigger game – she attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate Lenin. She did manage to wound him, but like Zasulich before her, and Shelly Shannon of Operation Rescue, the elements of surprise, boldness, excellent planning, and easy access to the target (all were at point-­blank range) did not result in a kill. There are numerous cases of failed female assassins in the annals of terrorism. So many, indeed, that I hope one day to publish a volume in answer to the excellent work by Eileen MacDonald, Shoot the Women First (1991). This study has the working title Shoot the Women Last Because They Can’t Hit the Broad Side of Barn. Finding a publisher may be a bit problematic however. . . .

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Religiously motivated terrorism   83 Tabor, James D. and Eugene V. Gallagher (1995) Why Waco?: Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Van Woerkens, Martine and Catherine Tihanyi (2002) The Strangled Traveler: Colonial Imaginings and the Thugs of India. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wilkinson, Paul and Brian Michael Jenkins (1999) Aviation Terrorism and Security, Cass Series on Political Violence. London: Frank Cass. Weber, Max (1952) Ancient Judaism. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Wolfe, Tom (1970) Radical Chic and Mau-­Mauing the Flak Catchers. New York: Farrar. Zubay, Geoffrey L. (2005) Agents of Bioterrorism: Pathogens and Their Weaponization. New York: Columbia University Press.

Part II

Terrorism A closer view

5 Ripples in the waves Fantasies and fashions Marc Sageman

This chapter attempts to elaborate on one of David Rapoport’s most influential ideas, namely that not all terrorism is the same. Terrorist campaigns come in waves, which come and go (Rapoport, 2004). I would like to focus on one issue in this theory, namely the natural history of a terrorist wave. Why does it acquire prominence at a certain place and time, and why does it fade over time? I would like to generate a hypothesis by generalizing from my analysis on the global terrorist social movement that threatens the West in the name of Islam at the beginning of the twenty-­first century (Sageman, 2004, 2008). In August 1988, in Peshawar, Pakistan, about a dozen Muslim foreigners, who had come to support their Afghan brothers in their fight against the Soviet invaders, decided to form an organization to continue the fight worldwide after the proceeding Soviet withdrawal. These “Afghan Arabs” named their new organization al-­Qaeda, “the base,” and took as their leader a young Saudi financier, Usamah bin Ladin. The founding members of this group were part of the elite of the Muslim world. They included bin Ladin, a member of one of the most prominent Saudi families, Ayman al Zawahiri, a member of one of the most prestigious Egyptian families, and various engineers and physicians. They were from upper-­middle-class families who were well established in their respective countries and had a stake in the maintenance and stability of the respective political orders. Their average age at the time was over 30. They were genuinely religious, but did not have a formal education in religion. Most had a solid graduate education and a significant proportion had a doctorate. Most were married and had children. They had come to support the Afghan jihad out of a sense of personal duty to the Muslim community, as they defined it, or a sense of adventure. Although they were a heterogeneous group, coming from all over the Muslim world, they forged strong bonds in their support of the anti-­Soviet jihad and became radicalized in the process. Most, except perhaps for the Egyptians, did not originally dream of becoming terrorists, but their mutual interactions and their growing sense of self-­importance made them thirsty to continue the fight in which they had found themselves. Because of their longer experience with rejectionist politics in their own country, the Egyptians originally provided the intellectual leadership of this group. Their vision was still evolving, but they knew they wanted to stay together and continue their self-­appointed task to build a

88   M. Sageman better world, modeled on their interpretation of the working of the community of righteous people that had first accepted the Prophet as the messenger of God. Indeed, some had no choice but to stay behind in Peshawar because they could not return to their country of origin, as they would be arrested due to their political activities. The surviving companions at arms of Usamah bin Ladin are still the leaders of this terrorist group. There is no indication that they trust later generations to join them in leadership positions of this terrorist social movement. There are still at most about two dozen left at large, but their numbers are dwindling and they are hiding in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. In the last decade of the twentieth century, the original core of al-­Qaeda was joined by a new ripple in the religious terrorist wave of self-­recruits. These new members were mostly Middle Eastern expatriates who had come to the West for their education. They had become homesick abroad and congregated with other expatriate Muslims and started talking politics, something that they could not do freely at home. Their mutual interactions escalated their grievances against their own governments, and they blamed the West for propping up these repressive regimes. Most members of this new ripple had come from solid, ambitious, middle-­class families, who could afford to send their sons to the West. They were not particularly religious as children, but they were still well educated (most in graduate school). Most were married and a large minority had children. Since many expatriate Muslims hung out at local mosques, this group also drifted there, more for companionship than religiosity. Their feeling of exclusion from their host society activated a common identity, which, due to the fact that their original meeting places were mosques, activated their Muslim collective identity. Their political discussions became couched in a religious frame, which encouraged their subsequent turn to religion. Their interaction became an echo chamber that encouraged the mutual escalation of their grievances against their own governments and the West in general. With time, this mutual process activated a collective identity based on what they had in common, namely being Muslim rather than identifying with their country of origin. They developed strong bonds to the extent that they were ready to sacrifice themselves for their friends and an overarching cause. The al-­Qaeda ideology of defending the collective Muslim nation fascinated them after their disillusionment with the failures of previous ideologies from their places of origin, including Nasser’s pan-­Arabism, Algerian socialism, as well as Syrian and Iraqi Baathist secularism. Their allegation that the idea that “Islam is the answer” had defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan gave credibility to the power of their utopian dream and provided a sense of pride and meaning to their lives. It motivated them to join this utopian movement and fueled their desire to sacrifice themselves to the cause. Worldwide atrocities committed against Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir, the Philippines, and Palestine became their cause célèbre and cemented their desire to join what they perceived to be a global jihad. They were seeking to join the global resistance movement and went to Afghanistan looking for training to become global

Ripples in the waves   89 Muslim fighters. At the time, they were generally in their mid-­twenties and had no previous criminal background. A few of this group were incorporated into al-­ Qaeda, now a more formal organization that housed them in Afghanistan and provided them with a salary. Some even married the sisters of fellow members. There are at most about a hundred of these second-­ripple members left, again in the FATA. They are the cadres, middle managers, and trainers of their successors. Their numbers are dwindling as well. The members of the third ripple in this terrorist wave are completely different from their predecessors. They consist mostly of terrorist wannabes, who, angered by the allied invasion of Iraq, aspire to join the social movement but cannot link up to al-­Qaeda Central, which had to go into hiding following the allied invasion of Afghanistan post-­9/11. These newcomers are generally from modest backgrounds, the second or third generation of unskilled Muslim immigrants to the West. Their upbringing was very secular and, unlike their predecessors, they did not become very religious. They are poorly educated and are definitely not intellectuals or religious scholars. Nor are they the type that might be swayed by religious arguments. Indeed, a significant portion had no religious beliefs at all. The members of this third ripple who go to Iraq do not go there to have theological debates; they go there to blow themselves up. They dream of becoming heroes, replacing their dim life prospects with a sense of greater meaning of being part of a global vanguard. They want to follow in the footsteps of the Afghan Arabs, who, they believe, defeated a superpower in the 1980s. Suicide terrorists have become the rock stars of militant Islam, generating a culture of “jihadi cool,” which inspires these terrorist wannabes. They try to join the global terrorist social movement in their late teens or early twenties. Some try to physically join the movement by traveling to places where they think al-­Qaeda still resides (Pakistan or Iraq), but most decide to join it by performing a terrorist act in order to be recognized by the leaders of the movement and accepted as one of their own. Because of their youth, most are not married and do not have children. They dropped out of school and formed youth gangs, with their accompanying criminality. After a short career of petty criminality, they turned to religion to escape their situations and to give their lives greater meaning. To bored, idle youth, the appeal of joining an exciting clandestine martial movement is a great temptation. They form fluid informal networks that are self-­financed and self-­ trained. A very small number of them succeed in connecting with al-­Qaeda Central or fellow travelers, such as the progeny of Lashkar-­e Taiba or Jaish-­e Muhammad, terrorist groups allied with al-­Qaeda, either through family connections (mostly British Pakistani Muslims) or through chance (mostly Northern European Muslims). Others seek out the glory of fighting in Iraq and connect with fluid networks of smugglers linked to al-­Qaeda in Iraq. Unlike the first two ripples, this third ripple is composed of the equivalent of young street gang members: They exhibit a high level of criminality before they join the jihad. Being less invested in the ambient society than their middle-­class predecessors and already rejecting the values of society because of their precarious social conditions, members of the third ripple may be far more violent

90   M. Sageman against their own society than were their predecessors, giving rise to the “homegrown” threat to society, which has surfaced in the West since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This threat is analogous to the increase in violence of Leftist terrorist movements in the West in the 1970s when the successors of the original (David Rapoport’s “Third Wave”) Red Army Faction and Red Brigades in Germany and Italy respectively seemed more violent than the original leaders of the movement. An increase in violence may well signal the death throes of a terrorist wave. The foregoing suggests that this religious terrorist Fourth Wave has evolved in response to its post-­9/11 habitat. The ongoing process of radicalization now takes place in a very hostile physical, but tolerant virtual, environment and results in a scattered, decentralized social structure – a “leaderless jihad.” Its social structure lacks formal command and control, but the internet gives it a semblance of unity and guidance. It also suggests that the types of people joining a terrorist wave evolve over time, from students at university where these ideas originate, to small gangs in the streets of immigrant neighborhoods, where these ideas diffused following 9/11 and the war in Iraq. However, it is important to point out that the al-­Qaeda social movement is composed mostly of people who had started out as strangers, who then became friends and joined the terrorist social movement collectively. This contrasts with terrorist organizations composed of members of an extended family, akin to family business in criminality, like the Sicilian mafia or the Campania Comorra. I suspect that exceptionally long-­lasting terrorist organizations like the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Basque ETA have this strong kinship component, as opposed to most terrorist organizations that have a predominantly friendship component, often forged at university. The internal dynamics of waves based on kinship may be different from those based on friendship (see Michael Barkun, Chapter 6). Let us return to the natural histories of terrorist waves. Why would they fade over time? One obvious hypothesis springs from Rapoport’s (2004) observation that the average duration of a wave is that of a generation, namely about forty years. A generational explanation for this gradual ebbing of a wave might run as follows. For those attracted to a cause, there is a process of self-­selection and commitment to the cause by the original generation. Through bonding with like-­ minded people who become friends and mutually reinforce their commitment, this index generation goes on to perpetrate horrors that are sanctioned and rewarded in their own increasingly isolated community. However, their children may not share their parents’ commitment, even if they do live in a semi-­isolated physical community. Each new generation likes to distinguish itself in contrast to its predecessors, in order to establish its own identity and generate what is cool for its members. This is why so many cults built on a specific ideology do not make the transition to the next generation. Terrorist social movements based on material or geographical grievances, such as independence or autonomy, fare better than those whose success depends on the appeal of a given abstract ideology. Fashions change, and what is considered important for the index generation is no longer cool for its progeny, who may actively reject what their parents

Ripples in the waves   91 believe. However, those movements based on geo-­political grievances, such as the IRA and ETA, may become family callings, especially if the larger local community respects and tacitly supports their activities, and the new generation finds that their pedigree is a source of pride. A second possible explanation for the degradation of a terrorist wave centers on the inevitable process of disillusionment, which sets in when the idealism that promoted the original impulse to join a terrorist social movement confronts the reality of increasingly corrupt leaders and the atrocities of successful terrorist operations. People react strangely to increased power. Idealistic leaders are transformed by their subordinates’ adulation and become corrupt, or leaders fight among themselves for the direction of the movement. Sometimes, they have sincere disagreements about strategy, but often there is a personality clash masquerading as a theoretical dispute. This friction among the leadership may alienate followers. Finally, the reality of terrorism – the killing of innocent civilians – sometimes repels followers who discern the true nature of terrorism in these horrific acts. It is not just about themselves trying to impress their peers and the public at large. There are some real victims as a consequence of terrorist attacks, and many followers leave at this point. The dark side of communism was finally revealed and this killed its appeal to Western youths. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago documented at length the brutality of the Soviet regime and its repressive basis. Likewise, the Chinese campaign to discredit the Cultural Revolution in the late 1970s revealed that a whole generation of scholars was killed or humiliated in “re-­education schools” due to the bankruptcy of Mao’s ideas of progress. The disillusionment that followed these revelations punctured the idealism of existing militants and discouraged new wannabes from joining these social movements. From a more personal perspective, disillusionment with the clandestine life of a terrorist in any of the three ripples often catches up with the romantic expectation of people’s fantasies of what it should be. The daily grind of hiding and deceiving former friends and relatives, the loss of one’s freedom to be spontaneous, the paranoia that accompanies any new acquaintance – all these issues take a toll. The reality of the life of a terrorist never lives up to the fantasy. Many terrorists abandon their self-­imposed calling in the face of these mundane difficulties. Of course, their disillusionment is accelerated when the public at large no longer looks up to and respects terrorists. They disappear into society and keep quiet about their past history. However, the analysis of the al-­Qaeda social movement suggests a third hypothesis, namely the degradation of the ideas that appeal to new members. The founding fathers of al-­Qaeda were elite opinion makers who had influence over a large audience. Bin Ladin and his companions at arms were popularized in the press throughout the Middle East, first as the brave mujahidin who defended the Muslim ummah against Soviet invasion and then as the winners of the Soviet–Afghan war. They became a source of inspiration for the next generation of wannabes who were searching for a cause. Al-­Qaeda’s appeal was especially strong among the expatriate Muslim students studying in the West, the

92   M. Sageman members of the second ripple. The composition of the third ripple, consisting of the intellectual laggards of diaspora Muslim communities, seems to indicate that the ideas generated by the first-­ripple opinion leaders – who have long moved on to fresh new ideas – have trickled down the social ladder to the street gangs that form the third ripple. These underprivileged followers try to emulate their heroic predecessors, who no longer find these ideas “cool” enough because they are now shared by a large following. The originators always want to be ahead of the pack, and the fact that the pack is now attracted to their ideas means that they have to move on. Like changes in fashion, the degradation of the terrorist social movement as ideas about the cause diffuse down the social ladder may be an important pathway to the gradual disappearance of the appeal of a given ideology. Since terrorism based on abstract ideas relies on fantasies about becoming a hero to one’s chosen community of peers, it might be subject to the dynamics of fashion. As the crowd joins in the fashion, the innovating, influential opinion makers, who rely on their status of being avant-­garde, must look for ever new ideas and abandon the old ones as passé. Cell phones were the exclusive property of rich elites about fifteen years ago. Now, any teenager can own one, and the elites have moved on to better means of communication. Sideburns were once the characteristic of left-­wing college students at exclusive elite schools. Within a decade, they became the characteristic of Southern, poorly educated, unskilled laborers (trying to emulate Elvis) while the college students moved on to new and different styles. The same process of the social degradation of ideas may be taking place in political involvement. This argument of social degradation implies that a specific terrorist appeal to potential audiences may change overnight, as the ideas sustaining a specific wave of terrorism may no longer be considered “cool” to a new generation. Ironically, if the state indiscriminately represses terrorism, as opposed to focusing narrowly on the actual perpetrators, it may inadvertently prolong the appeal of their ideals to those who are always contrarians to the state for various reasons. The most effective strategy for overcoming any wave of terrorism may be to allow it to fade away via its own dynamics of internal decay and not to do anything that might inadvertently delay this demise.

Bibliography Rapoport, D. (2004) “Modern Terror: The Four Waves,” in Audrey K. Cronin and James M. Ludes (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. Sageman, M. (2004) Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sageman, M. (2008) Leaderless Jihad. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

6 The fourth terrorism wave Is there a religious exception? Michael Barkun

In late 2008 some colleagues and I had dinner with a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security. He said, “You know, I often think that terrorism will not be the defining characteristic of my lifetime or that of my children.” I responded by telling him that his views were consistent with David Rapoport’s four waves theory of terrorism, with its prediction that each terrorism wave will peak and decline. However, not wishing to cast a shadow over the evening, I neglected to add that Rapoport harbored reservations about whether the current, religion-­driven wave would behave exactly as its predecessors had, and might possess unusual longevity because of the strength of religious communities. In an early iteration of the wave model, he noted that “a striking characteristic of religious communities is how durable some are” (Rapoport 2002: 66). Indeed, such communities count among the most enduring of human associations. It is, then, not unreasonable to suppose that a terrorism wave built on religious loyalties might differ from secular counterparts. Despite its intuitive plausibility, however, the issue of what might be termed “religious exceptionalism” turns out to be difficult to answer. How might we determine whether there is in fact a religious exception that might lead the current terrorism wave to be more drawn out than those before it? Rapoport himself dealt with earlier religious terrorism in his well-­known article, “Fear and Trembling” (Rapoport 1984). He examined the Sicarii, an offshoot of the Zealots, active in Roman-­occupied Judea; the Assassins, who operated in Persia during the early Middle Ages; and the Thugees, with a long history in Hindu India. Vivid though these cases are, however, they shed little light on the issue of a religious terrorist wave. The Sicarii sought to stimulate a revolt against the Romans, which they in fact brought about in a short time, with catastrophic consequences. The Assassins were sent by the Ismaili sect, which had a territorial base in what is now northern Iran, and operated as long as that base was secure. Once it was conquered, the assassinations ceased. Unlike the others, the Thugees did manage to endure for centuries until the British uprooted them, but they conducted their violence by stealth, recruited largely within families, and enjoyed the protection of some of the princely states, so their longevity is scarcely a test case. More to the point, each instance, although related to a larger religious tradition, seems to have arisen out of a discrete set of circumstances. None was part

94   M. Barkun of a larger stream of similar terrorist organizations. Hence, although the three cases are relatively well documented, they shed little light on the question of whether the present spike in religious terrorism is likely to last longer than its secular predecessors.

The search for analogies I want to try to get at the issue of the longevity of religious terrorism in two ways: first, by examining analogies – situations sufficiently similar so that they might indirectly shed light on the question of the survival potential of religious terrorist groups; and second, by examining the religious underpinnings of terrorism. How might one go about selecting such analogies? They should involve, at a minimum, situations in which individuals choose affiliations as opposed to being born into them. The affiliations should require very high levels of commitment, to the virtual exclusion of other loyalties, and if possible, the affiliations ought to be religious as that term is commonly understood. In other words, they would be accompanied by some system of worship with ritual observances and belief in a domain of transcendent power. I myself would have no difficulty in dealing with analogous groups built around secular belief systems, since many secular ideologies have commanded religion-­like devotion, but it seems best for current purposes to keep matters as simple as possible. I want to look at two such analogous cases: religiously based intentional communities (“utopian communities,” in common parlance) and religious orders. With a few exceptions these groups were non-­violent and, indeed, often explicitly rejected violence. It may seem perverse to use them as a way of indirectly testing a hypothesis about terrorism, but if you will accept, to use that charming phrase, “the willing suspension of disbelief,” I think you will see that they do have some relevance. For, like terrorist groups, they are what the sociologist Lewis Coser would term “greedy institutions” that make total demands on their members. Such organizations, he tells us, make total claims on their members and “attempt to encompass within their circle the whole personality . . . they seek exclusive and undivided loyalty” (Coser 1974: 4). In addition, the problem of the longevity of religious terrorist groups may be seen as a variant of the larger problem of the lifespan of religious organizations. In assessing organizational lifespans, religious communal experiments are a particularly interesting case. As it happens, both religious and secular communal experiments in America were themselves established in waves not unlike the waves that characterize terrorism, except that these correspond roughly to long waves of economic expansion and decline (Barkun 1984; Berry 1992). The foundings of such communities have been bunched together in wave-­like manner, with peaks every forty to sixty years, but there is no evidence that they have come to an end in a similarly systematic way. Indeed, the demise of intentional communities appears to be virtually random, since most have collapsed not because of larger, environmental causes but because of internal factors, such

Is there a religious exception?   95 as insufficient capital, lack of necessary skills, leadership struggles, and defections. However, we also know, thanks to research by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, that the most long-­lived communities have almost always had a religious basis. That said, it is also true that even some religious communities failed early, so religion itself was not a guarantee of success. Kanter points out that it was unlikely that religion per se made the difference. Rather, religion probably mattered because it was more likely than secular belief systems to provide a community with such important commitment mechanisms as shared beliefs, charismatic leadership, and group rituals (Kanter 1972: 136–137). Longevity is a relative term where communal experiments are concerned, since even those groups that are deemed successful often lasted for only a few decades or went through protracted periods of decline. For example, the Oneida Community, whose majestic Mansion House stands a short distance from where I live in New York State, is generally regarded as having had a long life, yet that spanned only forty-­two years. The Shakers, whose colonies stretched from Maine to Florida, lasted from the late 1700s until the late twentieth century; yet we know from the demographic data that Priscilla Brewer has assembled (Brewer 1986) that they were in continual decline from at least 1840. The large number of orphans the celibate Shakers took in, as well as their many adult converts, rarely stayed very long. One might simply conclude from this that like most of us they didn’t want to be celibate. However, communal experiments catered to a wide variety of sexual palates, and they all decayed relatively quickly because of their inability to socialize new generations of members, despite devoting extraordinary attention and resources to these efforts. New recruits never seemed to have the vitality of the original cohorts, a problem shared by many organizations from religious sects to revolutionary regimes, whose founding generation exhibits extraordinary commitment, yet lives to see its legacy handed over to sons and daughters who pay only lip-­service. They differ in this respect from terrorist movements, since the dynamic of Rapoport’s terrorism cycle is driven by the ability of terrorist groups to transfer commitment to at least one additional generation of members. The great exception has been those religiously based intentional communities whose distinctive religious beliefs have been reinforced by differences of culture and language, such as the Hutterites or – if one is willing to extend the meaning of communal – the Amish. Here cultural and linguistic barriers appear to retard the loss of members to the majority community, so that many who leave eventually return, which suggests that boundary maintenance may be more important than religion per se. The stability and longevity of these communities also depend critically upon their having negotiated a modus vivendi with the governing authorities, often through protracted litigation and negotiation – an option terrorists do not have unless they possess a relatively stable territorial base because a state has given them sanctuary or because they have found such sanctuary in a failed state. However, if the ethnic communities are excluded, religious communes – despite a tendency to last somewhat longer than their secular counterparts – tend to have relatively short lifespans, rarely exceeding forty or

96   M. Barkun fifty years. Thus, in this one case of a greedy institution, religion seems to aid longevity but does not guarantee it. The second example – monasticism – is quite different, since many religious orders have been extraordinarily long-­lived, surviving and even flourishing for centuries. While most have foresworn violence, a few did not. In the wake of the Crusades, for example, there were military religious orders, such as the Teutonic Knights and the Knights Templar, suggesting that the disciplined religiosity of monasticism could be fused with a fighting force. The former, armor-­clad and chanting, famously appeared in caricatured form in Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky. The closest approximation of a religious order in a contemporary group whose activities might be called terrorist occurred in Aum Shinrikyo among its inner group of “renunciates,” whose lifestyle was modeled on that of Buddhist monks and nuns. Although the renunciates constituted only a fraction of Aum’s membership, all of those directly involved in Aum’s acts of violence were recruited from among the renunciates. These individuals living in Aum facilities had broken all ties with their old lives (Reader 2000). In general, the longevity of monasticism can be readily explained, for apart from their self-­selected memberships such groups possess advantages that intentional communities do not. Religious orders grow from non-­monastic institutional infrastructures, such as places of worship and systems of religious education, in which the rank-­and-file of a faith community participate. These infrastructures can supply potential recruits and resources, so that convents and monasteries might be viewed as at the center of a series of concentric circles providing sustenance and protection. Thus the houses of worship and schools that service ordinary members of a religious community also provide funds and potential recruits for affiliated monastic organizations. If resources are not provided, religious orders lose their special survival advantages. As Patricia Wittberg has demonstrated, much of the recent decline in Catholic religious orders is attributable to the sudden withdrawal of resources. Within a short period of time they have lost access to recruits who now have other options, are no longer needed to staff institutions, and have less support from their ecclesiastical superiors (Wittberg 1994: 257–266). Thus, for example, the sudden closing of schools and hospitals staffed by members of orders left many of these organizations without one of their principal functions. While these factors appear specific to the American case, they suggest that even such totalistic religious institutions as religious orders depend on external support and are, consequently, fragile. One might well imagine a religious terrorist group that resembled a religious order more closely than a religious communal experiment. Indeed, the case of Aum Shinrikyo suggests that very possibility. On the other hand, the examples of religious communes and religious orders demonstrate that religion per se is not a guarantee of collective longevity. What matters is not religious belief or even the degree of piety but, apparently, the elaboration of an institutional matrix in which religious activity goes on. Isolated religious communes could succumb to any number of crises despite their beliefs: loss of members, disagreements about doctrine, leadership struggles, insufficient economic resources, attacks

Is there a religious exception?   97 from a hostile environment, and so on. Without a support structure and boundary maintenance one or more crises tend to cause community collapse. What does this tell us about religious terrorism? First, that religious terrorism by itself will probably fare as poorly as the religious communal experiments and for the same reasons. Second, that to the extent that religious terrorism resembles religious orders, it may last for a long time. But there’s the rub, for in doing so terrorism becomes increasingly marginalized, merely one element embedded in a large and complex institutional structure, such as a multi-­faceted political movement or a religious revival, just as monasticism has tended to be a relatively small part of rich religious traditions. Arguably, religious terrorism in such a secondary role, dominated by an array of other forms of religious/political expression, might well endure for generations. However, that does not appear to describe the current wave, since terrorist organizations based on radical interpretations of Islam, while they have had links with certain mosques, clergy, and religious schools, tend to be connected with sectarians who are often themselves marginalized and under pressure.

The religious underpinnings of terrorism As Marc Sageman has shown, over the past decade Islamic terrorism has become less rather than more organized, such that his most recent book is entitled Leaderless Jihad (Sageman 2008), a phrase to which I will return. He argues that the current manifestations of Islamic terrorism following the invasion of Iraq are made up of small, independent, self-­organized groups unconnected to or only loosely associated with what remains of the central al-­Qaeda organization – the latter having been severely degraded and limited to tribal areas of Pakistan and adjacent areas of Afghanistan. Islamic radicals elsewhere have had to rely on their own resources and expertise and make their own plans wherever they happen to be located. This is no longer the centrally directed organization that brought about the destruction of the World Trade Center. In this radically changed, post-­9/11 environment, “The global Islamic terrorist social movement forms through the spontaneous self-­organization of informal ‘bunches of guys,’ trusted friends, from the bottom up” (Sageman 2008: 69; see also Sageman, Chapter 5). The title of Sageman’s book is an allusion to the essay “Leaderless Resistance” by the Christian Identity strategist Louis Beam, and thus arises from the milieu of American domestic, as opposed to transnational, terrorism (Beam 1992). It became influential on the militantly anti-­government extreme Right after it was distributed at an October 1992 conference in Estes Park, Colorado, organized by Christian Identity pastor Pete Peters. The attendees constituted a veritable “Who’s who” of the radical Right, including prominent figures in Christian Identity, numerous militia leaders, as well as William Pierce, the author of The Turner Diaries. The purpose of the conference was to protest the role of the FBI in an armed stand-­off at the Ruby Ridge, Idaho, cabin of Randy Weaver in which Weaver’s wife and son were killed. By that time, however,

98   M. Barkun there had been a number of other confrontations between right-­wing extremists and law enforcement. In 1985 the FBI conducted a large-­scale raid on a Christian Identity commune in the Ozarks, known as the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord, which was heavily armed and conducted training for members of other paramilitary groups. That same year, federal and state authorities broke up and indicted an armed insurgent group, The Order, made up of Identity believers and neo-­pagan Odinists, which was bent on inciting a race war in order to topple the federal government. Against this backdrop of vigorous law-­enforcement activity Louis Beam argued that no hierarchical organization could survive – only very small groups or even single individuals choosing their own targets and acting opportunistically. Beam’s was only one of several right-­ wing texts in the early 1990s that made precisely the same argument. Beam apparently borrowed the concept of “leaderless resistance” from a shadowy figure, a retired army officer named Ulius Louis Amoss, who may or may not have worked for the OSS and the CIA but who certainly ran a private intelligence-­gathering organization during the Cold War. The result of the spread of the leaderless resistance doctrine was an upsurge in small-­scale violence by racists and other right-­wing extremists in the United States, including the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. Concerning transnational religious terrorism, Marc Sageman observes that the contemporary Islamic terrorist “is far less skilled and adept than the terrorists prior to 9/11” (Sageman 2008: 141). The same might be said of white supremacists and anti-­government militants who took Louis Beam’s advice in the 1990s. They were, thankfully, characterized by a combination of zeal and ineptitude. Where their motivations were religious, as was especially the case with Identity and Odinist believers, those motivations did not compensate for their lack of skill and resources. One can, of course, point to significant differences between the domestic audience for whom Louis Beam wrote and Islamic terrorists today. Domestic, religiously driven terrorists in the 1990s were members of tiny sects and could not count on a large community of supportive co-­religionists. The major exception may have been Eric Robert Rudolph, the Olympic Park and abortion clinic bomber, once thought to have been a member of Christian Identity but who later made clear that he always considered himself a Roman Catholic. He remained a fugitive for more than five years, and may well have had assistance in doing so. Is it possible that leaderless religious terrorism, spontaneous and self-­ organized, might continue indefinitely in an environment where there are large numbers of sympathetic co-­religionists? As far as potential Islamic terrorism is concerned, this depends on where the acts occur, whether in majority Muslim societies or in the Western Muslim diaspora. Except in the case of African-­ American converts to Islam, Muslims in the West are almost always either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. An environment friendly to leaderless religious terrorism outside of majority-­Muslim societies would require segregation by religion and ethnicity, something found in Europe but not gener-

Is there a religious exception?   99 ally in the United States. Such residential patterns might provide a setting for leaderless resistance, but only until acculturation caused their shrinkage. Another, quite different pattern found in unintegrated immigrant groups is organized crime, which tends to survive vestigially for a while after most members of the groups successfully acculturate. This pattern suggests that even organized terrorism might briefly persist in an immigrant milieu even as the larger community begins to assimilate. However, if religious terrorists in diasporic communities were to follow this trajectory, an inevitable transformation would occur. Religion might gradually cease to be their driving force and would increasingly camouflage activities conducted for pecuniary and other distinctly non-­spiritual motives, since we know that criminal organizations which seek to survive the integration of immigrant communities have done so by making deals with and providing services to constituencies in the larger society. If religious terrorists were to emulate them, religion would become little more than a cover – a transparent one at that – for self-­serving criminal activities. This pattern is to some extent present in Northern Ireland, where the paramilitaries reflect communities divided along religious lines. Historically, these groups, in addition to carrying out terrorist activities, engaged in criminal activity to raise funds. Over time and particularly after 1998, this tendency took a more consolidated form as organized crime involving drugs, prostitution, counterfeiting, and similar activities (Jarman 2004: 432).

Terrorism and religious “awakenings” Finally, there is one direct sense in which the likely lifespan of religious terrorism waves might be assessed. Such waves would surely not arise in isolation from larger, non-­terrorist religious developments. Indeed, they would almost certainly be simply one manifestation, albeit a particularly dramatic one, of much broader religious developments. That is clearly the case for Islamic terrorism, which has arisen at a time of general ferment in the Muslim world. Indeed, that ferment appears to be part of a larger global burst of religious activity. In addition to that in the Islamic world, it includes (among other examples) resurgent Hinduism in South Asia, Orthodox Judaism in Israel and North America, evangelical Protestantism in the United States and Latin America, and a growing Catholic population in Africa. A considerable literature has arisen about the question of what scholars should call these eruptions. Some suggest broadening the term “fundamentalism” from its original Protestant meaning to cover these new phenomena. Here the emphasis is likely to be on such characteristics as textual fidelity and anti-­ modernism. However, there is another strain of American religious history that might be applied as well. Religious historians often refer to such ferment as “awakenings” or “revivals,” although these terms are both imprecise and unfortunate in their distinctly Protestant associations. In the American case these awakenings have been the subject of a substantial literature by William McLoughlin, R.C. Gordon-­McCutchan, and others, which demonstrates, by the

100   M. Barkun way, that these too have emerged in a cyclical pattern over the past 400 years similar to terrorism waves (Barkun 1985). McLoughlin appropriated the term “awakening” from American Protestant religious history, where it signifies a campaign of religious reinvigoration, usually over a relatively large area. However, he has something very different in mind. Influenced by the theoretical work of the anthropologist Anthony F.C. Wallace (1956) on movements of what the latter called “revitalization,” McLoughlin reconfigured awakenings as “periods when the cultural system has had to be revitalized in order to overcome jarring disjunctions between norms and experience, old beliefs and new realities, dying patterns and emerging patterns of behavior” (McLoughlin 1978: 10). He identified five such awakenings between the Puritan settlement in American and the late 1970s. He noted that Wallace’s framework had emerged out of research on crises in Native American societies and like Wallace he saw no reason why the concept could not be applied cross-­culturally. Periods of widespread religious excitation and change, whether they are called revitalizations or awakenings, have occurred in virtually every part of the world, but they have one characteristic in common: they have clearly finite lifespans, rarely more than a few generations. During this time religious innovators arise, gain supporters, and clash with partisans of orthodoxy, until eventually the period of change and instability gives way to a new status quo, a pattern that may be seen not only in the United States but in settings as diverse as Native American societies, early modern Europe, and Melanesia. Such awakenings have relatively short lengths for a number of reasons: They often depend upon charismatic figures and are thus tied to their lifespans and those of their immediate successors. The tumult involved also becomes so emotionally draining that the second or third generation craves a return to a less demanding lifestyle. In addition, the new religious/cultural order eventually develops institutions that have their own interests to defend. Eventually the changes that have been wrought become consolidated in some new, institutionalized synthesis, and the reformist – indeed, the revolutionary – impetus for change comes to be replaced by a wish to protect rather than to overturn. Outbreaks of religious violence of all types seem more likely during such periods of religious transformation. Thus the Reformation was the occasion not only for the well-­known armed clashes between Protestant and Catholic powers, but the less well-­known uprisings by armed Protestant millenarians trying to bring about heaven on earth, such as the followers of the radical reformer Thomas Müntzer in Germany (Cohn 1970: 234–251). These outbreaks were often suppressed by fellow Protestants for whom such extremism endangered their own efforts to establish stable institutions. Religious terrorists may “travel” along such waves of religious innovation during awakenings. They are propelled by them as long as the waves maintain their dynamism. However, once the waves crest and begin to weaken, terrorists who are dependent upon them find themselves isolated from sources of both popular and institutional support. As awakenings metamorphose into phases of consolidation in the form of a new orthodoxy, those whose program demands

Is there a religious exception?   101 only destruction can have no place. In other words, one cannot understand religious terrorism without understanding larger underlying patterns of religious change. These patterns too have a wave-­like character. Since they also rise and fall within relatively brief periods of time, it seems safe to say that the fourth terrorism wave is likely to meet the same fate as its predecessors. However, one caveat is in order, since the emergence of religious terrorism is also bound up with one of the most widespread yet mysterious phenomena of modern life, namely the unexpected resurgence of religion in many parts of the world. In 1918 Max Weber famously announced the “disenchantment of the world” as a product of the rise of science and technology. In principle if not always in practice, the physical world was known to be comprehended by calculable laws, and that realization simultaneously spelled the demise of magic and the circumscription of religion. The sacred was now to be a strictly delimited domain. The world – first in the West, but by extension in time the rest of humanity was set on a path of secularization. Yet – as we now know, that path has not been a straight one, and religion has experienced remarkable growth in many parts of the world, not only the Middle East, but also South Asia and the United States. What might tie these resurgences together lies beyond the bounds of this discussion. Suffice it to say that religious terrorism is a symptom of re-­enchantment, and part of its capacity to terrorize is the shock it brings to those habituated to the steady march of secularization. The struggle between religious terrorists and target societies is thus in many cases also a struggle between resurgent religion and secularism.

Bibliography Barkun, Michael (1984) “Communal Societies as Cyclical Phenomena,” Communal Societies, 4 (Fall): 35–48. —— (1985) “The Awakening-­Cycle Controversy,” Sociological Analysis: A Journal in the Sociology of Religion, 46 (Winter): 425–444. Beam, Louis (1992) “Leaderless Resistance,” The Seditionist, 12 (February). Online. Available at: www.louisbeam.com/leaderless.htm (accessed July 6, 2009). Berry, Brian J.L. (1992) America’s Utopian Experiments: Communal Havens From Long­wave Crises. Hanover: University Press of New England. Brewer, Priscilla J. (1986) Shaker Communities, Shaker Lives. Hanover: University Press of New England. Cohn, Norman (1970) The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. New York: Oxford University Press (rev. edn). Coser, Lewis A. (1974) Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment. New York: The Free Press. Jarman, Neil (2004) “From War to Peace? Changing Patterns of Violence in Northern Ireland, 1990–2003,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 16(3): 420–438. Kanter, Rosabeth Moss (1972) Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

102   M. Barkun McLoughlin, William G. (1978) Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607–1977. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Rapoport, David C. (1984) “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions,” American Political Science Review, 78(3): 655–677. —— (2002) “Four Waves of Modern Terrorism,” Anthropoetics, 8: 46–73. Online. Available at: www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/terror.htm (accessed July 6, 2009). Reader, Ian (2000) “Aum Shinrikyo, Millennialism, and the Legitimation of Violence,” in Catherine Wessinger (ed.) Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence: Historical Cases, Syracuse. NY: Syracuse University Press. Sageman, Marc (2008) Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-­first Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wallace, Anthony F.C. (1956) “Revitalization Movements,” American Anthropologist, 58(2): 264–281. Wittberg, Patricia (1994) The Rise and Fall of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective. Albany: The State University of New York Press.

7 The Fourth Wave Comparison of Jewish and other manifestations of religious terrorism Ami Pedahzur and Arie Perliger

Introduction On September 25, 2008 a small pipe bomb exploded at the entrance of the home of Professor Zeev Sternhell, one of the best-­known and honored academics in Israel. Sternhell, a political philosopher from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who had in the past been awarded the most prestigious prize granted by the State of Israel to its own academics, the Israel Prize, was slightly injured (Ben David 2008). The Israeli security forces assumed that the perpetrators were religious Jews, apparently affiliated to a religious, right-­wing, radical group. They also concurred that the perpetrators had wanted to retaliate to the harsh criticism leveled by the aging professor against the settlement movement and the religious Zionist Jews, which had been appearing constantly on the pages of many Israeli and international media outlets (Ben David and Goren 2008). Israeli politicians and journalists pointed out that once again the Israeli religious Right had targeted a prominent figure on the Israeli Left and that, more than anything else, these acts endangered the stability of the fragile Israeli democracy (Bender 2008). Others rejected these views, claiming that Jewish political violence has always been marginal in Israel. Unfortunately, we have to agree with the former opinion. More than 250 acts of Jewish terrorism and several thousand more minor acts of political violence have been conducted by Jews, mostly due to religious convictions, during Israel’s 60 years of existence, and the numbers have been rapidly mounting in the past two decades (See Figure 7.1). Is it a coincidence that the proliferation of Jewish terrorism occurred parallel to the emergence of religious terrorism worldwide in the past three decades?1 Or does Jewish terrorism actually represent a unique phenomenon? While David Rapoport’s seminal work on holy terror was an important step forward in answering such questions (Rapoport 1984), more up-­to-date work is needed. This chapter is based on Rapoport’s groundwork and strives to answer these questions by introducing the reader to the main features of Jewish terrorism, as well as comparing it to other manifestations of religious terrorism of the past three decades. We have been researching Jewish terrorism for over ten years, and along the way we have gathered thousands of official documents, mostly court protocols,2 interviewed 25 former terrorists, politicians, and spiritual

104   A. Pedahzur and A. Perliger 100 94 80 68

60

74

40 20 0

21 1950s

1

4

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Figure 7.1  Number of Jewish terrorist attacks per decade. Note Based on the NSSC (at the University of Haifa) Jewish terrorism dataset – see http://nssc.haifa.ac.il/.

leaders as well as law enforcement officials,3 and conducted six comprehensive surveys of the communities in which Jewish terrorist groups have originated; all told, our surveys included more than 4,800 respondents.4 The compiled information will enable us to effectively portray the montage of Jewish terrorism and compare it to other types of religious terrorism, hence answering the questions we have raised above. Moreover, we believe this will also eventually enable us to better understand other manifestations of religious terrorism such as the jihad networks emerging during the past two decades in the West (see Sageman 2004 and Chapter 5; Pedahzur and Perliger 2007) which, as we will show, have many similarities with the processes that distinguish Jewish terrorist networks. In both cases we are dealing with social networks that slide gradually into political violence and are driven by religious convictions.

North America 1% Latin America 1%

Africa 12%

Asia 19%

Middle East 59%

Europe 8%

Figure 7.2  Distribution of attacks of religious groups by geographical area. Note Based on the NSSC (at the University of Haifa) terrorist groups dataset – see http://nssc.haifa.ac.il/.

Jewish and other manifestations   105 We will begin our comparative analysis by referring to the characteristics of the source communities of the violent groups, continue by addressing the structural and ideological features of religious terrorist groups, and complete our analysis with a discussion of their operational features.

Social and operational structure A striking functional similarity between the Jewish groups and the jihad networks springing up in Western democracies in recent years lies in the counter-­ culture communities forming the environment of the terrorists, which in a sense have isolated and alienated them from the values of the majority, mainstream culture. They view features of the dominant culture as an existential threat to their own community. Despite the fact that many jihad network members, as second-­generation immigrants, might have been expected to integrate into the surrounding Western culture, various studies indicate that they have reverted to the traditions of their source cultures (Sageman 2004). Encouraged and aided by local spiritual leaders, they have tried to act against the features they feel are threatening to these traditions (Sageman 2004; Pedahzur and Perliger 2007). In the case of Jewish terrorism, most networks consist of religious Zionists and ultra-­orthodox Jews living in isolated, homogenous communities, mostly in the West Bank, and have acted against what they see as political processes that contradict their beliefs and were initiated by political agents of the secular segment of the Jewish population (see Aronoff, Chapter 11). They share a structural similarity as well, because both the jihadi and the Jewish groups are constructed as primary social networks with a low level of hierarchy. Moreover, in both cases they existed long before they slid into violent manifestations. Group members exposed to the extremist views of spiritual leaders in the community have been radicalized, as intra-­group social dynamics, i.e., intensive and frequent interaction among group members, have accelerated the process of radicalization (Sageman 2004, 2007; Pedahzur and Perliger 2007).

Ideology There are other similarities between Jewish and jihadi networks. The ideological foundations of Jewish terrorism seem to resemble many of the ideological tenets advanced by religious groups active in many parts of the world, although differences do exist. One such similarity is that the religious element of the terrorist ideology is not exclusive.5 Vigilantism and efforts to maximize political resources have also motivated Jewish terrorists. For example, many of the activists affiliated with the Jewish Underground6 joined the group not because of its long-­term religious vision, but because they strived to shape a new balance of power between the Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, which would deter Palestinians from continuing their attacks against Jewish targets in the occupied territories (Segal 1987). Many also aimed to disrupt the implementation of the Camp David Accord, a political goal (Segal 1987). Members of the

106   A. Pedahzur and A. Perliger 1950s Tzrifin Underground, a group that promoted the establishment of the “Holy Kingdom of Israel,” attacked Eastern European diplomats in order to force the Soviet Bloc regimes to stop persecuting their Jewish communities, a common trend at that time (Heruti 2006). As mentioned, pursuing various agendas is not unique to Jewish terrorism (Rapoport 1984). Internationally, other fundamentalist groups have had territorial and nationalistic goals that exceeded the scope of a religious agenda. For example, Hezbollah in Lebanon has espoused nationalistic ideological objectives in addition to supporting a fundamentalist Muslim ideology and being assisted by Iran. These objectives were expressed in Hezbollah’s attempt to drive foreign troops out of Lebanon, most importantly the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but also French and American peacekeeping forces in the early 1980s (Pape 2003). Its efforts against these foreign forces included both nationalistic and religious rhetoric (Hamzeh 1993). A second example was the struggle of Muslim religious groups in Kashmir in the mid-­1980s, which involved a territorial dispute rather than only religious agendas. A third example involved the use of violence by Sikhs in India, who, during the same period, aspired to create an independent Sikh state apart from their religious objectives (Burges 2006). The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), still active in the southern Philippines, combined nationalistic and radical Islamic objectives (Abuza 2005); while Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) groups in the West Bank and Gaza have integrated Islamic extremism with Palestinian nationalism. As pointed out by Rapoport (2001) in the recent past and particularly since 2000, religious groups have tended to emphasize their religious motives while minimizing the importance of secular political ones. Among Jewish groups this trend is apparent when comparing the older Jewish Underground and Kahane networks active in the 1970s and the 1980s that emphasized their secular militant Zionist objectives along with their religious aims, with the more recent groups such as the Bat-­Ayin or Amir networks in which a religious agenda was much more salient. The Bat-­Ayin terrorist group adhered to an isolationist agenda, which focused on the commitment to the Land and Torah of Israel while exhibiting hostility and alienation toward secular Israeli society.7 The Amir group (which included Yigal Amir, his brother, and a few close friends) was responsible for the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 because of his alleged responsibility for the Oslo Process, which endangered the implementation of the vision of the greater Land of Israel and the holy redemption process that many orthodox Jews believed could not be completed without the settling of Jews on the West Bank (Kapeliouk 1996; Karpin and Friedman 1999). It appears that the tendency to emphasize religious motives is occurring outside the Jewish sphere as well (see Rasler and Thompson, Chapter 1). It becomes increasingly difficult to identify secular-­rational motivation in acts like the nerve gas attack on a Tokyo subway in March 1995 by the Aum Shinrikyo (Juergensmeyer 2000: 123; Rapoport 2001) or attacks planned by the “Hofstad Network”8 in 2006; both were carried out or planned by religious or cult-­like

Jewish and other manifestations   107 local networks. These groups are in sharp contrast to older, veteran religious groups, such as Hizbollah, the Kashmir terrorist groups, Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) of the 1980s and early 1990s. A Realpolitik objective seems to be missing in more recent terrorist groups. Another salient ideological similarity is that many activists in both Jewish and non-­Jewish religious terrorism seem to be motivated by some type of grand vision of a new order, considering that their act of violence will lead to this significant transformation (Rapoport 2001). Juergensmeyer (2000) has termed this a “symbolic” objective. For the Jewish networks, this great change is the holy redemption of the People of Israel, the construction of the Third Temple, and the establishment of a state based on Jewish religious law, while jihadi groups wish to create a universal Muslim Caliphate. Similarly, the objective of Aum Shinrikyo was to catalyze a world-­scale apocalypse that would ultimately lead to the creation of a new global order. In these cases, the terrorists perceive of themselves as being involved in a kind of cosmic war (Juergensmeyer 2000; Rapoport 1984), and the causal relationship between their acts of violence and the ultimate aims of the networks is not always clear. We may even identify a long-­term vision leading to a crucial cosmic struggle on the part of fundamentalist Christians whose objectives are often viewed as specific political goals, such as the banning of abortion. There even seem to be some Christian fundamentalist leaders in the United States who would support a religious revolution culminating in the enactment of biblical law as the basis for social legislation (Juergensmeyer 2000). Moreover, religious terrorists consider their salient responsibility as adherence to God’s will, rather than to secular legal norms and principles. They see their violent act as a type of divine obligation which is carried out in response to a theological imperative (Hoffman 1995). In addition, terrorists motivated by religion are often ready to sacrifice themselves, not only in order to achieve long-­term goals, but also because they trust that they will be rewarded or compensated in an afterlife (Juergensmeyer 2000). Radical interpretations of religious and holy texts usually provide them with justification for violence. In these texts, adherents find putative corroboration for the eradication of those who jeopardize their way of life, as well as the realization of their long-­term religious objectives or their grand vision. For radical Jews the obstacle is the Palestinians, whose struggle for national liberation is seen as endangering Israel’s control of the West Bank and, as a result, the continuation of the holy redemption process, which is supposed to lead to the establishment of the Holy Kingdom of Israel. In the case of Hamas and the PIJ, Jews living in Palestine are regarded as those who prevent the creation of an Islamic political entity throughout the Middle East. For Aum Shinrikyo, the West and the Japanese government are the perceived evil forces conspiring against the movement and its followers all over the world (Esposito 2002: 94–102). Another common characteristic of religious violent groups active in recent years is their negation of any reconciliation or a process that could bring about a long-­term solution to their conflict with their secular adversaries.9 For instance,

108   A. Pedahzur and A. Perliger in the past two decades Jewish violent religious groups intensified their attacks against Palestinians at any time in which they felt there had been significant progress in the conciliation process between Israel and the Palestinians, mainly because any future settlement would have required a significant compromise of their religious visions and their aspirations regarding the future nature of the State of Israel. On the other hand, Palestinian religious groups also increased their violence after the Oslo Accords were signed between the PLO and Israel because they refused to give up their objective of establishing a theocratic Palestinian state over all of the land of Palestine. The rejection of compromise dominates religious terrorism in other parts of the world as well, demonstrated by a quote from the manifesto of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria: “No dialogue, no ceasefire, no reconciliation with the apostate regime” (Hafez 2000: 169). Even when groups have expressed willingness to negotiate with governments, their ability to take leave of their long-­term goals is in doubt. In the Philippines, for example, a durable peace has yet to be achieved between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippine government despite more than a decade of negotiations (Abuza 2005).

Operational characteristics While there are clear ideological similarities between Jewish terrorist groups and other religious terrorist groups all over the globe, in operational terms some salient differences exist. As our data suggest,10 in comparison to other types of terrorism religious terrorism tends to be more unrestrained in its methods and shows more inclination to inflict mass casualties (Burges 2006; Juergensmeyer 2000). It appears that the Muslim type of religious terrorism fits this argument. The main operational symbol and the distinguishing element of Islamic terrorism has become suicide bombings and mass-­casualty attacks (Hoffman 2002), and, where possible, weapons of mass destruction seem to be preferred. In 1988 Usamah bin Ladin declared: “Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons [of mass destruction], then I thank God” (Burges 2006). In contrast, Jewish terrorism does not fit this description; its goals are more limited than its Muslim counterparts. This is illustrated in the tactics it has employed and not only in its aversion to inflicting mass casualties. The only real attack carried out by Jewish terrorists that might be considered a mass-­casualty attack was the massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs committed by Baruch Goldstein in February 1994, in which 29 people were killed (Hutman et al. 1994; Rapoport 2001). How can these differences be explained? It appears significant that Jewish terrorism has developed in an ethnic group that is dominant in its operative area, and its public has not suffered from the long-­term repression that often results in a sense of hopelessness and a collective fear of destruction, which predominates among at least some populations represented by groups that have adopted tactics of suicide bombings and mass-­casualty attacks. Another explanation could be

Jewish and other manifestations   109 that the majority of religious terrorists do not feel limited in employing any degree of violence because they usually act in the name of “themselves” and do not feel the need to impress their public (Hoffman 1995). In contrast, Jewish terrorists view themselves as a sort of vanguard that will ultimately provide leadership for the People of Israel: to avoid alienating the People of Israel, they cannot permit the use of extremely devastating acts of violence. Operational similarities between Jewish and other types of religious terrorist groups exist in the ways they recruit network members and in their choice of  targets. For example, both Jewish and non-­Jewish religious terrorists are more  likely to attack members of other religions, but they do not limit themselves to these targets alone. In some instances religious terrorists will act against moderates in their own societies. In striking examples of Jewish terrorism against Jews, the Yigal Amir network assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Rabin; and some Kahane groups preferred to attack figures from the left wing of the Israeli political spectrum, as the attack on Professor Sternhell illustrated. There may also be a tendency to attack liberal and more secular groups of society. In the United States violent fundamentalist groups have carried out attacks against “liberal” institutions, such as clinics where abortions are performed or nightclubs with homosexual clients; and in the Arab world many religious terrorist networks, such as the ones active today in Iraq, also do not refrain from attacking Muslim and Arab political targets (Burges 2006). Thus, religious terrorism does not result solely from a competition between religions and cultures, but is likewise linked to the conflict within almost every religion between a moderate, liberal, Western-­oriented worldview and more extreme religious elements. The immediate environment of the hubs – religious and cultural institutions – has provided the sources of recruitment among groups of Jewish terrorists. Recruitment usually takes place in synagogues, yeshivas, and other religious centers. Recruits have often been friends and family members. Many Islamic groups which have adopted a network organizational structure in recent years have followed the same pattern of conscription. For example, in the Hamas and the PIJ networks during the al-­Aqsa Intifada (2001–2005) recruiters were positioned primarily in mosques and welfare institutions (Pedahzur and Perliger 2007). Similarly, the majority of members of suicide bomber networks based in Europe were also mobilized in mosques or from Islamic learning institutions by the method of “a friend brings a friend.” Although these recruitment practices appeared in Jewish groups in the 1950s, Palestinian groups and jihadist networks adopted them only after they had formed a network organizational structure in the past 15 years.

Scope and concluding remarks In conclusion, we note that religious Muslim and Jewish groups have different geographical ranges of operation. Jewish terrorist groups in Israel generally operate locally, as is clearly demonstrated by the Kahane and Bat-­Ayin

110   A. Pedahzur and A. Perliger networks, which attacked in neighboring areas, but it is difficult to identify a consistent pattern among other fundamentalist groups. Some of them certainly operate locally: These include Hamas networks in the West Bank, and some of the Salafi jihadi groups, such as the one responsible for the attacks in London in July 2005. However, many jihad networks simultaneously operate in the international arena and do not limit themselves to one country: the 2004 attacks in Madrid involved extremist Muslim activists from all over Europe and the Maghreb countries. The latest studies on Iraqi insurgents indicate that Islamic networks in this region include volunteers from all over the Muslim world, as was the case with the Afghan mujahidin in the mid-­1980s.

Notes   1 For a comprehensive review of the different waves of terrorism including the Religious Wave that began in the late 1970s, see Rapoport (2001: 419–425).   2 See, for example, the Jerusalem District Court, criminal file 203/84, State of Israel against the Jewish Underground, or Tel-­Aviv Magistrate’s Court, criminal file 498/95, State of Israel against Yigal Amir.   3 Such as the interview conducted on July 27, 2005 with Yehuda Etzion, the leader of the Jewish Underground.   4 The surveys were conducted in September 2001 and 2003, May 2004 and 2005, and April 2006 and 2007.   5 Mixing different ideological elements was also a feature of previous waves of terrorism, such as in revolutionary groups that integrated separatist sentiments (Rapoport 2001: 419).   6 The Jewish Underground: a Jewish terrorist group active in the early 1980s on the West Bank that was responsible for several attacks against Palestinians and planned to destroy the al-­Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.   7 Jerusalem Regional Court, Criminal File 5034/02; Jerusalem Regional Court, Criminal File 5035/03; Jerusalem Regional Court, Criminal File 216/03; Jerusalem Regional Court, Criminal File 619/03; Jerusalem Regional Court, Criminal File 3075/02; Jerusalem Regional Court, Criminal File 198/03.   8 The Hofstad Network is a Dutch Islamist group whose members included Mohammad Bouyeri, the assailant who murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004.   9 Note that short-­term ceasefires were in fact adopted by several violent religious groups, especially for such tactical reasons as regrouping and rehabilitation. 10 Based on the National Security Services Corporation Terrorism Research dataset; for example, just 9.7 percent of suicide attacks worldwide were perpetrated by non-­ religious groups.

Bibliography Abuza, Zachary (2005) Balik Terrorism: The Return of the Abu Sayyaf. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army War College. Ben David, A. (2008) “Prof. Sternhell was Hurt From a Bomb That Exploded In the Entrance to His House.” NRG. Online. Available at: www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ ART1/792/321.html (accessed September 25, 2008). Ben David, A. and Goren, Y. (2008) “A Prize to the One Who Will Kill Leftist Activists.” NRG. Online. Available at: www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/792/398.html (accessed September 25, 2008).

Jewish and other manifestations   111 Bender, E. (2008) “Knesset Member Pinnes – The Harm to the Prof., A Terrorist Attack.” NRG. Online. Available at: www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/792/414.html (accessed September 25, 2008). Burges, M. (2006) Explaining Religious Terrorism Part I: The Axis of Good and Evil, Center for Defense Information. CDI.org, Online. Available at: www.cdi.org (accessed April 18, 2006). Esposito, L.J. (2002) Unholy War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hamzeh, N. (1993) “Lebanon’s Hezbollah: From Islamic Revolution to Parliamentary Accommodation,” Third World Quarterly, 14(2): 321–337. Hafez, M. (2000) “Armed Islamic Movements and Political Violence in Algeria,” The Middle East Journal, 54(4): 577. Heruti, Y. (2006) Personal Communication (he was the leader and the founder of the Tzrifin underground), Tel-­Aviv, April 6. Hoffman, B. (1995) “Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated by a Religious Imperative,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 18: 271–284. Hoffman, B. (2002) “Rethinking Terrorism and Counterterrorism Since 9/11,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 25(5): 303–316. Hutman, B., Pinkas, A. and Siegal, J. (1994) “Wave of Riots After Hebron Massacre. Kiryat Arba Doctor Slays 39; Over 20 Palestinians Die in Aftermath,” The Jerusalem Post, February 27, 1. Juergensmeyer, M. (2000) Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Kapeliouk, A. (1996) Rabin – Political Murder, Tel-­Aviv: Sifriat Poalim (Hebrew). Karpin, M. and Friedman, I. (1999) Murder in the Name of God. Tel Aviv: Zmora-­Bitan (Hebrew). Pape, A.R. (2003) “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review, 97(3): 344–361. Pedahzur, A. and Perliger, A. (2007) Understanding Contemporary Islamic Terrorist Networks, paper presented at The American Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, IL, September. Rapoport, C. David (1984) “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions,” The American Political Science Review, 78(3): 658–677. Rapoport, C. David (2001) “The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism,” Current History, 100(650): 419–425. Sageman, M. (2004) Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sageman, M. (2007) Leaderless Jihad. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Segal, H. (1987) Dear Brothers: The Story of the Jewish Underground. Jerusalem: Keter (Hebrew).

8 Action, reaction, and overreaction Assessing the impact of terrorism upon states John Mueller

Introduction By itself, sub-­state terrorism rarely, if ever, has had significant direct historical consequences, except perhaps in a few cases of political assassination or where both the stakes and the tolerance for casualties of the terrorized are very low. Beyond this, any historically significant developments that emerge from terrorism generally derive not from the act itself, but from the reactions, or overreactions, of states and electorates to that act.1 Sometimes these reactions are self-­defeating or even self-­destructive, and very often they play into the hands of the terrorists. In many respects, then, the way to defeat terrorism is for states and peoples to exercise self-­control, to restrain their reactions, and, in particular, their desires to overreact. Moreover, although leaders have often felt differently, there may not really be a compelling political requirement to overreact.

Definitions Pretty much by definition sub-­state terrorism is a fairly insignificant event: an incidental, isolated act of mayhem perpetrated by individuals or by small groups that, whether against military or civilian targets, generally inflicts a quite limited and constrained amount of damage. If such acts become common and sustained, we no longer call the process terrorism, but insurgency, guerrilla or unconventional warfare, or, simply, war.2 The current situation in Iraq is a case in point. Although for sound political reasons President George W. Bush preferred to refer to the violence going on there as “terrorism,” most observers came to label it “insurgency.” In fact, if the sustained warfare being committed by the insurgents in Iraq is considered to be terrorism, a huge number of what have been called civil wars in the past would have to be reclassified as exercises in terrorism. Nonetheless, it remains reasonable to continue to consider the Irish Republican Army – whose activities, together with those of its opponents, resulted in the deaths of fewer than 100 people per year – to be a terrorist force. But by the same token the sustained and far more murderous activities of antigovernment forces in Algeria in the 1990s

The impact of terrorism on states   113 and in Afghanistan in the 1980s continue to be best classified as warfare. Indeed, to do otherwise would require denominating almost all primitive warfare as terrorism because it relies overwhelmingly on hit-­and-run raids, rampages, and occasional massacres, most of them directed at civilians (Keeley 1996).

Instances where terrorism may have a direct impact There are two classes of events in which terrorism does at times seem to have had a direct historical impact: assassination, and in situations where the terrorized have a low evaluation of the stakes at risk as well as a very low tolerance for casualties. If political assassination is considered to be terrorism, there do seem to be instances where it has had, or could have had, a notable historical impact. For that to occur, the figure removed must be historically significant, of course; that is, where individual people are of considerable, even decisive, historical consequence, assassination could be similarly decisive. For example, the figure of Adolf Hitler was probably a necessary cause of the World War that erupted in Europe in 1939 (Mueller 2004: 54–65; Turner 1996). Consequently, had Hitler been violently removed from the scene earlier, history would likely have been substantially altered. The deaths of Mao and especially of Stalin did appear to change history considerably (and for the better), and it seems reasonable to assume that their earlier removal by unnatural means would also have been significant (Valentino 2004). Among assassinations that actually did occur, the murder of John F. Kennedy in 1963 violently removed from office a man who, some people argue, was less likely than his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, to enter and to sustain the Vietnam War. There are historians skeptical of this speculation, but it is a plausible one. On the other side one might also note that the assassination proved consequential because the political skills of Johnson, combined with the emotional reaction to the Kennedy assassination, were vital ingredients in getting historic civil rights legislation passed in 1964. The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1994 in Israel may have had some notable negative effect on the peace process (one of the goals of the assassin), because the leader who replaced him had less prestige and was less politically skillful. Significant consequences probably also flowed from the assassinations of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and of her son, Rajiv, in 1991. The assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914 did remove a notable opponent to war from the governmental decision-­making apparatus. However, as will be discussed below, that fact alone was unlikely, by itself, to have led to war. If the terrorized entity has a low tolerance for casualties and a low evaluation of the stakes at hand as well, relatively small acts of terrorism can be important in changing its policy. United States forces sent to Lebanon in 1982 and to Somalia in 1992 were engaging in peacekeeping, a venture few Americans considered to be worth very many American lives. Thus, when terrorist bombs in the first case, or a wild firefight in the second (possibly something that could be

114   J. Mueller labeled terrorism), took the lives of a significant number of those forces, American policy shifted and the troops were withdrawn. A similar response could have occurred in Bosnia where U.S. troops were committed in late 1995. Some 67 percent of the American public said it would favor sending the troops if none were killed, but this figure plunged to 31 percent if it was suggested that 25 might die (Mueller 2002: 212). The phenomenon seems to be general. By 1997, Spanish troops had suffered 17 deaths in Bosnia policing the deeply troubled situation in postwar Mostar, and the government indicated that this was enough for them. Consequently, they withdrew from further confrontation, something that greatly encouraged the Croat gangs in the city (Hedges 1997). Similarly, in 1994 Belgium abruptly withdrew from Rwanda, and to save face urged others to do so as well, when ten of its policing troops were massacred and mutilated early in the genocide (Des Forges 1999: 618–620). Zionist terrorism may have been influential in impelling the British to leave Palestine in 1947 (Simon 2001: 43–46). However, to the degree that it did so, an important element in the process was the British government’s low tolerance for casualties in its onerous protectorate duties.

Governmental overreaction as a political ploy In some cases terrorist acts have had significant historical consequences because they are opportunistically used as an excuse for – or seized upon to carry out – a policy desired for other reasons. The terrorist acts do not trigger or cause these historically significant ventures; rather they facilitate them by shifting the emotional or political situation, making possible a policy desired for other reasons by political actors. Yet, this policy is no more necessary after the terrorist acts than it was before they took place. An important case in point is the reaction of Austria and Germany to the assassination in Sarajevo in June 1914. It is frequently suggested that that terrorist act triggered or even caused the cataclysm that soon came to be known as the Great War. It seems clear, however, that rather than causing the massive (and in the end spectacularly counterproductive) Austrian and German overreaction, the violence in Sarajevo more nearly gave some Austrian leaders an excuse to impose Serbia-­punishing policies they were seeking to carry out anyway. Concerning the episode, Richard Ned Lebow concludes: [T]he Sarajevo assassinations changed the political and psychological environment in Vienna and Berlin in six important ways, all of which may have been necessary for the decisions that led to war. First, they constituted a political challenge to which Austrian leaders believed they had to respond forcefully; anything less was expected to encourage further challenges by domestic and foreign enemies. Second, they shocked and offended Franz Josef and Kaiser Wilhelm and made both emperors more receptive to calls for decisive measures to preserve Austria’s honor and its standing as a great power. Third, they changed the policymaking context in Vienna by remov-

The impact of terrorism on states   115 ing the principal spokesman for peace. Fourth, they may have been the catalyst for Bethmann Hollweg’s gestalt shift. Fifth, they made it possible for Bethmann Hollweg to win the support of the socialists, without which he never would have risked war. Sixth, they created a psychological environment in which Wilhelm and Bethmann Hollweg could proceed in incremental steps toward war, convincing themselves at the outset that their actions were unlikely to provoke a European war, and at the end of the crisis, that others were responsible for war. (Lebow 2009: ch. 3; emphasis added) Except for the third way in this catalogue, all these apparently necessary consequences deal with emotional or calculated reactions, none of which were necessary results of the event itself. Because a terrorist gets lucky with a couple of shots in a distant province does not mean that important decision-­makers are required to shift beliefs or to give in to emotions to embrace risky (and, as it turned out, catastrophically foolish) policies they had previously rejected. Similarly, many people in the George W. Bush administration had been yearning for a war to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Many of these immediately moved into operation after 9/11 in the belief that the attacks by al-­Qaeda might have cleared the air sufficiently to allow them to carry out the policy they had been longing for – even though, in retrospect, al-­Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq. In like manner, in 2004 Vladimir Putin seized the political opportunity afforded by some Chechen terrorist acts (and by some incompetent policing measures taken by the Russian police) to enhance his control over the Russian political system – something that had absolutely nothing at all to do with the acts themselves. To say that the acts of terrorism caused this power grab would be absurd; they simply facilitated it. Regimes have frequently allowed their participation in peace talks to be importantly affected by terrorists. By stating that they will not negotiate as long as terrorist attacks continue, both the Israeli government and the British government (over Northern Ireland) effectively permitted individual terrorists to set their agendas. If those governments actually didn’t want to negotiate anyway, the terrorist acts simply supplied a convenient excuse.

Impact from overreactions to terrorism Beyond these kinds of cases, any significant historical impact which terrorism may have had seems to have derived much more from the reaction or overreaction it inspired than from anything the terrorists accomplished on their own. Sometimes states react, or overreact, to terrorist events not so much to carry out a pre-­existing agenda as simply out of rage, fear, or a desire to exact revenge. However, once again the historically consequential development derives from the reaction, not from the terrorist act itself, because the responder always could (and, as will be discussed later, sometimes does) simply ignore or at least fail to give in to the provocation.

116   J. Mueller It is common to lash out impetuously at the perceived threat without much in the way of careful analysis. In 1999, for example, responding to several vicious acts of terrorism apparently perpetrated by Chechens, the Russian government reinstituted a war against the breakaway republic that resulted in far more destruction of Russian (and, of course, Chechen) lives and property than the terrorists ever brought about. When two American embassies in Africa were bombed in 1998, killing over 200 (including a few Americans), President Bill Clinton retaliated by bombing some of Osama bin Ladin’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, which caused the Taliban-­led Afghan government to renege on pledges to extradite the troublesome and egoistic bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia, made him into an international celebrity, turned his al-­Qaeda organization into a magnet for more funds and recruits, and converted the Taliban from reluctant hosts to allies and partners of al-­Qaeda (Burke 2003: 167–168; Byman 2005: 201–203; Wright 2006: 267–268, 287–289, 354; on this process more generally, see Lake 2002). Eager to “do something” about terrorism in 1986, Ronald Reagan bombed Libya after terrorists linked to Libya had blown up a Berlin discotheque killing two people, one of them American. The bombing raid, notes Ray Takeyh, “only enhanced Qaddafi’s domestic power and led to his lionization in the developing world” (2001: 64). Moreover, although other countries did become more wary about cooperating with Qaddafi and although he reined in his rhetoric, he continued to do it. In rather short order Libyan agents murdered an American and two Britons held hostage in another country and launched several other attacks, including an attempted bombing of a U.S. officers’ club in Turkey and the attempted assassination of an American diplomat in Sudan. Two years later, Libya apparently perpetrated the bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, 187 of them Americans, and toppled the airline company into bankruptcy (Simon 2001: 197–200). Outraged by a series of terrorist attacks and shellings perpetrated by Palestinian forces based in bordering Lebanon, the Israelis moved in with massive force in 1982. By the time Israeli forces were withdrawn in 2000, vastly more Israelis among the occupying forces had been killed by harassing Arab attacks than had been killed by terrorists before 1982. Similarly, the Indian government massively overreacted to Sikh terrorism in 1984 by attacking the Sikhs’ holiest place, the Golden Temple, and engaged in other excessive military behavior. The result was a huge escalation in the conflict as large numbers of Sikhs were outraged. Among the consequences was the assassination of the Indian prime minister by two of her Sikh bodyguards and the explosion of an Air India plane in which 329 people perished, the largest death total caused by a terrorist attack until 9/11 (Pape 2005: 156–160; Simon 2001: 186). Excessive reactions to terrorism have often led to massive and unjustified persecution, some of it of considerable historic consequence. The Jewish pogroms in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century, for instance, were activated in major part because Jews were perceived by the Russians as notable in terrorist movements at the time (Rapoport 2004: 68; see also Ignatieff 2004b: 63).3

The impact of terrorism on states   117 Not only have governments often overreacted counterproductively and sometimes self-­destructively to acts of terrorism, but so have electorates. In Israel, Arab terrorists have apparently had the goal of sabotaging Israeli–Palestinian peace talks. In both 1996 and 2001, Israeli voters responded to Arab terrorism at the time by obligingly electing to office parties and prime ministers (Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon) who were, like the terrorists, hostile to the negotiations. Terrorism in Spain in 2004 is sometimes seen to have been consequential because it was almost immediately followed by the election of a party committed to withdrawing Spanish troops from the American war in Iraq. However, the election results are probably more nearly attributable to the incompetent way the ruling government reacted to the terrorist acts than to the acts themselves. In addition, the Spanish troops committed to Iraq were so small in number that their removal scarcely made much difference to the war effort. Finally, the new Spanish government actually increased its commitment to the effort in neighboring Afghanistan, an act which probably compensated for any negative military effects caused by its withdrawal from Iraq. Another common reaction to terrorism is to become overly protective and to overspend on defenses. Sometimes, victim countries can become so fearful and self-­protective (cutting off their borders or expelling a significant set of residents, for example) that significant consequences, particularly economic ones, ensue. The costs of overreaction outweigh those imposed by the terrorists even for the attacks of September 11, 2001, which were by far the most destructive in history (Mueller 2006: ch. 2). The direct economic losses of 9/11 amounted to tens of billions of dollars, but the economic costs in the United States of much-­ enhanced security runs to several times that amount. The yearly budget for the Office of Homeland Security, for example, is some US$50 billion per year, while state and local governments spend additional billions. Moreover, safety measures carry additional consequences: economist Roger Congleton calculates that strictures effectively requiring people to spend an additional half-­hour in airports cost the American economy US$15 billion per year while, in comparison, total airline profits in the 1990s never exceeded US$5.5 billion per year (Congleton 2002: 62). The reaction to 9/11 has claimed far more human lives than were lost in the terrorist attacks. Out of fear many people canceled airline trips and consequently traveled more by automobile than by airline after the event, and one study has concluded that over 1,000 people died in automobile accidents in 2001 alone between September 11 and December 31 because of this (Sivak and Flannagan 2004). Moreover, the reaction to 9/11 included the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, neither of which would have been politically possible without 9/11. The number of Americans who have perished thus far in those ventures now far exceeds the number killed on September 11. The victims can inflict disproportionate costs on themselves in the reaction to much smaller terrorist acts as well. One study investigates Italian cities and towns, most of them small, that experienced a single terrorist event. Although most of these were minor and few caused any deaths, they appear to have had a

118   J. Mueller measurable short-­term impact on employment, chiefly because marginal firms went out of business earlier and because successful ones temporarily cut back on plans to expand (Greenbaum et al. 2007). In fact, if one listens to the apocalyptic messages coming from many commentators in the United States, the reaction to substantial additional terrorism in the country would indeed have a historically strategic impact. Despite the fact that the 9/11 experience caused Americans to pull together, they confidently predict that the government and people would respond by going on a rampage of self-­destruction, a pose that can only be encouraging to terrorists, since it suggests that with relatively modest means they can end up inflicting massive damage upon their opponents. For example, Michael Ignatieff, who predicted terrorist events in connection with the 2004 elections with great assurance (2004a: 48), is at least equally certain that “inexorably, terrorism, like war itself, is moving beyond the conventional to the apocalyptic” (2004b: 146). He patiently explains in some detail how this will come about. Although Americans did allow their leaders one fatal mistake in September 2001, they simply “will not forgive another one.” If there are several large-­scale attacks, he confidently predicts, the trust that binds the people to its leadership and to each other will crumble, and the “cowed populace” will demand that tyranny be imposed upon it, and quite possibly fragment itself into a collection of rampaging lynch mobs devoted to killing “former neighbors” and “onetime friends” (2004a: 46–48). Others, such as Indiana senator Richard Lugar, are given to proclaiming that terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction present an “existential” threat to the United States (Fox News Sunday, June 15, 2003), or even, in columnist Charles Krauthammer’s view, to “civilization itself ” (2004). Harvard’s Graham Allison, too, thinks that nuclear terrorists could “destroy civilization as we know it” (2004: 191), while Joshua Goldstein is convinced that they could “destroy our society” and that a single small nuclear detonation in Manhattan would “overwhelm the nation” (2004: 145, 179). Not to be outdone, Ignatieff warns that “a group of only a few individuals equipped with lethal technologies” can threaten “the ascendancy of the modern state” (2004b: 147).4

Overreaction as an aid to terrorism Initially, Osama bin Ladin apparently expected that the United States would essentially underreact to the 9/11 attacks. Impressed in particular with the American reaction to rather small losses in Lebanon in 1983 and in Somalia in 1993 as discussed above, he appears to have believed that the country would respond to an attack on itself by withdrawing from the Middle East (Wright 2006: 174, 200). What he clearly failed to understand was that the U.S. withdrew from Lebanon and Somalia not simply because of the losses, but because it did not value the stakes very much in those humanitarian ventures. To Americans (and to others such as Canadians, Swedes, Belgians, the Red Cross), peacekeeping is simply not worth many of their own lives (See Mueller 2004, chs 7–8). By contrast, 9/11 had an impact much like Pearl Harbor. To many the country’s

The impact of terrorism on states   119 very survival was at stake in the conflict with bin Ladin’s form of terrorism, and support for confronting the danger (and for exacting revenge) was, as after Pearl Harbor, monumental. In particular, support for chasing down the terrorists in Afghanistan, even though there was a prospect for considerable American losses there, was exceedingly high – higher than at the beginnings of the wars in Vietnam, Korea, or Iraq (pollingreport.com). Bin Ladin reformulated his theory after the debacle, as the United States and its allies not only forced al-­Qaeda out of its base in Afghanistan and captured or killed many of its main people but toppled the supportive Taliban regime there. He began to claim that he was hoping for overreaction. As he put it mockingly in a videotaped message in 2004, it is easy for us to provoke and bait. . . . All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin . . . to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-­Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses. He extravagantly believes that his policy is one of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy,” and it is one that depends on overreaction by the target: he points triumphantly to the fact that the 9/11 terrorist attacks cost al-­Qaeda US$500,000 while the attack and its aftermath inflicted, he claims, a cost of more than US$500 billion on the United States (aljazeera.net, October 30, 2004).

Is overrecation required politically? The discussion thus far has stressed the hysteria and overreaction (some of it opportunistic) that has frequently been generated by terrorist acts. A reasonable policy recommendation would be to suggest that terrorism can best be defeated by refraining from counterproductive and self-­damaging overreaction. Although it is often argued that there is a political imperative for public officials to “do something” (which usually means overreact) when a dramatic terrorist event takes place, history clearly demonstrates that overreaction is not necessarily inevitable. That is, there are many instances where leaders did nothing following a terrorist attack (or at least refrained from overreacting) and did not suffer politically or otherwise. Consider, for example, the two instances of terrorism that killed the greatest number of Americans before September 2001. The first of these was the suicide bombing in Lebanon in 1983 that resulted in the deaths of 241 American Marines. Ronald Reagan’s response was to make a few speeches and eventually to pull the troops out, a response that seems to have had no negative impact on his re-­election a few months later. The other was the December 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in which 187 Americans perished. Perhaps in part because this dramatic and tragic event took place after the elections of that year, the official response, beyond seeking to obtain compensation for the victims, was simply to apply meticulous police work in an effort to

120   J. Mueller tag the culprits, a process that bore fruit only three years later and then only because of an unlikely piece of luck (Simon 2001: 227–234). But that cautious, even laid-­back response proved to be entirely acceptable politically. Similarly, following an unacceptable loss of American lives in Somalia in 1993, Bill Clinton responded by withdrawing the troops without noticeable negative impact on his 1996 re-­election bid. Although Clinton responded with (apparently counterproductive) military retaliations after the two U.S. embassies were bombed in Africa in 1998 as discussed earlier, his administration did not have a notable response to terrorist attacks on American targets in Saudi Arabia (Khobar Towers) in 1996 or to the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and these non-­responses never caused it political pain. George W. Bush’s response to the anthrax attacks of 2001 did include a costly and wasteful stocking up of anthrax vaccine and enormous extra spending by the U.S. Post Office. However, beyond that, his response was the same as Clinton’s had been to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center in 1993 and in Oklahoma City in 1995, and the same as the one applied in Spain when terrorists bombed trains there in 2004 or in Britain after attacks in 2005: the dedicated application of police work to try to apprehend the perpetrators. This approach proved to be entirely acceptable politically. Similarly, the Indian government was able to neglect popular demands for retaliatory attacks on Pakistan for the damage inflicted on Mumbai in 2008 by terrorists based there. The demands for retaliation may be somewhat more problematic in the case of suicide terrorists since the direct perpetrators of the terrorist act are already dead, thus sometimes impelling a vengeful need to seek out other targets. Nonetheless, the attacks in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, Mumbai, and against the U.S.S. Cole were all suicidal, yet no direct retaliatory action ensued. Thus, despite short-­term demands that some sort of action be taken, experience suggests that politicians can often successfully ride out this demand after the obligatory (and inexpensive) expressions of outrage are prominently issued.5 This may hold even in extreme cases such as 9/11 where it seems likely that a communicative leader could have pursued more patient, more gradual, and less expensive policies.6 Although a requirement to “do something” would need to be fulfilled, a policy emphasizing agile coordination with other countries (almost all of them, including the crucial one, Pakistan, very eager to cooperate after the shock) and one stressing pressure on the Afghan regime and the application of policing and intelligence methods to shore up defenses and to go after al-­Qaeda and its leadership could probably have been sold to the public. The Afghan war (and less so the war in Iraq) was not clearly or specifically required from a political standpoint, and lesser measures might have worked politically if they showed some tangible results.

Notes 1 For an examination of this issue from a different perspective, see Abrahms 2006. 2 On this definitional approach, see Mueller 2004: 18–20.

The impact of terrorism on states   121 3 On the often deadly and indiscriminate overreaction to anarchist terrorism in the United States and elsewhere, see Jensen 2002. 4 For a different conclusion, see Mueller 2010. 5 There may be in this regard some advantage to a presidential system in which the leader cannot be removed immediately from office, over a parliamentary system in which instant removal is possible and rather common. For example, in 1982 Argentina invaded Britain’s Falkland Islands, a desolate, nearly barren territory populated by fewer than 2,000 souls, and one British response might have been: “Right. You can have the islands, but we get to keep the sheep.” Objectively, given the low value of the stakes, this might have made some sense, but instead a war ensued. Although fewer than 1,000 people died in the ten-­week war, that cost, considering the value of the stakes, made the war quite possibly the most brutal in history. Moreover, in the aftermath of that war the British felt it necessary to send a protective force to the Falklands that was larger than the civilian population so protected, and the combined cost of the war and of the postwar defensive buildup through the 1980s alone came to over US$3 million for every liberated Falklander (Freedman 1988: 116). However, the British people were outraged by the invasion, and had Margaret Thatcher’s government simply surrendered – as the Portuguese did when India abruptly took over their colony of Goa in 1961 – she would very likely have been immediately removed from office. She was never so tempted, but the parliamentary system’s capacity to visit instant political defeat upon leaders in times of emotional crisis did not allow her to consider less costly alternatives, while the presidential system would have afforded a leader that luxury. 6 On possible alternative policies after Pearl Harbor, see Mueller 1995: ch. 7.

Bibliography Abrahms, Max (2006) “Why Terrorism Does Not Work.” International Security, 31(2): 42–78. Allison, Graham (2004) Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. New York: Times Books. Burke, Jason (2003) Al-­Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. New York: Tauris. Byman, Daniel (2005) Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Congleton, Roger D. (2002) “Terrorism, Interest-­group Politics, and Public Policy,” Independent Review, 7(1): 47–67. Des Forges, Alison (1999) “Leave None to Tell the Story”: Genocide in Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch. Freedman, Lawrence (1988) Britain and the Falklands War. Oxford: Blackwell. Goldstein, Joshua S. (2004) The Real Price of War: How You Pay for the War on Terror. New York: New York University Press. Greenbaum, Robert, Gary LaFree, and Laura Dugan (2007) “The Impact of Terrorism on Italian Employment and Business Activity,” Urban Studies, 44(5/6):1093–1108. Hedges, Chris (1997) “On Bosnia’s Ethnic Fault Lines, It’s Still Tense, But World Is Silent,” New York Times, February 28: A1. Ignatieff, Michael (2004a) “Lesser Evils: What It Will Cost Us to Succeed in the War on Terror,” New York Times Magazine, May 2: 44ff. —— (2004b) The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Jensen, Richard Bach (2002) “The United States, International Policing and the War against Anarchist Terrorism, 1900–1914,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 13(1): 15–46.

122   J. Mueller Keeley, Lawrence H. (1996) War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage. New York: Oxford University Press. Krauthammer, Charles (2004) “Blixful Amnesia,” Washington Post, July 9: A19. Lake, David A. (2002) “Rational Extremism: Understanding Terrorism in the Twenty-­ first Century,” Dialog-­IO Spring: 15–29. Lebow, Richard Ned (2009) Forbidden Fruit: Counterfactuals and International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mueller, John (1995) Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World Politics. New York: HarperCollins. —— (2002) “American Foreign Policy and Public Opinion in a New Era: Eleven Propositions,” in Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox (eds) Understanding Public Opinion. Washington D.C.: CQ Press, pp. 149–72. —— (2004) The Remnants of War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. —— (2006) Overblown. New York: Free Press. —— (2010) Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al Qaeda. New York: Oxford University Press. Pape, Robert A. (2005) Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House. Pillar, Paul R. (2003) Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. Rapoport, David C. (2004) “Modern Terror: The Four Waves,” in Audrey K. Cronin and James M. Ludes (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 46–73. Simon, Jeffrey D. (2001) The Terrorist Trap: America’s Experience with Terrorism, 2nd edn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sivak, Michael, and Michael J. Flannagan (2004) “Consequences for Road Traffic Fatalities of the Reduction in Flying following September 11, 2001,” Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 7(4–5): 301–305. Takeyh, Ray (2001) “The Rogue Who Came in From the Cold,” Foreign Affairs, 80(3): 62–72. Turner, Henry Ashby, Jr. (1996) “Hitler’s Impact on History,” in David Wetzel (ed.) From the Berlin Museum to the Berlin Wall: Essays on the Cultural and Political History of Modern Germany. Westport, CT: Praeger, pp. 109–126. Valentino, Benjamin (2004) Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Wright, Lawrence (2006) The Looming Tower: Al-­Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf.

9 Backlash Reactions against terrorism studies Leonard Weinberg and William Lee Eubank

Introduction The study of terrorism as a serious academic enterprise has been active for approximately 40 years. The period involved coincides, more or less, with what David Rapoport describes as the Third and Fourth Waves of modern terrorism. These waves have been driven respectively by revolutionary and religious concerns. Throughout these episodes critics have claimed studies of terrorism have suffered from major flaws, not least of them the difficulty in achieving consensus over the definition of the term. This chapter reviews the various criticisms of terrorism studies made over the years with attention to critical terrorism studies (CTS), which is the most recent critique of the mainstream study of terrorist violence. This chapter describes the backlash against contemporary studies of terrorist violence. It seeks to evaluate the criticisms directed against this body of work over the past several decades. Because these mainstream studies coincided with the emergence of David Rapoport’s Third Wave of terrorism, and continued into his current Fourth Wave period, the critiques reflect the same periodicity. Rapoport believes that modern terrorism should be divided into four waves, each dominated by a particular political perspective. The Third Wave represents the terrorism of the 1960s and 1970s whose perpetrators typically claimed to be acting on behalf of left-­wing revolutionary principles. The Fourth Wave, or the “new terrorism” of the current period, was inspired by extreme religious beliefs. Critiques of terrorist studies are intertwined with changing approaches to the subject and are both ideological and methodological in nature. Our commentary follows this linked chronology of terrorist waves, modes of analysis, and accompanying critiques (Rapoport 2004: 46–73; Rasler and Thompson 2009: 28–42; Simon 2010). While our perspective is that of researchers belonging to the mainstream of social science inquiry who approach the study of terrorism with curiosity about its causes and consequences, our own commentary is not part of a war of words often fought in the media between defenders and opponents of terrorist violence. Rather, it is about the reaction or backlash against terrorism studies by academics principally in the United States and Great Britain which has intensified in

124   L. Weinberg and W.L. Eubank recent years. Originally, the critics tended to rationalize the activities of what governments in the United States and United Kingdom labeled terrorism, as the legitimate struggle of the “wretched of the earth” to wage armed struggles against the rich and powerful. Marxists, neo-­Marxists, and those engaged in post-­colonial studies became ardent critics of terrorism as a concept. In recent years, a new school of thought has emerged, critical terrorism studies (CTS), which applies the lessons of critical theory in general to the problem of terrorism. For reasons we outline below, we think CTS really represents the continuation of a broadly conceived ideological critique of the mainstream study of terrorism as it was developed over the years by many American and British scholars and is not a novel critique. There is, in fact, nothing particularly unusual in accusations that the work of mainstream terrorism scholars reflects a bias in favor of state authority in Britain and the United States. This view has been articulated by many critics over the years (Ahmed 2003: 123–137; Bjorgo 2003). What does seem new about CTS is the absence of virtually any sympathy for the insurgent groups involved in conducting terrorist attacks. In effect, for CTS advocates epistemological considerations combined with normative observations have replaced ideology as the basis for criticism of conventional terrorism studies since the mid-­1990s. Almost from the beginning of what Walter Laqueur labeled the Age of Terrorism in the late 1960s, the concept of terrorism has been the subject of intense criticism. For the most part, the first wave of criticism came from the terrorists themselves and their state supporters, usually from the Third World. These criticisms included the complaint that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” In other words, the very idea of terrorism was subjective; its meaning varied depending on the political perspectives of those using it. The matter of terrorism went beyond epistemological questions because of the highly negative connotation the term carried with it. Thus those who skyjacked airliners, set off bombs in public places, seized hostages, etc., typically claimed that the other side, often various state agencies, really provoked the violence in the first place. Spokespersons for governments in the Middle East and elsewhere often reacted by invoking the legacy of colonialism: those engaged in terrorism were simply waging struggles of national liberation against the forces of racism, colonialism, and national oppression. The term terrorism then was being used by oppressor states, Israel especially, to mask the just struggles of the oppressed. Third Wave terrorism, the revolutionary terrorist violence of the 1960s and 1970s, emerged in different parts of the world. In Latin American urban guerrilla bands sought to promote revolution in Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia. In the Middle East, following the June 1967 Arab-­Israeli war, various secular – often Marxist – Palestinian factions, notably the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, staged terrorist attacks on Israeli targets both in the Middle East and Western Europe as a means of calling worldwide attention to the Palestinian cause. In Western Europe and North America a number of violent

Reactions against terrorism studies   125 New Left organizations in Italy, West Germany, France, Belgium, Turkey, and Greece, and the United States staged terrorist attacks in the major cities in the hope that these events would serve the cause of the proletariat, either domestic or international. In Northern Ireland, the Basque region of Spain, and in Croatia (then part of Yugoslavia) nationalist groups, often using Marxist rhetoric, sought to achieve the groups’ nationalist or separatist objectives. These groups were represented by the Red Brigades, Red Army Faction, November 17, the Weather Underground, the IRA, the PKK, and ETA. Curious about the reasons for these violent developments, scholars – David Rapoport, Ehud Sprinzak, Brian Jenkins, Martha Crenshaw, Walter Laqueur, Paul Wilkinson, Bruce Hoffman, and Jerrold Post – began to study the terrorist phenomenon on a systematic basis. Their work was frequently subject to criticism from New Left scholars on both substantive and methodological grounds. Substantively, New Left critics of the 1960s and 1970s reacted by adopting the point of view of Frantz Fanon (1963), i.e., by articulating what we might call the “wretched of the earth” argument. These critics claimed terrorism studies focused almost exclusively on efforts of groups that championed the poor, desperate, and weak to challenge the status quo (Zulaika and Douglass 1996). If these groups used unconventional violence against non-­traditional targets, such as skyjacking airline passengers and attacking passersby, the critics argued that the amount of violence involved, although dramatic, was rarely very great, with minimal property damage and usually a small number of casualties. According to these critics, the number of victims was especially limited when it was compared to state terrorism (Herman and O’Sullivan 1989: 3–51). These early critics cited the apartheid regime in South Africa as an example of state terrorism, which was willing to use exceptionally brutal forms of violence in order to maintain the system of racial supremacy (see Schutz, Chapter 12). In Latin America during the 1970s, military dictatorships or bureaucratic authoritarian regimes commonly employed torture, murder, and fatal disappearances to defeat the forces opposed to the existing distribution of wealth, power, and status in society (Duvall and Stohl 1983: 179–210). Furthermore, the critics singled out the United States for criticism. Critics pointed out that under the Johnson and Nixon administrations America participated in state terror, as illustrated by America’s active role in establishing, for example, the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA, and in training and equipping the forces of repression throughout Latin America. The New Left critics also claimed conventional terrorism studies were ideologically biased. In Italy, Northern Ireland, and throughout Latin America there was an abundance of right-­wing death squads or neo-­fascist bands (e.g., the anti-­ Communist Hunting Club (Brazil), the New Order and the National Youth Vanguard (Italy)), which employed terrorism against their usually left-­wing opponents. According to the critics, those scholars who developed the field of terrorism studies chose to ignore or deliberately downplay the terrorism of the far Right, which showed the mainstream scholars to be conservatively biased. Such critical selectivity, the critics believe, continues to this day. In making

126   L. Weinberg and W.L. Eubank these observations these critics ignored the research by the conventional scholars into state terror, new Right or neo-­fascist terrorism and the like (Gurr 1986: 47–71). These same early critics of terrorism studies also scrutinized the sources of support for what came to be called the “terrorism industry.” Many of those drawn to terrorism studies had ties, direct or indirect, to various government agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Department in particular. Critics also noted the role of the Rand Corporation in studying terrorism on behalf of these and other government agencies. In Israel the Institute for Counter-­Terrorism (ICT) also came under fire for its allegedly analogous complicity. In short, according to the critics, terrorism studies were an enterprise whose practitioners derived their intellectual and financial sustenance from the powers-­that-be in the United States and, increasingly, Israel as well. These critiques anticipated Silke’s observation, some 20 years on: “Research on terrorism is almost entirely funded by one side in the terrorism equation: the government’s . . . most research on terrorism its causes, its manifestations and its treatment – are paid by the government” (Silke 2004: 18). In addition to anticipating the terrorism industry, the early critics anticipated complaints of Fourth Wave critics about quantitative approaches to the study of terrorism. The methods employed by scholars studying Third Wave terrorism came in for serious, diverse, and inconsistent criticism. Critics of Third Wave terrorism studies complained about the anecdotal nature of much of the work. It was claimed that instead of conducting systematic interviews with terrorists and those around them, scholars imposed sweeping generalizations about terrorists and terrorism based on a handful of illustrations heightened by the scholars’ often vivid imaginations. Likewise, some journalists, clinical psychologists, and public intellectuals generally claimed to possess special knowledge of terrorism based on their own subjective insights into human behavior (Hacker 1976, Sterling 1981). On the other hand, terrorism scholars who developed datasets by collecting information about terrorist events, including the backgrounds of terrorists, their tactics, and the number of casualties they inflicted, were criticized for relying on newspaper accounts and government sources. This was a common complaint of early dataset construction. In both instances the claim was one of selection bias. Newspaper accounts, the critics argued, tended to ignore terrorist events that took place in obscure places and obscure countries. Data concerning terrorist events provided by the government were also claimed to have built-­in biases, generally political. For example, the critics claimed that few government agencies responsible for combating terrorism had an incentive to minimize the severity of the threat and that an element of selectivity was involved. Not surprisingly, the State Department and other government agencies used their annual lists of terrorist events to highlight only developments to which the relevant agencies wished to call attention. Those who relied on these lists to build databases inevitably included the biases, with obvious effects on scholarship. A variant of this complaint surfaces during the end of the Fourth Wave as “open source bias.”

Reactions against terrorism studies   127 This means that because open media sources (newspapers, the internet, and blogs) are concentrated in democratic countries, such databases suffer from a democratic bias. Non-­democratic states suppress these sources, so any database misses, it is surmised, a large amount of terrorist activity. Both mainstream scholars and those engaged in CTS make this criticism.1 Another criticism leveled against conventional terrorism studies during the Third Wave period was its ahistorical character (Rapoport 1984: 658–677). By ahistorical the critics meant there was an absence in conventional studies of much discussion of the historical context out of which various terrorist groups emerged. Scholars paid little attention, the critics claimed, to the “root causes” of Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. These attacks were depicted as senseless, lacking both rhyme and reason. The critics of course knew better, since a glance at the pre-­Oslo Accord, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) charters of 1964 and 1968 would reveal a commitment to the destruction of Israel. On the contrary, much of the early, Third Wave literature on terrorism was of a historical nature and sought to place the phenomenon in a wider context than newspaper headlines provided. I have tried to show this by citing a number of historical accounts that were published during this period. By the end of the 1970s and at the beginning of the 1980s a Fourth Wave of terrorist violence began to take hold in various parts of the world. This new terrorism differed from the prior wave in a number of ways. While the Third Wave was dominated by secular ideologies, post-­colonial politics, and revolutionary aspirations, this new wave was strongly oriented around religion. This meant, among other things, the appearance of apocalyptic cults such as Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. Fringe groups of both Christian and Jewish traditions appeared in North America (e.g., Christian Identity/Aryan Nations and Israel’s Kach Party of the late Meier Kahane) which were prepared to use terrorist violence on behalf of racial and religious goals (Juergensmeyer 2001: 17–48). The Fourth Wave came to be dominated by the emergence of Middle Eastern and South Asian radical Islamist groups such as Egypt’s Islamic Group and Jihad, the Palestinian Hamas organization, and Jaish-­e Muhammad, Lashkar-­e Taiba, and Tahrik-­e Taliban of South Asia. The Iranian Revolution (1978–1979) initiated a Shi’ite revival throughout the Middle East and promoted the formation of Hizbollah and other militant groups, such as the Mahdi Army, active in Iraq following the March 2003 American-­led invasion. The Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan, inflicted by local tribal groups and holy warriors from the Arab world, led to the formation of al-­Qaeda, which began to wage jihad against the apostate regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as the “far enemy” that allegedly maintained them in power, the United States. Fourth Wave terrorism has also been distinguished from the Third Wave by the willingness of the groups involved to inflict mass casualties (Neumann 2009: 17–48). If the Third Wave terrorist attacks tended to be relatively selective in the choice of targets (e.g., despised political leaders, hated policemen, and foreign businessmen), the new terrorists were often committed to mass killing. Al-­ Qaeda’s destruction of the World Trade Center’s towers in September 2001 was

128   L. Weinberg and W.L. Eubank the most dramatic example of this tactic of terrorism’s Fourth (i.e., Religious) Wave. Further, if airliner skyjacking was the exemplary deed of Third Wave terrorism (see above), religious terrorism has been dominated by suicide bombings. Suicide bombings were first used in Lebanon against Western targets and later emulated throughout the Middle East, South Asia, and Western Europe. Some have maintained that Fourth Wave terrorists have also been interested in the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (Allison 2004). But the evidence to support this view seems relatively meager. If anything, the new terrorism has been characterized by the use of conventional devices employed in innovative ways (Rapoport 1999: 49–67). Unlike the revolutionary terrorist groups active in the 1960s and 1970s, the contemporary practitioners of Fourth Wave terrorism have elicited little sympathy from the critics of terrorism studies. Ending capitalist exploitation of the toiling masses by promoting socialism was seen as a progressive goal by many New Left critics of conventional Third Wave studies. These critics complained that scholars involved in terrorism studies were reactionaries attempting to thwart the militant groups involved in promoting social and political change. This spirit was captured by a critic writing to a Dutch newspaper in 1989: “It is clear that so-­called terrorism is the logical and just resistance of the people against state terrorism, capitalism, racism, sexism and imperialism” (“Letter to the Editor,” Leidsch Dagblad, March 17, 1989). The type of sympathy expressed by the letter-­writer seems largely missing from the critiques of conventional terrorism studies by the newer critics of Fourth Wave terrorism studies.2 Since al-­Qaeda and other violent Islamist groups apparently want to restore the House of Islam to the way they imagined it appeared in the seventh or eighth centuries, critics of terrorism studies have found it hard to depict these Islamist organizations as promoting progressive changes in the Middle East or anywhere else. Perhaps as a consequence of such backward-­looking goals as the subordination of women, honor killings, and the murder of innocent tribesmen in Darfur, contemporary criticism of mainstream terrorism studies has undergone some modification. As Martha Crenshaw observed, 9/11, along with subsequent attacks on Bali, Istanbul, Casablanca, Madrid, and London, brought the most far-­reaching changes in Washington since the beginning of the Cold War in the period 1946 to 1949. New policies and new federal agencies were created and old ones reorganized in efforts to wage a War on Terrorism against those responsible for the attacks that killed more Americans than the December 7, 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor. Criticisms of terrorism studies have tended to reflect these post-­ 9/11 developments. An argument suggested by John Mueller concludes that the threat posed to Americans and other Westerners by al-­Qaeda has been vastly exaggerated. As Mueller writes, “For all the attention it evokes, terrorism, in reasonable context, actually causes rather little damage, and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic” (Mueller 2006: 13 and Chapter 8, this volume; Mack et al. 2007). Mueller and others argue that the vast amount

Reactions against terrorism studies   129 of money and other resources devoted to the war on terrorism following the 9/11 attacks far exceeded the enhanced level of security they were intended to supply (Mueller 2009). Mueller’s argument is an economic one, a cost–benefit, cost– effectiveness approach. However, the reactions to terrorism are largely political and, in democratic societies, are responsive to the demands of citizens – a values-­driven approach. Governments ignore such demands at their peril. Related to Mueller’s overblown contention are concerns about the corrosive effects of American (and other governments’) counter-­terrorism policies on civil liberties in the United States and on human rights generally. Efforts to enhance security inevitably require additional surveillance, secret by definition, which may ensnare ordinary citizens and have the potential for suppressing, or chilling, legal behavior, and in the long run affect citizens’ willingness to engage in open political discourse. The critics also claim that unlimited detention will lead to the development of an oppressive state that moves against its opponents. But for the worrying, at present, there seems little evidence that this is so. Echoing earlier, Third Wave complaints, critics claim that many scholars involved in terrorism studies have become part of the terrorism industry. Following 9/11, the argument goes, terrorism studies, which had usually been treated as a subfield of national security studies and were of limited interest to policy-­ makers, underwent a substantial transformation, becoming a central and important field of study in its own right. Government agencies and private foundations lavished resources on universities, research institutes, faculty, and consultants to support work in the field. Researchers engaged in what was then – and still is – called the terrorism studies industry became widely recognized and all benefited. The industry as a whole benefited enormously, because the George W. Bush administration assigned the War on Terrorism such a high priority and rewarded those who helped wage this war. Under these circumstances, critics argue, those engaged in terrorism studies often have quite tangible incentives to exaggerate the extent of the terrorist threat. If the threat was exaggerated and exploited for domestic political purposes, as in the 2004 presidential elections, then scholars belonging to the terrorism industry must share some of the blame for the exaggeration and consequences. It is the War on Terrorism that has recently produced a new backlash among some critical academics seeking to create a new subfield of critical terrorism studies (CTS). CTS has been organized primarily by American, English, and Australian academics. Prior to the war on terrorism, researchers engaged in mainstream terrorism research have tended to publish their work in the two established journals, Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism; while the practitioners of the new CTS have their own journal or counter-­journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism, in which to voice their dissent. What do these dissenters have to say? First, there is the adoption of a critical perspective that combines normative and prescriptive explanation with practical solutions for the cure of a supposed social ill (Burke 2008: 37–49). If conventional terrorism studies adopt the basic premises of positivist social science inquiry, then its critics assert CTS involves

130   L. Weinberg and W.L. Eubank a denial of an objective reality and meaning of words, coupled with a radical subjectivity of all understanding. CTS advocates claim that politics and society in general must be understood as a construction that dominates the narrative of a culture and does not permit rival narratives (Zalta 2005). One CTS writer claims, “Knowledge is utterly intertwined with the exercise and production of power” (Burke 2007: 1). Accordingly, CTS understands that knowledge is always intimately connected to power, that knowledge is “always for someone and for some purpose” and that “regimes of truth” function to entrench certain hierarchies of power and exclude alternative, counter-­hegemonic forms of knowledge and practice. (Jackson 2007: 26) Critics contend that knowledge is contingent, never neutral, and, in the case of conventional terrorism studies, almost always serves the interest of the state and those who exercise power on its behalf. Second, CTS scholars are reluctant to use the term terrorism itself because of their awareness of its pejorative, normative meaning and the way they claim it is used to manipulate public perceptions. The similarities between this new CTS argument and that of the post-­colonial period’s “wretched of the earth” arguments are obvious. CTS scholars stress the political importance of “terrorism discourse,” which they think discredits and marginalizes groups that oppose state power. The CTS outlook, by contrast, refuses to privilege the state. In fact, CTS encourages the study of state terrorism, particularly the policies and actions of the American government following 9/11 – the Abu Ghraib excesses, indefinite detention without habeas corpus at Guantanamo Bay, so-­called rendition of terrorists and terrorist suspects to other countries for interrogation, waterboarding, the post-­ 9/11 Patriot Act legislation, and the violation of the human rights of those suspected of terrorist involvements (Gunning 2007: 363–393). Yet, these criticisms ignore the volume of work, published in the 1960s through the 1980s, which made the same claims, and past and current investigations about the very abuses cited by critical terrorism scholars (Silke 2004: 1–29; Hermann and O’Sullivan 1989). To respond to the CTS criticism mainstream scholars would have to use the very things the CTS scholars react against: “objective,” data-­driven analysis. The CTS scholars appear to want it both ways. CTS scholars also object to the problem-­solving approach adopted by conventional observers of terrorist activity. Instead of focusing on the broad or underlying causes which give rise to terrorist activity, mainstream scholars tend to deal with the problem narrowly and on a case-­by-case basis, rather than adopting the explicitly normative stance of critical theory (Gunning 2007: 236–242). If the purpose of conventional terrorism studies is to assist the state in waging its war on terrorism, or on terrorism with a global reach, CTS scholars’ purposes are commitments to universal and societal security, not to narrowly defined national security. Yet, CTS scholars seem to want to enter the very industry they

Reactions against terrorism studies   131 critique. By asking for re-­evaluations of definitions, methods and approaches, and creating still another academic publication outlet, Critical Studies on Terrorism, the traditional study of terrorism retains an explicitly problem-­solving focus. Others are less restrained in their criticism of the new journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism, CTS in general: [F]or the real . . . purpose of the journal is to expose the questionable “ontological, epistemological and ideological commitments of existing terrorism studies” . . . this . . . becomes . . . apparent as one wades through the congealed prose, obscure jargon, philosophical posturing and concentrated anti-­ Western self-­loathing that comprise the core of this journal’s first edition. The journal in other words is not intended, as one might assume, to evaluate critically those state or non-­state actors that might have recourse to terrorism as a strategy. Instead, the journal’s ambition is to deconstruct what it views as the ambiguity of the word “terror,” its manipulation by ostensibly liberal democratic state actors, and the complicity of “orthodox” terrorism in this authoritarian enterprise. (Jones and Smith 2009: 292–293) Again, we believe that CTS is not particularly new and simply represents the evolution of the long-­standing criticisms of mainstream terrorism studies as they have developed over the years. Nor is there anything unique about the accusation that traditional scholars’ work reflects a bias in favor of state authority in Britain or the United States. As we noted earlier, many critics have articulated this view over the years. What does seem new about CTS is the absence of virtually any sympathy for the insurgent groups involved, perhaps because the critics call into question the worth of the religious fundamentalism at the heart of Fourth Wave terrorism. In effect CTS advocates substitute modes of meaning and interpretation for political ideology – that of the wretched of the earth – as the basis for criticism of conventional terrorism studies. Finally, if there is an underlying purpose behind the two critical perspectives on terrorism studies we have reviewed in this chapter – namely the earlier “wretched of the earth” bias and the subsequent CTS – it has been to shift the moral responsibility for the injuries and deaths carried out by the current Religious Wave’s terrorists from the perpetrators to Western, liberal, democratic states. From the critics’ point of view the terrorists and their supporters are the real victims of injustice, whose excesses pale in comparison to those committed by the United States, Britain, and the other democracies. This view does not distinguish critical terrorism studies from earlier perspectives, and may simply constitute the same old vinegar poured into new bottles.

132   L. Weinberg and W.L. Eubank

Notes 1 This criticism, melded with the ideological bias alleged in prior sources, is a continuing sub silento complaint about quantification. 2 The exception here might be expressed sympathy for attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on Israeli targets, or Jews more generally.

Bibliography Ahmed, H. (2003) “Palestinian Resistance and ‘Suicide Bombing’: Causes and Consequences,” in T. Bjorgo (ed.) Root Causes of Terrorism. New York: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, pp. 123–137. Allison, G. (2004) Nuclear Terrorism. New York: Times Books. Bjorgo, T. (ed.) (2003) Root Causes of Terrorism. New York: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Burke, A. (2007) “The End of Terrorism Studies,” Critical Studies on Terrorism, 1. Burke, A. (2008) “The End of Terrorism Studies,” Critical Studies on Terrorism, 1(1): 37–49. Duvall, R. and M. Stohl (1983) The Politics of Terrorism. New York: Marcel Dekker. Fanon, F. (1963) The Wretched Earth. New York: Grove Press. Gunning, J. (2007a) “A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies,” Government and Opposition, 3: 363–393. Gunning, J. (2007b) “Babies and Bathwaters: Reflecting on the Pitfalls of Critical Terrorism Studies,” Government and Opposition, 42(3): 363–393. Gurr, T. (1986) “The Political Origins of State Violence and Terror,” in M. Stohl and G. Lopez (eds) Government Violence and Repression. New York: Greenwood Press, pp. 47–71. Hacker, F. (1976) Crusaders, Criminals and Crazies. New York: W.W. Norton. Herman, E. and G. O’Sullivan (1989) The ‘Terrorism’ Industry. New York: Pantheon Books. Jackson, R. (2007) “The Core Commitments of Critical Terrorism Studies,” European Consortium for Political Research, 246. Jones, M.D. and M. Smith (2009) “We’re All Terrorists Now: Critical-­Hypocritical Studies ‘on’ Terrorism,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 32: 292–302. Juergensmeyer, M. (2001) Terror in the Mind of God. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mack, A. (ed.) (2007) Human Security Brief. Ottawa: Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Mueller, J. (2006) Overblown. New York: The Free Press. Mueller, J. (2009) The Quixotic Quest for Vulverability: Assessing the Costs, Benefits and Probabilities of Protecting the Homeland. Unpublished manuscript. Neumann, P. (2009) Old & New Terrorism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rapoport, D. (1984) “Fear and Trembling: Terror in Three Religious Traditions,” The American Political Science Review, 78 (3): 658–677. Rapoport, D. (1999) “Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse,” National Security Studies Quarterly, 5(3): 49–67. Rapoport, D. (2004) “Modern Terror: The Four Waves,” in A.K. Cronin and J. L. Kudes (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, pp. 46–73. Rasler, K. and W. P. Thompson (2009) “Looking for Waves of Terrorism,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 21(1): 28–42.

Reactions against terrorism studies   133 Silke, A. (2004) “An Introduction to Terrorism Research,” in A. Silke (ed.) Research of Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures. London: Frank Cass, pp. 1–29. Silke, A. (2004) Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures. London: Cass. Simon, J. (2010) Terrorism Legitimacy, and Identity: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. London: Routledge. Sterling, C. (1981) The Terror Network. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Zalta, E.A. (ed.) (2005) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Online. Available at: http:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-­theory/. March 8. Zulaika, J. and W. Douglass (1996) Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism. New York: Routledge.

Part III

Identity, legitimacy, and political violence

10 Before the bombs there were the mobs American experiences with terror David C. Rapoport

Shirked by our historians, the subject has been repressed in the national consciousness. We have been victims of what members of the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence have called a ‘historical amnesia.’ Yet it is not simply that historians have found a way of shrugging off the unhappy memories of our past; our amnesia is also a response [to] the experience of a whole generation. . . . For the long span from about 1938 to the mid-­1960s . . . the internal life of the country was unusually free of violent episodes. Americans who came of age during and after the 1930s found it easy to forget how violent a people their forebears had been. (Richard Hofstadter and Michael Wallace 1970: 3–4)

Introduction Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite in 1866 made modern terrorism possible.1 Fourteen years later revolutionary pamphlets were published to show how the new tool enabled small groups, and even individuals under the cover of surprise to frighten and influence masses,2 which is why the first modern terrorists virtually worshipped dynamite. One letter in the American anarchist journal Alarm (February 24, 1885) was later used at the Haymarket Trial in Chicago 1886. It read in part: In giving dynamite to the downtrodden millions of the globe, science has done its best work. The dear stuff can be carried around in the pocket without danger, while it is a formidable weapon against any force of militia, police, or detectives that may want to stifle the call of justice that goes forth from the plundered slaves . . . It brings terror only to the guilty. (Avrich 1984: 170) After two frightening decades of modern terror, German newspapers, expressing a widespread anxiety felt in the West, proclaimed: “society dances on a volcano . . . a small group of fanatics terrorize the entire human race” (Bach Jensen 2004: 116–117; see also Grob-­Fitzgibbon 2004). Explosives continued to be a cardinal feature of terrorist activity throughout the next century, a pattern likely to remain with us for the foreseeable future.

138   D.C. Rapoport But terrorism did not begin with explosives. It existed for at least two millennia before that date.3 This chapter focuses on only one form of terrorism, “mob terror,” modern terror’s immediate predecessor which curiously has not yet been discussed in terrorist studies. We will focus on two very familiar American examples: the “Sons of Liberty” (1765–1776), which precipitated the American Revolution and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) (1867–1877), which emerged after the Civil War and was an indispensable ingredient in successfully resisting efforts to “impose” democracy on the South. The KKK was revived several times later, but our concern is limited to this decade only.4 Neither group had an international dimension. The KKK functioned only in the territories of the South. The Sons of Liberty operated only in the colonies making no move to seek international help, although after the War for Independence broke out and a legitimate government emerged, international support was sought and materialized. The mobs, in striking contrast to modern terrorists, always greatly outnumbered potential victims. They were not unique to America, as Benjamin Franklin’s experiences in London reveal: I have seen within the year riots in the country about corn; riots about elections; riots about work-­houses, riots of colliers, riots of weavers; riots of coal-­heavers; riots of sawyers, riots of Wilkesites; riots of government chairmen; riots of smugglers in which customhouse officers and excise men have been murdered, and the King’s armed vessels and troops fired at. (Quoted in Schlesinger 1955: 246) But there was a striking difference between the Americans and their European contemporaries. The Americans organized campaigns that persisted for a decade, while European riots were episodic. George Rudé (1981) describes the crowd activities as lasting a few days normally, though in a few cases like the Gordon Riots of 1780, rioters were out on the streets for several weeks.5 The American cases have been rarely compared.6 One reason for that omission may be our “historical amnesia” that Hofstadter emphasizes. A second, probably more compelling, reason is that few imagine (or want to imagine) the Sons of Liberty as a terrorist group, while today we are all comfortable in seeing the KKK that way. The radically different purposes and achievements of the two are what we remember, or perhaps more precisely want to remember, most about them. The problem represented here is familiar and has plagued terrorism discourse since the 1940s and has led to the cliché, “One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.”7 The Sons of Liberty were “freedom fighters” and the KKK, “terrorists.” But the issue is more complicated than the cliché suggests. Freedom fighter refers to an end, while terror is a means. One can be both a freedom fighter and a terrorist. The two groups used very similar methods, namely violence unrestricted by the rules of war to pursue political agendas, and those methods are our subject here. Our principal concern will be with the methods employed, but some attention will be paid to the ends served.8 First, we will provide separate descriptions of

American experiences with terror   139 the two groups. The second section examines the Sons of Liberty, while the third treats the KKK. After that, the two groups are compared, and the final section revisits the initial issue raised in the introduction, namely the significance of comparing mob violence and modern terror.

The Sons of Liberty 1765–1776: initiating a revolution They trusted to horror rather than homicide.

(Arthur Schlesinger 1955: 249)

I was engaged in a famous Cause . . . of Scarborough vs. a Mob that broke into his House . . . The Terror and Distress, the Distraction and Horror of this Family cannot be described by words or painted upon Canvass. It is enough to move a Statue, to melt a Heart of Stone, to read the Story. A Mind susceptible of the Feelings of Humanity . . . must burn with Resentment and Indignation, at such outrageous Injuries. These private Mobs, I do and will detest. (John Adams in Hoerder 1977: 83) The colonial legislatures were fiercely opposed to the Stamp Act of 1765, a form of taxation they had never experienced before. When the Crown could not be persuaded to back down, a series of riots erupted. The Crown finally developed an alternative tax policy, but mob violence continued for a decade. The cleavages developed new political dimensions never anticipated by the initial participants themselves. When the troubles began some ten years before no one could have foreseen this outcome and few if any could have desired it. Virtually everyone believed that the difficulties could be and should be developed within the framework of the Empire. Hence, opinion had been divided even among patriots in the use of [mob] violence. Men like James Otis and John Dickinson earnestly counseled against it as not only unworthy of the cause, but . . . far more likely to alienate England than induce concessions. (Schlesinger 1955: 249; emphasis added) Over time, Governeur Morris noted that the mobs began to “think and reason” in order to move the resistance in ways that surprised all observers (Gilje 1996: 37).9 “Mob violence,” an eighteenth-­century term still used by some historians, has connotations that do not fit the Sons of Liberty experience well. The Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences defines, “a mob [as] an angry crowd that attempts to inspire or destroy an object” and its activities do not involve “an implementation of a rational policy . . . Mob spirit refers to highly emotional and poorly coordinated behavior and expression” (Bernard 1933; emphasis added). (Subsequent issues (1968 and 2001) ignored the subject! The 1968 edition, in particular, seems to have eliminated most articles on violence including terrorism, deep concerns of the first issue.) Webster stresses the Latin origin of the term, mobile

140   D.C. Rapoport vulgus, to explain that mob moods change rapidly and that most members come from the “lower classes of a community” (emphasis added). But these characterizations do not fully describe the American experience which was much more complicated and interesting. Most participants in the American mobs were tradesmen and artisans as the definitions suggest. But organizers often came from the “better” classes, i.e., professionals, merchants, and some were even local officials, with each colony producing variations in the social mixture (Meier 1972: Appendix). A hierarchy of mobs was established during Sam Adams’ domination of Boston politics, “The lowest classes – servants, negroes and sailors were placed under the command of a ‘superior set consisting of the Master Masons’ carpenters of the town” – above them were put the merchants’ mob and the Sons of Liberty, known to the Tories as Adams’ “Mohawks.” (Miller 1936: 79) The “lowest classes” were always more visible: When the resistance to the Stamp Act was at issue, the uprisings demonstrated a remarkable political extremism on the part of colonial crowds. Everywhere “followers” proved more ready than their “leaders” to use force . . . ‘the better sort are defending [English liberties] by all lawful means in their power,’ [Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor] Thomas Hutchinson explained perceptively, ‘and the most abandoned say they will do it “putas aut nefas” – at any cost’. (Miller 1936: 59–60) The Boston “patrician,” Samuel Adams, led “The Loyal Nine” (which later became the local Sons of Liberty) to organize a number of mobs. They kept their identity secret and wished it to be believed that the mobs they set in motion were really spontaneous outbreaks of violence from the “lower sort.” . . . Boston was controlled by a “trained mob” and Sam Adams was its keeper. (Miller 1936: 53) The mobs had important features that conflicted with the standard definitions of mob. Consistency was pre-­eminent. The political purpose remained the same, namely “no taxation without representation”; a principle that after eleven years of violence finally became the essential inspiration of the Revolution. The course of the violence was normally carefully planned and exhibited considerable restraint. Sometimes, it seemed that every likely contingency had been considered to prevent the violence from getting out of hand, as the Boston Tea Party (1773), perhaps the most famous incident in the period, demonstrates vividly. Several thousand colonists watched silently from the shore while 342 chests of

American experiences with terror   141 tea were seized and thrown into the water. Still, no one was hurt, and the property of the sailors (as distinguished from that of the East India Company) was respected; even a broken padlock was replaced! A more highly disciplined demonstration would be hard to find anywhere, at any time. Indeed, since the incident was called a “Tea Party,” is it appropriate to speak of this and other comparable demonstrations as expressions of mob violence? Yes, because one cannot isolate the incident from the campaign in which it occurred, namely the series of violent riots over the decade organized by those who put the Tea Party together. Furthermore, one reason why the Tea Party did not become violent was that the government did not or could not use force in this case to resist the effort. The failure to use force certainly did not mean that in principle the government spurned it, and the same is true for those who organized the Tea Party. They generally preferred peaceful demonstrations, but did not reject violence in principle. There were no pacifist rebels like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, who believed that no matter what the circumstances one could and should conquer by one’s own suffering or martyrdom. Occasionally a plan was flawed, and sometimes the emotions aroused made many explode “spontaneously.” But most “spontaneous” outbreaks were still restrained in important respects, at least with regard to committing fatal casualties. The mobs trusted to horror rather than to homicide. Though occasionally brandishing cutlasses and muskets, they typically employed less lethal weapons like clubs, rocks, brickbats, and clods of dung. “In truth” wrote the English historian Lecky in the 1880s, generalizing upon this curious phenomenon, “although no people have indulged more largely than the Americans in violent, reckless and unscrupulous language, no people have been more signally free from the thirst for blood which, in moments of great political excitement has been often shown both in England and France.” (Schlesinger 1955: 246)10 To force Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson to resign as stamp distributor, a mob burned down his home and stole his personal papers. As The Constitutional Courant, a contemporary Massachusetts newspaper, noted, the attack on personal property ‘startle[d] men accustomed to venerate and obey lawful authority and [made] them doubt the justice of the cause attended with such direful consequences’ (Quoted in Meier 1972: 61). But the unanticipated event occurred after mob members got drunk on rum discovered in the cellar. Sam Adams, who organized the mob, publicly expressed dismay. Fortunately for the cause, Boston patriots deprived Hutchinson of the sweets of martyrdom by the circulation of a story that letters . . . found in his house . . . proved him to be responsible for the Stamp Act. Sam Adams, one should note, never produced these incriminating letters. (Miller 1955: 66)11

142   D.C. Rapoport A similar attack went amuck in Newport, Rhode Island soon afterwards. The proximity of the occasions demonstrated how necessary it was to assure the public that the restraints would be mandatory and clear. Important Boston and New York papers published directives for mob “Leaders and Directors,” emphasizing that their mission was to redress grievances, not create new ones. “No innocent Person, nor any upon bare Suspicion, with insufficient Evidence, should receive the least injury. They should recall that while they are thus collected, they act as a supreme, uncontrollable Power from which there is [no] Appeal, where Trial, Sentence and Execution succeed each other almost instantaneously, so they were in Honour bound to take Care, that they do no Injustice nor suffer it to be done by others lest they disgrace their Power and the Cause which occasioned its Collection . . .[.”] The greatest care should be taken to “keep an undisciplined Multitude from running into mischievous Extravagancies.” (Quoted in Meier 1955: 66) In the nine months during which the Stamp Act was in effect, over sixty riots occurred in twenty-­five different locations. “During some of these months in port cities like Boston and New York, mobs were in the streets almost every night and government ground to a halt” (Gilje 1996: 38). There was such chaos in 1766 that most royal governors had gone into hiding. The Stamp Act also provoked considerable ambivalence in Parliament; Pitt and Burke, major figures, were strongly opposed. But if the riots had produced many casualties the consequence could have mitigated that opposition and weakened the rebel claim that they were fighting for their traditional rights as Englishmen and not a new order. The victory in getting the Stamp Act repealed gave the rebels enormous confidence in their strength and virtue. The successful attack on the Act . . . was of great importance in subsequent periods of agitation when the opposition was not so universal. The experience of working together, the ideas that were inculcated during the agitation and the sense of accomplishment resulting from united efforts were indispensable. The agitation of each period, in fact, made easier the work of the next. (Davidson 1941: 41) It seems odd to describe this mob activity as terrorism; the self-­imposed limits were so conspicuous. Still, when Schlesinger describes the victims’ emotions, he refers repeatedly to “terror,” “horror,” and “fear”; and contemporaries often spoke of “terror,” as the quotation from John Adams introducing this section illustrates.12 No one was called a “terrorist” because the word became part of our language two decades later during the French Revolution. Two centuries passed before some academics referred to the Sons of Liberty as terrorists (Hofstadter and Wallace 1970: 76–79).13

American experiences with terror   143 If so many mobs were so restrained, why were victims terrorized? One simply could not know ahead of time what his particular fate was going to be, nor be reassured during the process that he would not be killed or seriously harmed. Grotesque effigies of leading Stamp Act administrators were beaten or whipped, and then carried through the streets to a hastily constructed gallows to be hung on a “liberty tree” or to a funeral pyre to be burned. In the first significant Stamp Act uprising in Boston (August 14,1765), this scene, followed by the destruction of a building designated as the future Stamp Office, convinced the chief stamp distributor for Massachusetts that he ought to resign. A mob confronted Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver demanding that he resign and denounce the Stamp Act. He heard ‘voices swearing they would have my blood’ and complied because his wife and children in the next room were ‘frantic with fear.’ Later, away from the scene, he thought he should renounce his acts made under duress and lacked moral or legal weight. But renunciation could be costly. ‘A hard alternative ‘tis true; but still I had it in my power either to die or make the promise. I chose to live’ (Quoted in Calhoon 1973: 273–274). His subsequent history of the period described a mob as a ‘volcano,’ ‘hydra,’ etc., words reflecting a victim’s view that they were uncontrollable (Quoted in Nash 2005: 45ff.). A Connecticut mob threatened to bury the [stamp] distributor alive when he insisted on remaining in office. [They] put this stouthearted soul inside a coffin, nailed the lid shut, and lowered him into a grave. They then began shoveling dirt on the coffin. The official called for release and thereupon submitted his resignation. (Middlekauff 1982: 105–106) A besieged Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor was determined to save his rather splendid home from being burned and refused to leave. His family fled the scene, but a daughter “refused to leave unless he accompanied her. She probably thereby saved his life” (Middlekauff 1982: 92). “Mobs used whatever force necessary to produce resignations. In several cases, they scarcely had to flex their muscles to frighten distributors into sending in their resignations” (Middlekauff 1982: 94). One historian’s description of the experience of Edward Stow is interesting. Stow, a Boston merchant-­captain, who was granted a personal guard for his safety, reported “I have been mobbed and Libeled ever since the Stamp Act, my House bedaubed with Excrement and Feathers three times in two months. . . . A mob of near 300 Men” severely injured him and “bedaubed my House with Excrement and Feathers, because I seized for His Majesty two Gun Carriages, a pair of Swivels, and a Cow Horn.” Compared to other instances of violence, the persecution of Edward Stow was so unimportant that the papers did not even report it. (Hoerder 1977: 340)

144   D.C. Rapoport In 1771 the Commissioner of Customs’ sister described an employee’s experience: stript [sic] stark naked one of the severest cold nights this winter. In a body covered all over with tar then with feathers, his arm dislocated by tearing off his cloaths [sic] he was dragged in a cart with thousands attending, some beating him with clubs and throwing him out of the cart then in again. They gave him severe whipping at different parts of the town. This spectacle of horror and sportive cruelty was exhibited for about five hours. . . . They brought him to the gallows and put a rope about his neck saying they woud [sic] hang him. . . . The doctors say that it is impossible this poor creature can live. They say his flesh comes off his back in steaks [sic]. (Quoted in Hofstadter and Wallace 1970: 71) In describing modern terror, one always refers to the crucial importance of those beyond the immediate victim of the violence. In the Sons of Liberty case, two principal audiences were very visible. One ‘audience of potential supporters saw the government as being so contemptibly weak and the people so superior to  the royal authority that they [were] . . . elated upon their triumph over the  defenseless officers of the Crown’ (Quoted in Hofstadter and Wallace 1970:  71). A second audience contained opponents who had to be intimidated and/or provoked to react in excessive ways that would enrage the community (Rapoport 1977). An attack could obviously affect both audiences simultaneously. Whatever their origin, they [mobs] furthered patriotic purposes, in several essential ways. They highlighted grievances as mere words could never have done; they struck terror into the hearts of British adherents; and, as notably in the case of the Boston Massacre, they fashioned folk heroes out of street loafers and hoodlums. (Schlesinger 1955: 244; see also Davidson 1941) Consistency and discipline in a dangerous period which lasted for more than a decade require a formal organization, one would think, but it is surprising to realize that no formal organization can be found here. Certainly, historians have not found it. The leaders of the first American mobs (1765) called their groups “The Sons of Liberty,” and some individual entities, such as the ones Sam Adams helped organize, did have some structure. But no organizational connection existed between the groups, and most of the initial groups disappeared a year or so after the Stamp Act was repealed. The Sons of Liberty name survived to describe other mobs with similar ends; ultimately it became a synonym for “patriot” (see Davidson 1941; Meier 1972)! Groups not linked with the Sons of Liberty used the name to wreak vengeance and to secure other ends that were not connected with the cause. “In South Carolina a group of sailors calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, formed a mob to coerce money from people on the

American experiences with terror   145 streets” and they were curtailed by people calling themselves “True Sons of Liberty” (“The Sons of Liberty”). The Sons of Liberty at its height was an informal network of autonomous societies, which flourished largely in the seaport cities in the separate colonies. Members in one colony established rudimentary communication with similar elements in other colonies, largely through letters written by “Committees of Correspondence,” essential parts of each independent unit. One unit could not make a decision that would bind other groups, since there was no way to enforce such decisions, a necessary feature of an organization. The decentralized structure on the national level was reproduced in each participating colony, and The Sons of Liberty provided a model for resistance emulated later throughout the decade and intermittently later after the Constitution came into play. We know little about how its various activities were related to each other. The records are very incomplete partly because many participants were so ambivalent about their activities. Those indicted invariably claimed to be innocent, and when arrested escaped conviction. Few mob participants “admitted complicity until more than a half century had elapsed” (Schlesinger 1955: 247; emphasis added). The Stamp Act was enacted because the Seven Years’ (French and Indian) War ending in 1763 exhausted the British Treasury, and efforts to pay the debts occasioned significant British taxpayer protests. All newspapers, legal documents, and commercial papers had to bear a stamp paid for in species, a rare commodity in the colonies. The British argued that the tax was fair because it fell equally on all. The colonies benefited greatly from the French defeat and contributed very little to it, which made Parliament believe that they would accept a significant tax burden, especially since Parliament pledged that the money raised would be devoted exclusively to military expenses necessary to defend the colonies. But the colonies had only experienced taxes levied on foreign trade. Its very novelty and universality provoked widespread unanticipated resistance. The British made no effort beforehand to consider how to enforce the law if armed resistance materialized, especially if all the colonies were involved. Clear-­sighted observers on both sides of the Atlantic believed colonial unity impossible because of the great differences between the provinces in manners, religion and interest. Nevertheless, when confronted by the Stamp Act, colonial particularism began to crumble and America was “awakened, alarmed, restless and disaffected.” (Miller 1936: 50–51) British resources were very meager. No professional police force existed in Britain or the colonies.14 In Britain the army could be called out to subdue a mob. Normally, the government preferred to leave the rioting alone in the hope that it would burn itself out. But that was not always possible. When the anti-­ Catholic Gordon Riots persisted for over a week and over a hundred houses were devastated, the army was called out: 285 people were killed, 170 were wounded,

146   D.C. Rapoport twenty-­five hanged and twelve imprisoned. The rioters themselves had not caused a single casualty (Rudé 1981: 59–60)! In the colonies very few troops were available, and the government’s inability to use force gave the riots their special flavor. “[I]t was,” one historian wrote, “apparently more the restraint and timidity of the British authorities, and less the moderation of American crowds that prevented a serious loss of lives during the American rioting” (Wood 1977: 60). The British could call a posse comitatus and/or colonial militias to deal with violence, but those bodies were so deeply rooted in the local community and so committed to the mob’s cause that they usually refused to come or would not obey orders. It is worth noting too that the mobs consisted of persons from these two legitimate groups accustomed to use their own initiative to deal with community threats. The mob, therefore, had a semi-­legitimate status embodying “the people.” The weakness of the British government naturally made it contemptible in the eyes of Americans, who were frequently permitted to run roughshod over British authority. When the Sons of Liberty stormed the fort at Charleston, South Carolina, they found only one private awake and the other eleven members of the garrison were sound asleep, at Fort Johnson, North Carolina a garrison of two British troops were besieged by five hundred heavily armed Sons of Liberty, and in New York, the headquarters of British military authority in the provinces, the troops were unable to keep order in the town. General Gage informed royal governors who clamored for military aid . . . that no military force could be collected within a month, and even then it would be at the expense of strategic posts (along the frontier) which would be seriously weakened if their garrisons were removed. (Miller 1936: 71) The tiny military detachments proved to be a boomerang, John Adams emphasized. “Soldiers quartered in a populous town will always occasion two mobs where they prevent one. They are wretched conservators of the peace” (McCullough 2001: 67). Insults and beatings provoked British troops in America “beyond endurance.” Juries consistently refused to convict rioters. Considering the repeated provocations, one historian writes, the wonder is that the troops did not kill much more often, “but this fact naturally failed to impress the colonists” (McCullough 2001: 67). Impotent military forces provoked the notorious “Boston Massacre.” On the icy cobbled square . . . a lone British sentry was being taunted by a small band of men and boys. [Suddenly] crowds came pouring into the streets . . . brandishing sticks and clubs. As a throng of several hundred converged . . . the lone guard was reinforced by eight British soldiers with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, and their captain with a drawn sword. Shouting, cursing, the crowds pelted the despised redcoats with snowballs, chunks of ice, oyster shells and stones. (McCullough 2001: 65)15

American experiences with terror   147 The soldiers suddenly opened fire, killing five people. Those arrested asked John Adams (Sam Adams’ cousin) to defend them in court, and the aftermath was full of ironies indicating how vulnerable the public was to conflicting emotions. John Adams originally believed that the solders were guilty, but became convinced that they acted in self-­defense and organized a brilliant and successful defense. After the acquittal, John Adams was elected to the Massachusetts legislature for the first time (McCullough 2001: 66–68). (Oddly, Sam Adams asked John to take the case!) On the other hand, even though the court did not hold the soldiers responsible, the fact that the incident was called the “Boston Massacre” makes clear that victims were celebrated as heroes. On each anniversary the bells of the town tolled at intervals during the day, and at night lighted transparencies near the site of the bloodshed displayed tableaux of the “murderers” and the dead perhaps with a symbolic America trampling a supine redcoat. The crowning event was the declaration by a well-­known figure who pulled out all stops to do justice to his theme. . . . The yearly oration continued . . . until the town authorities in 1783 substituted the celebration of the Fourth of July. (Schlesinger 1955: 247) The killings were most probably unintended events, though the victims did really stimulate opposition to British policy. Most victims during the Stamp Act crisis were individuals directly responsible for administering the law and the rioters did intend to hurt them. General Gage reported that the “Officers of the Crown grew more timid, and more fearful of doing their Duty every Day” (Schlesinger 1955: 246). ‘Not a justice of peace, sheriff, constable or peace officer in the province . . . would venture to take cognizance of any breach of law against the general bent of the people,’ Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson complained (Quoted in Schlesinger 1955: 246). The English government tried to re-­establish its authority by passing the Townshend Acts to tax foreign trade, a traditional source of income (Hoerder 1977: ch. 4).16 Resistance materialized again but the victims were different, mainly private parties engaged in international trade and individuals buying imported goods. Those “believed” to be loyal to policies of the Crown were a third target. Finally, very late in their campaign, mobs prevented Tories from taking their seats in the legislatures lest they vitiate the strong support the rebels were generating. Convinced it had no alternative, the Crown finally decided to send an effective troop force to cope with the mobs. But by the time the troops arrived, the colonists had cemented their political union, organized their military forces, and the Revolutionary War ensued. During the war itself, the significance of the mobs diminished, but they were active in driving large numbers out of the country to Canada, where the refugees found a new home.

148   D.C. Rapoport

The Ku Klux Klan 1867–1877: winning a war but losing a peace We have closed the War but we have not yet made a peace. (New York Herald Tribune, April 29, 1874) As election day drew near, violence and intimidation reached epidemic proportions in another reign of terror. The whites with guns in their hands and murder in their hearts were intent on control. (William Gillette 1979: 162) Vote Blacks Down or Knock Them Down (Rallying Cry of Mississippi Democrats, 1874) The Ku Klux Klan (1867–1877) emerged in a context that seems very different from the one that nourished the Sons of Liberty. After a bitterly fought Civil War, both parties had to agree on the conditions for peace, namely the kind of state government most appropriate for the South. More specifically, what would that new government need to do to prevent a renewal of the war and with the political problems generated by the presence of large numbers of recently freed slaves? Deep differences divided North from South; indeed, a deep ambivalence existed within both the North and South on these matters too, resulting in the “most violent and nastiest rioting in American history” (Gilje 1996: 94). Lincoln’s assassination gave Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat and Lincoln’s choice for a running mate, responsibility for reconciliation efforts. Johnson believed that the country would be brought together again if the two sides agreed that the right response was that no state had the legal power to leave the Union. All state constitutions would remain valid; the only basic change was Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery. White Southerners generally accepted these conditions, and fifty-­eight former Confederate Congressmen, nine Confederate generals and admirals, six Confederate Cabinet members and the Confederacy’s Vice President won Congressional seats in the first national election (1866) (Katz 1986: 17). Confederate leaders still dominated various state governments too. Most Unionists did not anticipate that reinstating the old constitutions would deny freed slaves voting rights, an issue which two very bloody riots several months before the 1866 election made clear. “In both instances the riots opened with blacks aggressively advancing their claims to equality in the face of opposition by local officials and white police” (Gilje 1996: 96). In Memphis white residents and the police went wild and killed forty-­six blacks. In New Orleans Unionists and Republicans called a political convention of “dubious legality” to enfranchise blacks. Whites rioted for three days, killing some forty-­six supporters (Rable 1984:59).17 The fury provoked “created a unity among Republicans that had not existed even during the war,” where major cities witnessed fierce riots against war policies.

American experiences with terror   149 The New Orleans atrocities “proved” to Northern voters that Johnson’s plan betrayed the enormous sacrifices made to win the Civil War. They became a valuable campaign issue for Republicans in the 1866 election, allowing “Radical Republicans” to dominate the new Congress, aiming to “reconstruct” the South, or make it “democratic.” Congress excluded Southern Congressional representatives by annulling their state constitutions, dividing the South into military districts, reinforcing garrisons, and creating black militias; the last decision greatly frightened most white Southerners. Strenuous efforts were made to make blacks a major political force, hoping they would give the Republican Party a clear national majority over time. Johnson resisted. Radical Republicans organized mobs to compel compliance, and his vitriolic responses provided the occasion for the first President to be impeached (1868).18 Reconstruction “demonstrated” to Southern whites that they were being “occupied,” not reconciled. “The South,” one wrote, is no more a real partner in the so-­called Union than Poland is part of Russia or India of England or Cuba of Spain. Why should this country be called a Union? The very term signifies equality of parts. Let it be called “Yankeeland.” (quoted in Rable 1984: 8) At first, many Southerners refused to participate in the elections ordered for fear of legitimizing them. But their refusal simply handed many Southern state governments to Republicans dependent on black voters. At the same time, Congress mustered the two-­thirds majority necessary to propose the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (1868) designed to guarantee equal rights for blacks. A variety of mob terror groups emerged to show uneasy Southerners another way to resist, a way that had proved successful in dealing with Abolitionists before the Civil War (Eaton 1942).19 The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was the first and most important. Later the Knights of the White Camellias, the Red Jackets, Native Sons of the South, Society of the White Roses, White Liners, White Man’s Party, White Leaguers, White Brotherhood, the Seventy-­Six Association, etc., emerged. The public “lumped those groups all together . . . as the Klan. Their costumes, rituals, tactics, and purposes were so similar, there is no practical way to distinguish them,” and so they “must be treated as part of a generic Klux movement” (Swinney 1987: 46–47).20 In the eleven years of Reconstruction (1865–1876) at least 375 riots occurred, organized largely by KKK elements (Gilje 1996: 210).21 KKK groups in various states merged,22 and former Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the South’s most distinguished cavalry officer, became the Klan’s first and only “Grand Wizard.”23 The aim was to make sure that Johnson’s original reconciliation plan was revived, and Klansmen normally identified themselves as Democratic Party members: “Although the mystic syllables Ku Klux Klan were on people’s lips everywhere, most night riders were

150   D.C. Rapoport unwilling to concede that they went by any other name than ‘The Young Men’s Democratic Clubs’ ” (Gillette 1979: 18). On paper the KKK had an elaborate formal hierarchy led by a Grand Wizard presiding over an Empire divided into realms, dominions, provinces, and dens, headed respectively by Grand Dragons, Titans, Giants, and Cyclops. But the structure never functioned as designed; perhaps it was never meant to work that way. The den or basic unit established in the local areas of all relevant states operated with little or no central direction. “A group of young men would form a den after hearing of the organization elsewhere” (Rable 1984: 71). The KKK claimed to be restoring order from the dreadful chaos that swept the South after its catastrophic military defeat, a context in which courts and police rarely functioned and considerable corruption prevailed. (Initially, the KKK claimed to be vigilantes enforcing the law, merging police and judiciary functions.) But the ultimate object clearly was to bring down the “democracy” that Reconstruction policies aimed to create. The terror was thus intimately linked to the electoral process, i.e., keep the blacks from voting and force their “friends,” “scalawags” (Southern renegades) and “carpetbaggers” (immigrants from the North), to flee the area.24 The KKK decimated the black militias and the various Republican secret societies (the Lincoln Brotherhood (Florida) the Heroes of North Carolina, etc.) serving as the candidates’ chief protection during campaigns. The KKK was most vigorous in the Piedmont and Appalachian highlands of northern Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and western North and South Carolina where race numbers were more even, areas in which Republicans, overwhelmingly supported by the black population, had a good chance to win (Swinney 1987: 49). In states like Virginia, where the Democratic Party was firmly in control, the KKK did not function. Armed with the ballot to make them more secure in their freedom many blacks found that the privilege in fact jeopardized their lives and their livelihoods. When the blacks were slaves they were mistreated but rarely killed because they were property; but when they were free they became more vulnerable to a new form of violence. (Gillette 1979: 37) The campaign against black suffrage was quickly and remarkably effective, as shown by the voting statistics in Georgia after the Klan emerged. In Oglethorpe County, the Republicans received 116 votes, but eight months earlier they had ten times as many votes (November 1869). In Columbia County, the difference in the same period was even starker. Republicans got only one vote, though they had 1122 votes in a previous election that same year (Chalmers 1987: 15)! But the task was a large one and took time because so many voting districts and in so many different states were involved, and after President Grant was elected (1968–1976), the federal government used its military and legal powers only intermittently to help assure the electoral process.25

American experiences with terror   151 As Election Day drew near, violence and intimidation reached epidemic proportions in another reign of terror. The whites, with guns in their hands and murder in their hearts, were intent on control. Most Republican meetings were broken up or cancelled out of fear. Republican nominations were often not made, the candidates didn’t campaign, and some Republican nominees and officials even fled their homes. . . . Economic coercion was added to physical intimidation as the whites refused to lease land, give jobs, or provide credit to blacks. Whole counties were virtually under military siege: the Democrats wore red shirts, symbolizing bloodshed. In some towns graves were dug for those Negroes who might vote Republican. As a clear warning, whites shot guns into the night before and cannon, manned by uniformed volunteers were stationed in front of polling places, on Election Day. Many blacks, fearing for their lives, did not dare to vote, and most of those who tried either did not receive ballots or were driven from the polls. Ballot boxes were seized and stuffed. The Democrats had realized their rallying cry and either had voted the blacks down or had knocked them down. (Gillette 1979: 162)26 The extraordinary impact the violence had on Republican voting statistics cited above in Georgia occurred later elsewhere even though the army arrived to guarantee fair elections. In Yazoo County, Mississippi, the Republicans had only seven votes in 1875, but several years earlier when most blacks voted, the Republican majority was over a thousand (Gillette 1979: 163). Before the 1875 election took place, Mississippi’s Republican Governor Ames asked President Grant to send federal troops; otherwise “election day may find our voters fleeing before rebel bullets rather than balloting for their rights.” When it was clear that the troops would not arrive, he proclaimed, “Yes a revolution has taken place (by force of arms) and a race are disfranchised – they are to be returned to a condition of serfdom – an era of second slavery” (Gillette 1979: 163). The following year South Carolina’s governor asked President Grant for troops to help police an election. This time the soldiers were sent, partly to avoid another sordid disgraceful scene, and because this election was a national one where the fortunes of the Republican Party in Congress and the Presidency were at stake. Violence was reduced, and the local population seemed largely hospitable. But the force of only 1,000 men was too small to cover the entire state. Furthermore, before the soldiers arrived, an effective terror campaign had been waged against potential black voters (Gillette 1979: 317–318), and federal officials discovered that the voters’ rolls were fraudulent, a problem that the army had neither the legal authority nor the skill to rectify (see Rapoport and Weinberg 2001: 15–51). As the examples indicate, one surprising, important, and usually neglected reason for KKK success was its restraint! Conspicuous atrocities, comparable to the New Orleans riot in 1866, most probably would have provoked fierce concerns in the North again. The logic of the campaign was to “foment just enough terror in the strong Republican counties to demoralize and defeat the black

152   D.C. Rapoport Republicans, but not enough to provoke (serious) federal reaction” (Gillette 1979: 154). Striking targets in the North would have been a political disaster. In the northern state of Indiana in 1869 a group with views similar to the KKK (and oddly called the Sons of Liberty!) developed, whereupon the Klan quickly used its influence to shut it down.27 Republicans, well aware of the North’s ambivalence, generally exaggerated the reports of outrages to increase support for Reconstruction policies. But in time the “policy” backfired. More and more Northerners believed that most atrocity stories were manufactured for partisan advantages (Gillette 1979: 274–275). The federal government found it too costly to create necessary tools to enforce the U.S. Constitution in Southern states. A serious shortage of judges in the South created excessive delays in adjudicating claims, and delay exposed potential witnesses to extraordinary abuse. Few federal marshals were available because most were employed in northern and “border” states where serious problems of electoral corruption prevailed and where Republicans were more likely to win and, thus, have an immediate national impact. Ultimately, federal election enforcement had much more significance as a campaign document than as a genuine effort to do something, a “salvage operation [rather] than a permanent reform” (Gillette 1979: 51). Everything depended on the troops, but there were never enough available. The troops also used martial law and other measures curtailing civil liberties and suspending habeas corpus. Suspects were frequently thrown into jail without trial for long periods because juries would not convict. “Excessive vengeance by lawlessness was now replaced by excessive vengeance by law” (Annan 1967: 227). That activity provoked serious national discontent and demoralized the army. Most officers detested service below the Mason-­Dixon Line. Conservative generals such as George G. Meade, Winfield Scott Hancock, and John M. Schofield disliked interfering with civil government and their inevitable entanglement in southern politics. The incessant requests by Republicans for assistance drove many soldiers into the Democratic camp. The army’s effectiveness was further limited because its superiors in Washington discounted reports of southern outrages and favored a restrained use of military force. After struggling with maddening complexities of Georgia politics, General Alfred Taylor informed General William T. Sherman, “I would not again go through with a job of this kind even if it would make me a Marshal of France.” The common soldiers shared many of their commanders’ prejudices, were often hostile to the government’s Reconstruction policies, and were seldom radical egalitarians. . . . When the War Department became preoccupied with the Indian Wars on the Great Plains, the army’s position in the South grew more precarious . . . . Commanders moved slowly against the Klan and opposed military trials for these outlays. As General Phillip Sheridan, an advocate of vigorous federal action in the South, lamented in 1867 many crimes and outrages were beyond the reach of military power. (Rable 1984: 109)

American experiences with terror   153 Two important decisions in 1878 enabled the KKK to accomplish its mission. Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the military from getting involved in civil affairs, and in this case that meant the voting rights of blacks would not be protected.28 The House of Representatives resolved a disputed presidential election in favor of the Republican candidate Rutherford Hayes, after he agreed to withdraw troops from the South.

Comparing mobs Both groups were successful. The Sons of Liberty were an essential ingredient in bringing the colonies together or in helping to create a nation, a nation that created a “regular army” necessary to win independence. The KKK “achievement” was less durable. It demolished the Reconstruction program, and that made blacks “second-­class” citizens. That status, which was also punctuated with intermittent terror attacks, lasted until the non-­violent Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s reversed the condition.29 In both cases potential sympathizers and opposition elements were ambivalent. The British government faced opposition at home, was unclear about what the colonial situation required, and the efforts to make military commitments were so minimal that they aggravated, rather than reduced, the unrest. Many colonists initially lacked resolve, unity, and confidence, and were apprehensive that the mobs would get out of control and in the process demolish all respect for the law. In the KKK case, white southerners feared a new war might be provoked, and the North was unwilling to keep troops in the South indefinitely. That reluctance was related to the fact that blacks were allowed to vote in only a few northern states. Elsewhere, serious hostilities to blacks existed, especially among immigrants who competed with them economically.30 It took time to dissolve and/or exploit the ambivalences, and the structures of the two groups helped each persist and gain the time needed to accomplish that end. Like the Sons of Liberty, KKK groups were autonomous and related to each other informally. Decentralization made it very difficult for governments to get the leverage needed to break the groups up and they were deeply embedded in local populations. The original Sons of Liberty groups lasted for a year or so, and the KKK was officially disbanded after four years; but each remained a model for successive groups and the public discourse rarely distinguished the successors from their model. Members of both groups always denied involvement, and the KKK made recruits swear oaths never to reveal any information concerning the organization (see Horn 1969: 54). Courts generally found it extremely difficult to convict those charged because juries were either too sympathetic and/or too frightened. Mob activities were planned well. Unlike many mobs we know today, KKK and Sons of Liberty mobs never intentionally destroyed the properties and lives of potential supporters.31 Some KKK members were involved in ordinary criminal activity, and the Sons of Liberty occasionally produced counter-­productive criminal abuses, but only against those previously identified as political enemies.

154   D.C. Rapoport Mobs always outnumbered their victims, but Klan mobs were much smaller enterprises. A small Klan mob might consist of six or seven; larger Klan mobs usually numbered forty or fifty.32 Darkness reduced the need for larger forces making it easier to get away, and attacks at night were always more frightening. There are instances of two hundred or more, and the figures are probably higher for a few urban riots. The Klan stayed largely in rural areas.33 It is impossible to establish the number of KKK victims, though it was probably more than 20,000. A Senate investigation found that in nine rural counties in a six-­month period, the Klan had lynched “35 men, whipped 262 men and otherwise outraged women, shot, mutilated, raped, burned out 103 other people” (Annan 1967: 225). Sons of Liberty mobs, largely urban affairs, usually numbered several hundred; occasionally one might have a thousand, and once or twice the number cited is ten thousand. Supporters also came to watch them, and, as the years passed, the number of spectators kept increasing (Hoerder 1977: 233).34 The populations of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were fifteen, thirty, and fifty-­five thousand respectively, and, thus, the turnouts reported were enormous. Commenting on Boston mobs, one historian noted, “if the reported numbers are correct [they] would have consisted of half the city’s adult males” (Nash 2005: 53). Large turnouts helped convince all interested parties that mobs truly commanded popular support. The KKK reduced mob sizes partly to avoid provoking clashes with veteran, well-­armed Union forces. The Sons of Liberty situation was very different. The meager British forces could not cope with mobs, but the casualties which the soldiers inflicted could be exploited as massacres to transform the victims into “martyrs.” The different disguises of each group are revealing. KKK costumes became notorious. The group wanted the black population to see them as ghosts carrying crossbones, coffins, skulls of Confederate soldiers returning from another world. Those “ghosts” wore long robes and masks with “horns, beards, and long red flannel tongues”; their horses were covered down to the lower legs and their hooves muffled. Klan disguises reflected Klan beliefs that the ex-­slaves were excessively superstitious and easily terrified (Trelease 1971: 53). Victims were described as being not “respectful” or “criminals.” Large proportions of the black victims were or had been members of political or militia organizations (Gillette 1979: 9). Sons of Liberty mob members did not always dress alike, though the need to intensify psychological effects sometimes made organizers insist they do so. In the Boston Tea Party, for example, all participants dressed as Indians. But different mobs chose their own dress; the common feature was that leaders on the scene were always disguised. Initially, they blackened their faces. Later, they appeared as “strangers” or persons not known in the local community. The disguise mandate for leaders represented something important beyond the desire to escape prosecution. The . . . emphasis on strangers as the main agents was a means to re-­achieve unity. . . [.] Their actual influence in riots was sometimes high, because

American experiences with terror   155 crowds repeatedly selected strangers to act as ad hoc leaders for direct confrontations with other members or sectors of the community. This facilitated subsequent reunification of the community while making prosecution more difficult. (Hoerder 1977: 374)35 Unlike the Sons of Liberty, KKK activities were designed to kill as well as intimidate, a difference illustrated by the transformation of “lynch law” practices, a peculiar and unique feature of the American scene in the Revolutionary Period. Charles Lynch, a member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses, established the precedent of lynching in 1774 in a context where a dangerous terrain made it extremely difficult to transfer prisoners to a regular court. A few prisoners were “tried” in ad hoc “courts” instead. None were killed, but those deemed guilty were tarred and feathered. During Reconstruction, the practice changed greatly. Lynch mobs generally hanged their victims, and, in fact, the term “lynching” changed its meaning to mean “the infliction of the death penalty in summary fashion, usually by hanging.” The number of victims is unknown, but it may have been near a thousand.36 Even though whites controlled the legal machinery as the years rolled on, the numbers lynched kept growing throughout the nineteenth century: a way, Ida B. Wells-­Barnett notes, “to get rid of Negroes, who were acquiring wealth and property, and thus keep the race terrorized and ‘keep the nigger down’ ” (1970: 61–66). Restraint is not normally a theme in discussions of the KKK. Still, the KKK restricted itself; as mentioned earlier, it avoided compelling Union troops to produce casualties; it avoided very conspicuous atrocities during election periods, and prevented sympathizers from using KKK tactics in the North. Attitudes towards victims were significantly different. The KKK aimed to keep the blacks “in their place” largely by enhancing fear of consequences if they tried to assert their rights. The Sons of Liberty’s concern was more complex. The first mob introduced tar and feathering to the colonies (1766), representing an effort to transform victims. Tar was known for its curative effects. Victims were often ducked in water, and sometimes transferred under the keel of a ship from side to side, practices suggesting religious baptism or symbolic purification. Significantly, if a potential victim confessed and recanted, he could be “re-­admitted” to the community: Tories had to recant before committees, by published statements or in front of crowds (which) drew up in two files and ordered a victim to pass through the lane, hat off, proclaiming his allegiance and better conduct in the future. (Hoerder 1977: 340)37 The recanting had to take place under a “Liberty Tree” (usually an elm) or a “Liberty Pole” (a tall wooden flagstaff ), which virtually every town established after resistance to the Stamp Act. The initial meeting of the Sons of Liberty occurred under a “Liberty Tree.” Participants “imagined” it to symbolize the

156   D.C. Rapoport generative powers of their activity. Effigies of potential victims were hung on the tree in advance of an attack, mobs continued to meet under it, and it was sustained as the symbol of the “new pure order” throughout the Revolutionary War. In 1770 British troops attacked the symbol in New York, provoking an infuriated mob. The riot known as the Battle of Golden Hill was the first one in which the casualties were inflicted on the Sons of Liberty. The site of that battle was later known as “ground zero” for the 9/11 attack (Yang 2002: 26). There were other manifestations of the impurity theme. Fumigation, used in colonial Massachusetts against smallpox and against Tories was supposed to have cleansing affects . . . . Noises and fires were designed to exorcise evil spirits. Public exhibition of offenders, usually explained by its deterrent effects had a parallel in the belief that evil spirits, once brought into the open, lose their powers. (Yang 2002: 81) Doctors suspected of Tory sentiments were occasionally, especially during the 1775–6 epidemic, accused of spreading smallpox . . . . Rumors prevailed . . . at Roxbury in 1775 that Loyalist inhabitants of Boston infected of smallpox were deliberately spreading it. (Yang 2002: 338) As British policies changed, new victims were sought. Private individuals engaged in foreign trade or consuming its products replaced administrators as victims. Tories became increasing targets as the years went on, and when the war did break out, mobs pushed many colonists out of the country into Canada. In the very last phase of the conflict before the Revolutionary War began and during the war’s course, mobs for the first time struck at the electoral process, albeit in an unsystematic manner. Their aim was to diminish the Tory voice in the colonial legislatures by preventing elements from voting or keeping some elected Tories from taking their seats.38 Klan tactics were more uniform. Blacks and their white supporters in the South were always victims. Election periods produced the most attacks, and the military forces available could not protect the enormous number of voting locations spread over a wide geographic area. Occasionally a tar and feathering occurred, but intimidation, not transformation, was the object.39

Mobs and bombs Now we will revisit our initial question, i.e., How did the bomb transform terror? It affected group sizes, tactics, relationships, and successes. It did affect other matters too, but space constraints preclude treating them. In modern terrorism, as opposed to mob terror, the international dimension, for example, is most conspicuous. President Theodore Roosevelt, for example, launched an international “crusade” against terror after his predecessor was

American experiences with terror   157 assassinated in 1901. Then there is the story of the Terrorist Brigade of the Russian Socialist Party (1905). Its headquarters were in Switzerland: Finland provided the staging grounds for operations, and an Armenian group, trained by an earlier Russian terrorist organization, supplied weapons. The group refused funds offered by the Japanese government, money American millionaires were supposed to launder!40 A second characteristic worth noting is that while mobs are associated with groups only, the modern form is characterized by “waves” consisting of a variety of similar groups. Modern non-­state terror began in the 1870s and produced four successive overlapping waves. The Anarchist Wave was basically completed by the 1920s; the Anti-­Colonial Wave succeeded it and lasted until the 1960s. The “New Left” wave then began and was virtually over by 2000, and the Religious Wave began in 1979. Each completed wave lasted approximately forty years or a generation (Rapoport 2004). The bomb made it possible for very small groups to exist simultaneously with different purposes at the same time, groups which both cooperated and competed with each other. Plurality had a very different meaning in our mob examples. The similarities were so great and the rivalry so muffled that outsiders used one term to describe the many different groups associated with the Sons of Liberty, a pattern repeated in the post-­Civil War period. It is not clear why tensions between mobs were so insignificant. Perhaps the significant popular support that a prolonged campaign of mob activity requires makes it difficult to move easily in different directions. Small groups soliciting public support need “credit” for their activities, a requirement that becomes more urgent when groups compete against each other. The search for “credit” is pursued in various ways. Groups announce their activities in ways that demonstrate their claims to be accurate, and this may have contributed to the fact that the first modern groups developed a culture of martyrdom. The most desired form occurred in a judicial proceeding where prisoners affirmed their acts and refused opportunities to repent and/or reduce their sentences, a concept, ironically, crafted from early Christian experiences!41 Martyrdom in one form or another remained an important feature of modern terror. Islam generated the latest example, one that has been extraordinarily significant, i.e., “self-­martyrdom” or “suicide bombing.” Martyrs are, inter alia, recruiting agents – “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Mob practices were radically different. Bizarre and terrifying costumes provided evidence for the identity of assailants. But a bomber dressed in such a  manner forfeits the surprise necessary for the attack. Mobs selected their victims, a circumstance that made the mob’s purpose clearer; news accounts in local papers seemed to know what body was responsible and why particular persons were attacked. But a bomb usually creates a very different situation. Explosives can kill anyone in the neighborhood, and the number of “unintended” victims may be quite large and indiscriminate. Consequently, the relationship between the deaths and a particular cause often requires clarification; several groups may claim responsibility, and it is also possible that if responsibility is not claimed the assailants may not be known. Finally, there is the strikingly

158   D.C. Rapoport crucial fact that mob members charged with crimes always denied allegations. “Massacres” by British soldiers seemed to produce all the visible heroes or martyrs the Sons of Liberty needed (if it needed any), while the KKK had no desire to encourage that sort of martyrdom because it wanted to avoid serious clashes with federal troops. En passant, one should note that the two groups always had sufficient recruits, and consequently this reason for seeking martyrs became irrelevant.42 The different attitudes towards publicity are illustrated in other ways too. The Anarchists who “created” modern terror named it “propaganda of the deed.”43 Each wave produced its own special texts describing how to assemble and use appropriate weapons, and the various tactics to be employed, i.e., Nechaev’s Revolutionary Catechism, Grivas’ Guerrilla War, Marighella’s Mini-­Manual of the Urban Guerrilla, and bin Ladin’s Training Manual. The texts are efforts to make terror more effective and inspire others to learn the “trade.” The Sons of Liberty and the KKK produced nothing comparable; they did their dirty work in secret, and kept their mouths shut afterwards.44 Most modern terrorists have been professional or engaged in the activity full time.45 The group subsidizes members and their equipment, via contributions from outside sympathizers, bank robberies, etc. Mob members, on the other hand, are normally engaged in civil occupations to support themselves and their families; their mob activities are “part time.”46 This professional-­part-time difference is related to the very different group sizes and geographies. Mob members were virtually all residents of the locality in which they struck. Sons of Liberty mobs could number several thousand, and every city produced mobs. Information about KKK numbers is more difficult to fathom, but they appear much larger than any modern terrorist group. Modern group sizes clearly vary; most have several hundred who use weapons, a number that can increase to a thousand or two. Only in very special cases, such as that of the PLO, will the numbers get much larger. In that case a territory (in Lebanon) was controlled and an aspiration to create a “regular” army existed.47 Both American mobs were successful, though the KKK achievement was less durable.48 Success is very rare in the history of non-­state terror, no matter what the form or time examined. Despite their successes, the American examples apparently inspired no subsequent movements. Modern terror yields a more complicated, but in some ways complementary story. The first “Anarchist” wave lasted for some forty years, but produced no successes or changes in political life, which in some sense legitimized the terrorists.49 Common sense suggests that the later rebels would reject this new form of terrorism. But when the First Wave dissipated, another wave (“Anti-­Colonial”) materialized and produced the first few successes. Failure in the Third Wave (“New Left”) was virtually as conspicuous as that of the first.50 The Fourth Wave (“Religious”) has produced some extraordinary and destructive events, but not many political successes. Nonetheless, the much larger number of failures attributed to terrorist activities still persists; it would be difficult to find any serious observer who imagines that we will soon see an end to terror.51

American experiences with terror   159 Why were our two mob terror campaigns successful? “Violence,” Richard Hofstadter says, can only succeed in a political environment like the United States under certain conditions. Those who use it must be able to localize it and limit its duration. They must use it in circumstances in which the public is either indifferent or uninformed or heavily biased in their favour. (Hofstadter and Wallace 1970: 31) Certainly, the cause in both instances was very popular; the government also and its supporters were ambivalent about the wisdom or validity of state policies. The rebels clearly understood that this favorable situation depended on their abilities to restrain themselves. There are no reliable statistics to show how many people supported the mobs. One scholar states that some 550,000 were involved in KKK activities, an unlikely number because it would embrace virtually the entire white male population in the South.52 Still, the number, though exaggerated, suggests that a considerable proportion of the white population were involved in one way or another. With respect to the Sons of Liberty, large majorities in various colonial assemblies denounced the Stamp Act prior to the inception of mob activity, and the immediate effectiveness of the mobs in having the Stamp Act rescinded suggests that their popular backing was considerable. When the Revolutionary War materialized, some two-­thirds of the American population supported independence. One major contributing factor to the mobs’ successes not mentioned by Hofstadter is that they did not encounter professional police establishments, which were created later in the nineteenth century. (Parenthetically, one should note that the police all wore uniforms to deter potential mobs, but when modern terror developed, an element of the police took off their uniforms, developing a pre-­emption policy enabling them to penetrate the small groups.) How does the success of the two mobs relate to those very rare successes which modern terror achieved? In the latter case, the most durable and successful groups espoused separatism (or nationalism), but none of the many nationalist groups succeeded in the First Wave. The Anti-­Colonial wave from the 1920s to the 1960s produced the first and most significant successful campaigns. The reason was that the principle of self-­determination introduced by the French Revolution finally became a principle of the international order established at Versailles, largely through American influence. A crucial ambivalence was created in the homelands of the Western empires and in the international world as a whole. Terrorists were able to use that ambivalence to achieve at least some of their ends, at least as long as terrorists restrained themselves in significant way, as indicated by their refusal to strike at the colonial power’s homeland.53 That success was so striking that an “anti-­colonial” cause has become an aspect of the terrorist ethos ever since, because virtually all modern groups afterwards described governments opposing them as colonial or “neo-­colonial.” The claim, however, was intertwined with other objectives (i.e., New Left and

160   D.C. Rapoport Religious themes), which produced conflicting responses, vitiating the colonial claims. A more important fact was that those attacked later did not consider themselves as maintaining an empire. The very long forty-­year struggle of ETA (Basque Fatherland and Liberty) in Spain illustrates the point. The Spaniards do not consider themselves a colonial power; and with the exception of the Basque Diaspora the rest of the international world agrees. The more limited “successes” in the Fourth Wave reflect similar themes. In the first two cases, the defeated parties had placed their armies in what they knew to be foreign territories and only intended to stay briefly. Thus, Hizbollah compelled UN peacekeeping forces (i.e., U.S. and French troops) to leave Lebanon quickly (1983). The attacks ceased after the withdrawals; because the French and American homelands were not assaulted, the violence between the parties ended. The case of Israel in Lebanon had some different elements. The Israelis stayed much longer partly because their country shared a border with Lebanon, making Israel vulnerable to attacks from its neighbor. But the Israelis finally did withdraw.54 In 2006 Israel’s effort to push Hizbollah back from border areas was frustrated. Somalia produced another example (1994). U.S. forces sent for humanitarian purposes withdrew after several attacks. Significantly, no mutual agreement was signed to seal the decisions in both countries.55 The last case, the Palestinian, transcends the Third and Fourth Waves, and is the most complicated. The UN Resolution dividing the Palestine Mandate (1948) aimed to establish two independent states. But Jordan and Egypt occupied the Palestinian portion, territory they lost to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. Then the PLO, largely because of very strong international support, was recognized as the legitimate heir to the Palestinian territory even though it functioned abroad. Three decades later, after the PLO lost its striking power and Israeli settlements were planted in Palestinian territory, the Oslo Accords were signed, wherein Israel invited the PLO to come to Palestine if it agreed to recognize Israel and work out a final settlement. But, inter alia, the settlements have made the struggle more costly for both parties, and a solution has not yet been found. The continuing struggle has created a new Palestinian group, Hamas, which then won the support of the Palestinian majority. Inspired by religion, Hamas is unwilling to accept Israel as a legitimate negotiating partner. The colonial context and/or alternatively a situation in which the “stronger” party perceives itself in foreign territories helps explain our mob terror successes too. The British had honored the “no taxation without representation” principle in the original colonial settlements, which suggested that a mutual understanding existed that in some important sense the parties were separate peoples. Southerners constantly referred to the federal government’s presence as an occupation, one that denied them their right to choose the kind of government they wanted, an autonomy they argued that the U.S. Constitution was devised to guarantee. The North itself was divided on the issue, making it more difficult to keep troops in the South policing elections, especially in the face of allegations that the army’s election activities were fueled by the desire to increase Republican national power.

American experiences with terror   161 It is difficult to explain success thoroughly without more cases to examine. Perhaps the peculiar American context (i.e., the semi-­legitimate status of mobs) was a major reason for mob success.56 More mob examples to compare American experiences with would help one address the question. Beyond that, a systematic study of success and failure among modern terror groups is long overdue; and should that study materialize someday, we would have a better grasp of the peculiarities of the American mobs too.

Notes   1 I am grateful for the Andrew Mellon foundation Professor Emeritus Grant that made this study possible. I am indebted to Barbara Rapoport, Mark Sageman, Jeff Kaplan, Clark McCauley, Leo Snowiss, Jeffrey Simon, Michael Barkun, Richard Jensen, Rogelio Alonso, Nina Rapoport, Gary Nash, and Audrey Cronin for useful comments on earlier drafts.   2 The pamphlets (N. Morozov, Terrorist Struggle and G. Romaenko, Terrorism and Routine) were published in Geneva in 1880 by Russian émigrés, who were members of the Russian Narodnaya Volya, the first modern terrorist group (Ivianski 1989:128–149).   3 The most notorious examples were the Zealots (Judaism), the Assassins (Islam), and the Thugs (Hinduism); the terms zealots, assassins, and thugs are often used to describe terrorists today. Sacred precedents prescribed the tactics and weapons (see Rapoport 1984).   4 When the KKK revived in the early twentieth century, mobs again were its principal weapon. Explosives were used occasionally during a second revival in the 1960s. The most important example was the KKK Birmingham church bombings (1963) during the Civil Rights Movement.   5 Richard Lempert in a recent email (September 1, 2008) noted that European riots were often “stylized . . . [I]n England people were asked to illuminate (put candles in their windows) to show support for a certain cause and mobs attacked houses that weren’t illuminated.”   6 Graham and Gurr (1969) contains a chapter with information about the Sons of Liberty and the KKK, but the two are not compared with respect to methods and organization. Gilje (1996) is a much better and more recent effort treating the subject.   7 Surprisingly, that issue did not exist in the first sixty-­five years of modern terror, because early modern groups proudly identified themselves as terrorists, a description their opponents were pleased to use too. Today no one calls himself or herself a terrorist. The first person to reject the term was Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun (an Israeli terrorist group). One should focus on purpose not method, he explained. Thus, Irgun members were “Freedom Fighters.” A splinter group of the Irgun, Lehi (which the British called the Stern Gang), was the last group to identify itself as a terrorist one, though ironically Lehi is an acronym for Freedom Fighters for Israel. Begin was more astute in abandoning the term terrorist; he used it only to describe British activities. Subsequently, virtually all terrorist groups saw the political value in changing descriptions of their activity. Governments preferred to retain the “traditional” term, and sought to expand it to describe every rebel or non-­state group that used violence. By the late 1960s, the mass media, presumably to protect their reputation for objectivity, confused or corrupted the language further by obscuring the distinction between ends and means altogether, using the terms “freedom fighter” and “terrorist” as virtually interchangeable (see Rapoport 1977).   8 Certainly, the Sons of Liberty and the KKK qualify as terrorist groups under the definition proposed by the U.S. State Department: “The term ‘terrorism’ means

162   D.C. Rapoport premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-­combatant targets by sub-­national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience” (U.S. State Department 1999: viii). They certainly qualify under my definition too: Terror is violence with distinctive properties used for political purposes both by private parties and states. That violence is unregulated by publicly accepted norms to contain violence, the rules of war and the rules of punishment. Private groups using terror most often disregard the rules of war, while state terror generally disregards rules of punishment (i.e., those enabling us to distinguish guilt from innocence), but both state and non-­state groups can ignore either set of rules.   9 Gilje defines a riot as “any group of twelve or more people attempting to assert their will immediately through the use of force outside the bounds of law” (Gilje 1996: 4). 10 To do justice to the experience one would need a new, more pertinent term to replace “mob.” That task cannot be addressed here, but as long as one is clear about the limitations of conventional language, the word “mob” can be used. Many historians follow the convention of the period and speak of mobs, though in recent years more historians are likely to refer to mob activity as riots, demonstrations, and crowds. Tilly argues that the term mob is used by “elites for actions of other people and often for actions, which threaten their own interests” (Tilly 1978: 227). The term “crowd” may be most appropriate, especially as George Rudé redefined it (1981), stripping the concept of its more invidious and irrational connotations. For an interesting use of the crowd concept to explain the American experience, see Hoerder (1977). Other prominent historians put the term “mob” in quotation marks and speak of crowds without explaining why they think the term should be preferred (i.e., Nash 1979). 11 There is some evidence that merchants induced the mob to steal the papers so that smuggling charges against them would be dropped (Meier 1972: 58). On the other hand, several days after the event Hutchinson said that Sam Adams did not organize the second mob to do what it did (Middlekauff 1982: 92). Liquor was often supplied to mob participants (Hoerder 1977: 349). 12 Schlesinger published his essay in 1955 when terrorism was not as conspicuous or odious as it is today. Would his language be different now? 13 Despite the fact that he included the piece, Hofstadter and Wallace’s interesting introduction quotes Howard Mumford Jones’ very different view: ‘American mobs were curiously lacking in furious, deep-­seated and blood thirsty resentment. No royal governor was hanged or shot . . . . No stamp collector or custom official was summarily executed, although some of them suffered physical injury’ (Hofstadter and Wallace 1970: 14). Hofstadter and Wallace find the description apt, but fail to explain the conflict between the two in their volume. 14 The first British professional police force was established in London in 1829 after Lord Wellington warned that the army would dissolve if it could not be released from dealing with mobs. Some American cities began establishing professional police forces in the 1840s. 15 There were two trials. In the first, the officer was acquitted of the charge that he ordered the men to fire. In the second trial, six soldiers were declared innocent by virtue of self-­defense. Two were found guilty of manslaughter and their punishment were [was] tattoos printed on their hands to indicate that offense. The evidence presented indicates that there was a conspiracy to make the soldiers fire (Miller 1936: 184–188). 16 The original Sons of Liberty lasted for about a year. It was revived in three cities two years later for a short period, but even then there was a “gradual tendency to drop the name. It was almost never used after 1773 and during the decade of resistance it did not refer to a society, it was simply another name for patriot” (Davidson 1941: 76). 17 One reason why the Memphis riots got out of control was that the police were largely Irish immigrants who had a special antipathy to blacks (Hofstadter and Wallace 1970: 15).

American experiences with terror   163 18 In the United States, the House votes on the charges for impeachment, but conviction requires two-­thirds of the Senate, and the Senate was one vote short. Under the succession law governing the process, the President of the Senate (a Radical Republican) would have replaced Johnson. 19 In the 1830s the rage against Abolitionists created more mobs in the Northern states than it did in the South! But the Southern mobs were successful in moving the South to secede (Eaton 1942). 20

Historians rightly differentiate between the Klans of the 1860s and the 1920s, for the purpose and character of the two are as different as the two periods are. Perhaps it is now time to acknowledge that in the course of the last century there have been three different Klans. The third is the modern group left over from the mighty Klan of the 20s. (Degler 1965: 435–443)

Oddly, though the original Klan had a much greater political effect, the secondary literature devoted to it is much slimmer than that concerned with the two much less significant twentieth-century experiences. See, for example, the bibliographical listings in Fisher (1980). We are not concerned here with the four revivals later when the KKK became active outside the South, i.e., 1915–1921, during the 1930s in the Depression, during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and finally once again in the 1980s. 21 Estimates vary. Gilje’s (1996) statistics are culled from secondary sources, but his book shows a deep concern with counting riots. 22 The organization originated in December 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, when six young men decided to form a club. Mainly college men, they had been officers in the late War. Their problem was idleness; their purpose was amusement. They met in secret places, put on disguises, and had great fun galloping about town after dark . . . . They soon discovered that their nocturnal appearances had an unexpected effect and they capitalized upon it. (Chalmers 1965: 8–9)

Why they named themselves the Ku Klux Klan remains a mystery. Ku and Klux are variants of the Greek word, kuklos, meaning “circle” or “band.” 23 Forrest served two years only, resigning apparently because KKK elements became too difficult to control. 24 “Scalawags” are “venomous, shabby, scabby, scurry cattle!” “Carpetbagger” refers to the common belief that the immigrants brought all their belongings in a “carpetbag.” Some carpetbaggers were blacks from the North. The Klan’s most important political purpose was to make it impossible for blacks to vote, but secondary discussions of the KKK only began to focus on that question a century later and after the Civil Rights Movement developed in the twentieth century. Three important works treating the question are Gillette (1979: chs 2, 6), Trelease (1971), and Rable (1984). 25 The Radical Republicans organized secret societies too (i.e., the Lincoln Brotherhood in Florida, Heroes of America, North Carolina, etc.), but their presence only intensified sentiment supporting the KKK. 26 This description in various forms appears again and again when Gillette discusses particular elections. We do not know the precise number of casualties but it must have numbered in the thousands. Two 1868 elections in Louisiana alone produced 1,081 deaths; most were blacks (see Gilje 1996: 99). 27 In the KKK’s second phase, which began in the 1920s, it operated in many states outside the South. Indiana seemed to be the center of its activity. But during Reconstruction the KKK discouraged sympathetic efforts in Indiana, fearing they would create a backlash in the North. 28 We now see the Posse Comitatus law as a protection against military interference in civil affairs. Michael Barkun pointed out the irony to me in an email.

164   D.C. Rapoport 29 It is doubtful whether a terror campaign by blacks in the 1960s would have achieved a victory comparable to that of the Civil Rights Movement. This interesting issue cannot be addressed here. 30 Irish immigrants were particularly hostile, as the police activities in Memphis and the anti-­draft riots in New York indicate. 31 In the last half-­century (i.e., Watts, Detroit, Chicago in the 1960s and in Paris 2005) mobs burned property in their own neighborhoods making it more difficult for the communities they wanted to represent to support them enthusiastically. 32 Dictionary definitions of mobs or riots do not specify the minimum number, and certainly the common impression is that the number of participants would have to be greater than the numbers given for most KKK activities. But, alas, no useful alternative term comes to mind. The fact is that victims understood themselves to be greatly outnumbered, the defining characteristic of mob terror. 33 “From November 1870 to September 1871, the Ku Klux Klan sallied forth virtually every evening in York County, South Carolina, committing at least eleven murders and tallying approximately six hundred cases of whipping and assault” (Gilje 1996: 99). 34 The statistics are informed estimates. Sons of Liberty mob estimates are always very much higher than those offered for KKK mobs. 35 It is unclear from Hoerder’s account whether the leaders really were strangers or were only dressed as strangers. 36 The observation about the change in meaning is made in J.E. Cutler’s classic study (1905/1969: 276). He also points out that “the sentiment frequently expressed in a community where a lynching has occurred is to the effect that the victims got what they deserved” (ibid.). Although no reliable statistics on the number of victims lynched during Reconstruction exist, statistics were kept for the periods afterwards. Cutler’s statistics cover the period from 1882 to 1903. During that twenty-­two-year period, 1,985 blacks were lynched in the South as opposed to 600 whites and others. If the same proportion were lynched during the Reconstruction period, the number of blacks lynched would be 990. The general view is that lynching became more common after the Democrats took over, but no one knows what the previous figures were. Estimates are that some 3,000 blacks from the 1880s to the 1960s were lynched before the practice stopped. Lynching, of course, was a problem in the Western states too. 37 King Richard I apparently introduced the tar and feathering practice during the Crusades. 38 Secondary sources generally ignore the activities of the Sons of Liberty during elections, suggesting perhaps that it was not an important concern because the colonial assemblies supported the Sons of Liberty as long as they were restrained. Hoerder notes that Tories were sometimes prevented from taking their seats, and Gilje refers to election violence occasionally. 39 Most secondary accounts ignore KKK tar and feathering incidents, and the few referring to them do not elaborate. In the KKK’s first revival in the early twentieth century, the process became more prominent, especially when white members of offensive religious groups were attacked. 40 Besides the bomb, other technological changes were relevant for modern terror’s international character. The telegraph and the daily mass newspapers transmitted information virtually overnight to all parts of the world. The transcontinental railroad enabled large numbers of people to move quickly, a condition necessary for large diaspora communities to flourish, communities deeply interested in the politics of both their old and new homes. It is also important to emphasize that European mob insurrections were becoming increasing internationalized. They were still episodes and not campaigns, but they occurred at the same time in the capital cities of non-­Protestant Europe in 1820, 1830,

American experiences with terror   165 1848, and 1871, aiming to fulfill one or more of the French Revolution’s various promises. In the last two insurrections immigrants from various parts of Europe participated. But all efforts failed, and the aftermath – especially the one which followed the Paris Commune (1871) – proved so disastrous that some revolutionaries were stimulated to produce a new method, one that would be less bloody (!) and more successful (see Rapoport 2004). Ironically, one reason advocates offered to potential recruits was that fewer lives would be lost in the revolutionary process. Morozov, however, did express some anxiety that because the weapon was so easy to transmit it might be abused, making those like himself who championed it “ashamed” (Ivianski 1989: 78–79). 41 Some 12 percent of the Russian terrorists who “invented” modern terror were children of priests. Albert Camus’ fascinating play The Just Assassins, based on a real incident, shows how deeply implanted the desire for martyrdom was. Different forms of martyrdom developed in other groups, i.e., hunger strikes in the First and Third Waves. 42 We are not arguing that a desire to gain recruits is the reason martyrdom develops or is encouraged. But a relationship exists, which should be noted, and in certain cases may be important. 43 As Marc Sageman informs me in an email, in Islamic parlance the “scream for God” performs the same function. 44 The secret constitution of the KKK, written after the first Grand Wizard was chosen, does not describe tactics either, although references are sometimes made in the trials of offenders. The purpose of the Klan is not really described beyond protecting the “weak the innocent and the defenseless” and the “Constitution of the U.S.” (Horn 1969: Appendix 1). In the second phase of the Klan in 1925 the constitution was rewritten, published, and sent out to potential members. The major change was that it defined itself as a “military organization” and included a detailed number of commitments to protect the “weak,” especially women (see Rothman and Rothman 1975: 166–172). I am grateful to Jeff Kaplan who made me aware of the 1925 publication. 45 In the First Wave, those who actually were anarchists operated more informally and were usually associated with an immigrant social center. In the Fourth Wave al-­Qaeda has a mixture of the professional and non-­professional elements. 46 Unemployed sailors and journeymen were conspicuous in many mobs. Were they subsidized? 47 The PLO in Lebanon had around 25,000 when it was trying to transform itself into a regular army; but most members were not engaged in terrorist operations. The numbers in bin Ladin’s al-­Qaeda are unclear, but most informed observers believe that the numbers were less than a thousand. For more discussion of modern terror group sizes see Rapoport (2004). 48 Although we cannot deal with it here, it is worth pointing out that some dimension of the Reconstruction effort to “impose democracy” has resonance in the present situation in Iraq. 49 One could argue that changes like the eight-­hour working day were due to anarchist activity. But many others were involved in that process and the anarchists have not received credit. 50 The PLO is the only Third Wave group to achieve some success; the Oslo Accords enabled it to return to Palestine. Ironically, Israel accepted the Accords because the PLO’s capacity to generate terror had been enormously reduced. 51 The number of Fourth Wave groups has varied, but it is usually in the mid-­forties in any given year. See Pedahzur, Eubank and Weinberg (2002). But an email from Alex Schmid suggests the number is higher. 52 See the Ku Klux Klan entry in the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (Bernard 1933). General Forrest first gave the figure in an interview in the Cincinnati Commercial (April 28, 1868). But when he was summoned to testify before a Congressional Investigating Committee, he denied making the statement and said he knew nothing

166   D.C. Rapoport about the organization. The original interview is published in Appendix III; Horn discusses Forrest’s denials (1969: 316–321). 53 The principal exception occurred during the Algerian struggle against the French (1954–1962), an undertaking that divided the Algerian leadership and probably prolonged the campaign too. For a very interesting discussion of the problem see Crenshaw Hutchinson (1978: esp. 86–129). 54 The Israelis also wanted to form an alliance with Lebanon’s Christian elements living near the border, which contributed to their willingness to stay longer. The achievement of Hizbollah enabled it to become a major party in the Lebanese Parliament. 55 The KKK victory was never sealed with a formal agreement. In fact, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution highlighted a serious discrepancy in the situation, which ultimately led to the successful Civil Rights Movement a century later. 56 Paul Gilje notes that he has examined 4,000 American riots, “a number that does not come close to the total of all rioting” (1996: 183).

Bibliography Annan, David (1967) “The Ku Klux Klan,” in Norman MacKenzie (ed.) Secret Societies. New York: Collier Books. Avrich, Paul (1984) The Haymarket Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bach Jensen, Richard (2004) “Anarchist Terrorism in Nineteenth Century Europe,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 16(1): 116—153. Bernard, L.L. (1933) “Mob Violence,” Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Calhoon, Robert M. (1973) The Loyalists in Revolutionary America. New York: Harcourt Brace. Chalmers, David M. (1987) Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Crenshaw Hutchinson, Martha (1978) Revolutionary Terrorism. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution. Cutler, J.E. (1905/1969) Lynch Law. New York: Longmans Green (reprinted). Davidson, Phillip (1941) Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763–85. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Degler, Carl N. (1965) “A Century of the Klans: A Review Article,” Journal of Southern History, 31(4): 435–443. Eaton, Clement (1942) “Mob Violence in the Old South,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 29(3): 351–370. Fisher, William (1980) The Invisible Empire. Meteuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press. Gilje, Paul (1996) Rioting in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gillette, William (1979) Retreat From Reconstruction 1860–79. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Graham, Hugh D. and T. Robert Gurr (eds) (1969) The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. New York: F.A. Praeger. Grob-­Fitzgibbon, Benjamin (2004) “From the Dagger to the Bomb,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 16(1): 97–115. Hoerder, Dirk (1977) Crowd Action in Revolutionary Massachusetts. New York: Academic Press. Hofstadter, Richard and Michael Wallace (1970) “Reflections on Violence in the United States,” in Richard Hofstadter and Michael Wallace (eds) American Violence: A Documentary History. New York: Alfred E. Knopf.

American experiences with terror   167 Horn, Stanley (1969) The Invisible Empire. Cos Cob, CT: John Edwards. Ivianski, Zeev (1989) “The Terrorist Revolution,” in David C. Rapoport and Yonah Alexander (eds) The Morality of Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press. Katz, William Loren (1986) The Invisible Empire. Washington D.C.: Open Hand. McCullough, David (2001) John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster. Meier, Pauline (1972) From Resistance to Revolution. New York: Alfred Knopf. Middlekauff, Robert (1982) The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, John (1936) Sam Adams. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Nash, Gary B. (1979) The Urban Crucible. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. —— (2005) The Unknown American Revolution. New York: Viking. Pedahzur, Ami, William Eubank and Leonard Weinberg (2002) “The War on Terrorism and the Decline of Terrorist Group Formation,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 14(3): 141–147. Rable, George C. (1984) But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Rapoport, David C. (1977) “The Politics of Atrocity,” in Yonah Alexander and Seymour Finger (eds) Terrorism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. New York: John Jay Press. —— (1984) “Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions,” American Political Science Review, 78(3): 658–677. —— (2004) “Modern Terror: The Four Waves,” in Audrey K. Cronin and James M. Ludes (eds) Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. —— and Leonard Weinberg (2001) “Elections and Violence,” in Rapoport and Weinberg (eds) The Democratic Experience and Violence. London: Frank Cass. Rothman, David and Sheila Rothman (eds) (1975) Sources of the American Social Tradition, Volume II, 1865 to Present. New York: Basic Books. Rudé, George (1981) The Crowd in History. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Schlesinger, Arthur Meier (1955) “Political Mobs and the American Revolution, 1765–1776,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 99(4): 244–250. “The Sons of Liberty,” ushistory.org. Online. Available at: www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/sons.htm (accessed August 3, 2010). Swinney, Everette (1987) Suppressing the Ku Klux Klan. New York: Garland. Tilly, Charles (1978) From Mobilization to Revolution. London: Addison Wesley. Trelease, Allen W. (1971) White Terror: The Ku Klux Klan Conspiracy and Southern Reconstruction. New York: Harper’s. U.S. Department (1999) 22 United States Code, Section 2656(d), in Patterns of Global Terrorism. Washington D.C.: Department of State Publications, April 2000. Wells-­Barnett, Ida B. (1970) Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, ed. Alfreda M. Duster. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wood, Gordon (1977) “The Crowd in the American Revolution,” in James K. Martin and Karen Stubas (eds) The American Revolution: Whose Revolution. Huntington, NY: R.E. Kriens. Yang, Sandy (2002) “The Other Ghosts of Ground Zero,” Village Voice, January 1.

11 The politics of collective identity Contested Israeli nationalisms Myron J. Aronoff

This chapter analyzes the relationship between four variables and three competing models of Israeli collective identity.1 Temporal perceptions – the relationship between past, present, and future – are analytically distinguished by linear, mixed, and cyclical models. Spatial perceptions of territorial borders range from the more pragmatic, through romantic, to mystical. Personal and collective perceptions of security range from most secure through relatively secure to insecurity bordering on paranoia. Religious observance ranges from secular, through traditional, to orthodox. These variables are associated with three competing models of Israeli collective identity. Linear temporal perceptions, pragmatic definitions of state borders, secularism, and relative sense of security are identified with the more liberal form of civic nationalism. Cyclical temporal perceptions, mystical associations of borders with biblical prophesy and redemptive processes, orthodox religiosity, and strong sense of insecurity are associated with ethno-­nationalism. Mixed temporal perceptions, a romantic association of borders with homeland, religious traditionalism, and an intermediary and more situational sense of security are associated with republican nationalism. Different versions of republican nationalism have been dominant in Israel, but are contested by civic nationalism and by ethno-­nationalism.

Introduction: the constructionist approach The constructionist approach is based on the assumption that human sociability and politics are expressed and facilitated through the cultural construction of bonds of collective identity. This process takes place through political competition between and among groups that, while pursuing conflicting interests, negotiate their internal and external social boundaries. The outcome of this competition determines the relative social and political centrality or marginality of groups within the social-­political unit. They thereby determine the included “us” and the excluded “them.” The making of such distinctions is fundamental to all pro­ cesses of human cognition and social interaction. William Connolly suggests that: An identity is established in relation to a series of differences that have become socially recognized. These differences are essential to its being. . . .

Contested Israeli nationalisms   169 Identity requires difference in order to be, and converts difference into ­otherness in order to secure its own self-­certainty. (1991: 64) The valuation of these differences in which “we” determine our superiority to “them” transforms the cognitive distinction into a socially recognized normative one. Such mediation in the attribution of social valuation is an important second stage in the construction of collective identity. It is particularly salient in the formation of national identity. The formation of national identity is a dynamic and fluid cultural product of political processes. Whereas anthropologists tend to focus on the cultural dimension and political scientists on the political, a combined focus on the reciprocal interactions between the two dimensions is essential to achieve a more comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the phenomenon of collective identity. Collective identities are neither natural nor static. Within certain constraints, they are socially constructed, politically negotiated, and dynamic. Ethnicity is claimed by groups who consider themselves, and are regarded by others, to be culturally distinctive. They share a collective name, tend to stress common descent, and rely frequently on myths of common origin. They share collective historical memories, elements of common culture, association with a homeland, and a sense of solidarity. When cultural difference is assigned social relevance, the relationship distinction is politicized and thereby becomes ethnic. Although some scholars consider ethnicity to be primordial, it is neither wholly chosen nor wholly assigned. Anthropologist Thomas H. Eriksen has astutely observed: “Ethnic identities are neither ascribed nor achieved: they are both. They are wedged between situational selection and imperatives imposed from without” (1993: 57). External imperatives which are perceived as natural or supernaturally ordained become subjective forces of considerable power. Relationships between ethnic groups are appropriately conceptualized in terms of degrees of similarity and difference and of relative inclusion and exclusion. As Eriksen concludes, “Identity is elastic and negotiable, but not infinitely flexible” (1993: 158). Collective identity can only be meaningfully understood within specific socio-­political, cultural, and historical contexts. Social identity becomes most important—and therefore politicized—when it is threatened by forces of domination and/or assimilation (like colonialism and globalization). The acquisition of ethnic identity is generally associated with the growing sense of self-­consciousness linked with so-­called “modernity.” Because people reflect objectively upon their way of life as a tradition, they may tend to create an abstract sense of community with a presumed shared history. Such revitalized identities can be differentiated from the pre-­modern primordial ethnic groups identified by cultural historian and Professor of Sociology Anthony D. Smith (1986, 1991) as ethnie (using the French term). As so-­called “traditional” peoples become integrated into states, they tend to reflect upon and more objectively perceive their way of life. Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) demonstrate how

170   M.J. Aronoff cultural revitalizations often produce the “invented” national traditions that claim contiguity with an imagined past. The Zionist linkage of the modern state of Israel with the biblical Land of Israel exemplifies how new nations claim legitimacy from such historic links. As societies become more pluralistic, all such taken-­for-granted definitions of reality (including shared collective identity) become easier to question. The more complex and plural a society is, the easier it becomes for groups to acquire greater consciousness of the differences between their identity and that of others. Transnational migrations, communications, economic and cultural transactions, and social networking tend to blur the boundaries of even national cultures, making collective identities more open to negotiation. This, in turn, generates new processes of ethnic revitalization. Paradoxically, it would appear that in order to save a culture, one must first lose it. Smith perceptively concludes: “We are probably never so aware of phenomena and objects as when we are about to gain or lose them. Conversely, we never take them so much for granted as when we are assured in their possession” (1986: 7). It is from the past that modern states draw much of their claim to legitimacy. Frequently, the process of nation formation exacerbates tensions between ethnic loyalties and attachments of citizenship to the state. Such tensions often become evident in contestation among groups over the definition of the nation (see Schutz, Chapter 12). Aronoff (2008) compares this phenomenon in three fissured societies: the Netherlands, India, and Israel. Smith stresses: “the inherent instability in the very concept of the nation, which appears to be driven . . . back and forth between the two poles of ethnie and state which it seeks to subsume and transcend” (1986: 150). Both Ernest Gelner (1983), for whom the modern state is victorious, and Walker Connor (1994), for whom ethnicity triumphs, fail to consider the problematic of this essentially dual attachment.2 Smith defines a nation as “a named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members” (1991: 14). He distinguishes between two models of nationalism. The civic model of state to nation is based on the Western examples where the state historically created the nation. It emphasizes territory (homeland), patria (a community of laws and institutions), and citizenship (reciprocal rights and duties). The ethnic model of nation to state is based on the historic process by which many Eastern European states emerged from existing ethnic groups that formed national movements. It emphasizes common descent, ethnicity, genealogy, native culture, and tribal myths (see Ayele, Chapter 13, and Young, Chapter 14). Smith notes “the profound dualism at the heart of every expression of nationalism” because, “every nationalism contains civic and ethnic elements in varying degrees and forms” (1991: 13). While analytically distinguishable, such competing cultural models invariably overlap in the real world of politics reflecting internal variations in a dynamic process over time. As we shall see, different versions of a hybrid form of ethnic republican nationalism has dominated Zionist and Israeli political culture for eighty years. It has been under challenge

Contested Israeli nationalisms   171 Table 11.1  Types of nationalism: time, space, religion and security Nationalisms Civic

Ethnic Republican

Ethno-nationalist

Time Space Religiosity Security

Mixed Ethnoscape (homeland) Traditional Secure/insecure

Cyclical/mythical Fetish Religious Insecure

Linear/historical Borders Secular Secure

from two ideologically opposite political fronts: a more inclusive liberal version of civic nationalism based on equal individual rights and the more exclusive secular and religious variants of ethno-­nationalism (Aronoff 2003). Similar competing forms of nationalism constitute salient political divisions in many, if not most, states.

Ideal type models of nationalism: civic, ethnic republican, and ethno-­nationalist The ideal types of civic, ethnic republican, and ethno-­nationalist forms of nationalism frame this analysis. A more liberal form of ethnic republicanism captured the political center and dominated the pre-­state political system of the Jews in Palestine in the form of Mapai since 1930, and (through various splits and mergers) Mapai was the dominant party in a dominant party system until its incarnation known as the Israel Labor Party was defeated by the Likud Party in 1977 (Aronoff 1993). Formed through mergers of center and more nationalist parties in 1973, the Likud acquired neither the political nor the ideological dominance previously held by Mapai/Labor in the new competitive party system that emerged after 1977. However, it maintained a leading political position, and its more militantly nationalist ideological version of ethnic republican Zionism articulated by its then leader Menachem Begin was in the ascendant for the next two decades (Aronoff 1991). Kadima, a centrist party that split from the Likud under the leadership of then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2006, attracted a few key Labor leaders and occupies the middle ground between Labor and the Likud. The party that best represents civic nationalism in Israel is the liberal/left New Movement Meretz, which strongly supports peace with the Palestinians and greater socio-­economic equality, human rights, and religious freedom in Israel. The National Union, combining religious and secular nationalists, carries the banner of ethno-­nationalism and is strongly supported by the settlers’ movement.

Key variables: time, space, religion, and security The two primary variables I examine are (1) the contrasting ways in which Israelis perceive the relationship between the past, present, and future (time); and (2) the differences in their attitudes toward the borders of the state (space). These variables are mediated by two additional variables: the type and extent of

172   M.J. Aronoff religious identification and observance (secular, traditional, orthodox); and a group’s relative sense of personal and collective security. The correlation of these four variables with the three ideal types of Israeli national identity – civic nationalism, ethnic republican, and ethno-­nationalism – explains the basis for their political legitimacy and support.

Time: linear, mixed, and cyclical There are multiple ways of imagining the collective “we” that produce competing models of nationalism in every state. Important aspects of such political– cultural divisions may be understood in terms of divergent temporal and spatial perceptions. Various parties contest myths of origin by proposing competing interpretations. Different aspects of history are selectively forgotten and remembered in order to legitimize current political policies. The cultural construction of past, present, and future are framed by political sentiments and ideology, and reveal the link between contested collective memories and competing visions of nationhood (Macey 1991; Rutz 1992; Zerubavel 1981, 1985, 1991, 1995; see also Arad 1995; Azaryahu 1995, 1996, 1999; Ben-­Yehuda 1995, 1999; Gertz 1988, 1998; Silberstein 1991; Sternhell 1988; Weingrod 1997; Wistrich and Ohana 1995). I relate differing perceptions of history (time) and the land (borders, space) to the analysis of competing models of Jewish and Israeli nationhood in the context of uncertain and changing state borders (See Ben-­Ari and Bilu 1997; Galnoor 1995; Kimmerling and Yiftachel 2006; Davis 1982; Rapoport 1996). I caution the reader that the three ideal types employed in this chapter are heuristic and analytical. They simplify a much more complex reality. I employ a tripartite typology of nationalism to analyze the role of time, space, religion, and security to illustrate this key point. The three models should not be reified. Although I associate different political groups with specific orientations to history and borders, there is considerable variation within each group. Individuals within groups can and do operate on different time frames and attribute different meanings to the boundaries of the nation and of the state in changing political contexts and historical circumstances. I discuss below the relationships between the types of nationalism, and perceptions of time and space, degrees of religiosity, and perceptions of individual and collective security. Furthermore, I suggest how they constitute the basis for the construction of national identity, and contestation over its various forms within a single state. Cultural conceptions of time frame the perceived relationship between past, present, and future. Although individual variation occurs within groups, temporal perceptions tend to vary more significantly across subcultures and cultures than among individuals within their group. Linear notions of time are contrasted with more traditional, religiously inspired perceptions characterized as archaic or cyclical. Ole J. Thienhaus distinguishes between the dynamic, phasic biblical Hebrew concept of time and Western concepts of time which are “rooted in Greek philosophy which presumes space is the primary dimension” (1999: 442).

Contested Israeli nationalisms   173 Continuity of action is the distinguishing feature of Hebrew verb forms. Thienhaus observes that “Hebrew tenses emphatically do not designate time segments along a line from the past through the future” (1999: 443). The characteristic repetition of phases in classical Hebrew time is similar to the refrains of melody in a fugue. Spatially anchored and measurable Hellenistic perception of time is the basis for our contemporary conception of time in the West, which is generally portrayed as linear, progressive, and/or evolutionary. Cyclical time (as in biblical Hebrew) conceives of events as recurring, repeated creations, or apocalypses. They are frequently mythically mediated. The American and French Revolutions are considered to constitute major historical, temporal, and political turning points in the West.3 They are viewed as dramatic political expressions of the Enlightenment notion of progress in terms of linear time. As notions of sacred history as expressed in biblical Hebrew time and reinterpreted in Catholic Europe were undermined, creative imaginings of the future and the notion of progress came into play (Borocz 1999). The secular form of Zionism that became dominant during the establishment of the modern state of Israel was profoundly influenced by this revolutionary notion of progress. Don Handelman and Lea Shamgar-­Handelman (1997: 115) note that the sequences in linear time connecting “before” and “after” an event facilitate the creation of modern narrative history. Zerubavel (1995: 7) and Aronoff (1989: 137–142) demonstrate that tension between linear and cyclical perceptions of history underlies the construction of Israeli collective memory and has been related to important divisions in Israeli political culture. A third heuristic type, mixed time, combines linear and cyclical elements(Geertz 1973: 389). Linear time is (selectively) historical. The dominant Zionist master narrative connected ancient with modern Israel while conveniently forgetting the 2,000-year-­old sojourn of the Jews in the Diaspora (Zerubavel 1995). Cyclical time is predominantly mythical. The supporters of the Israeli settlers’ movement, Gush Emunim, believe the Messianic process that will ultimately lead to the Redemption of the Jewish people – and through them the world – is underway. Mixed time combines elements of both and predominates in most nationalist discourse. Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s preoccupation with the Holocaust and his tendency to interpret contemporary events in terms framed through this traumatic experience exemplifies the influence of this mixed time frame.

Space: legal rational borders, homeland (ethnoscape), religious fetish The social constructionist approach recognizes that historical, cultural, and political constraints limit the freedom to invent national traditions. For example, early proposals by certain Zionist leaders for alternatives to Palestine as a temporary refuge for the persecuted Jews of Eastern Europe were roundly rejected. Their followers refused all alternatives to the ancient biblical homeland – Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).4 Collective memory of attachment to Zion, reinforced by daily prayers, religious liturgy and texts, as well as a growing secular Hebrew

174   M.J. Aronoff literary-­intellectual movement known as the Haskala (Enlightenment), precluded popular support among Zionists for even a temporary alternative collective shelter, much less for a renewed homeland other than biblical Zion.5 For political leaders to be successful they must express the aspirations and cultural beliefs of those whom they wish to lead. The resonance of the Land, Eretz Yisrael, as the homeland of the Jews played an essential role in the construction of modern Israel (Marty 1997: ch. 9). The product of the territorialization of historical memory in which the land becomes perceived to be unique and indispensable to the members of a community as an influence over their development, as a witness to their survival, and as the resting place of their ancestors, is called an “ethnoscape.” This occurs when nature becomes historicized and history becomes naturalized through poetic spaces and sites of memory. Understanding self-­sacrifice and martyrdom for land requires the analysis of core myths and collective memories through which “a sacred and extraordinary quality is invested in specific places, generating powerful feelings of antiquity, reverence, and belonging” (Smith 1999: 16, 17, 19). The “choice” of the biblical Israelites by, and their covenant with, the Lord inspired emulation by other peoples who identified themselves as “chosen” (e.g., American and Afrikaner settlers in their respective territories).6 Territory is made sacred through the holy deeds of heroic ancestors and as a result of a quest for liberation and utopia by some who look for a New Jerusalem.7 Zionists sought a revitalized Jerusalem. Hegemonic Zionism perfectly exemplifies the successful production of an ethnoscape, a territory that becomes a historically constructed homeland for a specific ethnic group. The meaning of the Land and the return to it are perceived differently by secular Zionists and religious Zionists. The differences in meaning between them and the ultra-­Orthodox on the one hand, and Israel’s Arab citizens on the other (both of whom have traditionally been either non-­Zionists or anti-­Zionist), is even greater. Within each of these four categories there are significant differences in understandings of the appropriate geographic borders of the Land and what should constitute the modern state of Israel, of flexibility over the ability or willingness to make compromises regarding these borders, and of the type and intensity of meanings attributed to them. With isolated individual exceptions and one collective one (the Druze) the indigenous Arab population of Palestine was vehemently – and in many cases violently – opposed to the Zionist project of establishing a Jewish state. Their sense of place and identification with their land was no less intense than that of the Zionists. Their major dilemma today derives from the tension between their loyalties as citizens of the state – the Jewish identity of which alienates them – and their sense of belonging to the wider Palestinian, Arab, and Islamic worlds that are in varying degrees in conflict with their state.8

Secularism, traditionalism, Orthodoxy, and ultra-­Orthodoxy Secularism and various types of religious identity and observance play a critical mediating role in the relationship of cultural perceptions of time, space, and nation-

Contested Israeli nationalisms   175 alism. Ephraim Yuchtman-­Ya’ar and Yochanon Peres (2000: 123) suggest that religiosity has a perceptible effect on democratic commitment as well as attitudes toward nationalism. The biblical narrative of exile of the Jewish people from their ancient homeland and the divinely promised collective redemption through a messianic return to Zion serves as the root metaphor for both the foundational story in traditional Judaism and the master narrative of modern political Zionism.9 It is, however, a narrative that divides as much as it unites. Orthodox Jews believe it literally, while the secular Zionists interpret it metaphorically as their political myth.10 For the Orthodox the story and its promise are framed within an eschatological notion of messianic time (a variant of cyclical time), which is either in process or awaiting Divine divine intervention. For the secular it is viewed in linear time – rooted in a selected history that glosses 2,000 years to make a direct link between biblical and modern Israel (Bartal 1997, 2000; Zerubavel 1995). The major division within Orthodox Jewry (for purposes of this chapter) is between Zionist (national religious) and the non- and anti-­Zionist ultra-­Orthodox (haredim).11 The nationalists believe that the creation of the modern state of Israel is an expression of a divinely inspired process of the ingathering of the exiles as a prelude to redemption. The ultra-­Orthodox consider Zionism a blasphemous usurpation of the Lord’s exclusive prerogative, which commits the serious sin of “pushing” the messianic process. Avruch suggests that for the extreme anti-­Zionist ultra-­Orthodox, the idea of a Jewish state explicitly not ruled by religious law is “anathema, apostasy, and abomination” (1998: 151). Paine concludes that for them, the secular Zionist state is therefore “a profanation and a hindrance to the messianic redemption” (1992: 150–2). Thus, only strict adherences to the Law (halacha) give legitimacy to possession of the Land. Return depends upon all Jews living strictly by the Torah. According to Gershom Scholem, their messianism compels “a life lived in deferment” (1971: 35). Thus, for them, messianic fulfillment takes place in an eternal time perspective in which future, present, and past mutually affect one another; while for the religious Zionists the messianic process has begun in the present. All religious Jews (and many secular Zionists) consider the Land of Israel to be their sacred heritage. Most Zionist Orthodox (as opposed to non-­Zionist ultra-­ Orthodox), led by their ideological (irredentist) vanguard Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), believe that Jewish settlement of the Land occupied by Israel during the 1967 war (particularly Judea and Samaria, the heart of the biblical Land) is essential for the successful messianic national redemption (Aran 1990; Aronoff 1984; Avruch 1998; Lustick 1988). According to Paine, Gush Emunim works “to transform the land into the Land, a metaphysical reality . . . Gush Emunim politicized a fusion of memory and experience” (1992:157). Most ultra­Orthodox reject Gush Emunim’s determination to conquer time through space (by facilitation of redemption through settlement on the Land) as a form of idolatry not only through usurpation of the Divine divine prerogative, but also by making a religious fetish of the Land. In fact, many ultra-­Orthodox living in Israel feel they are in spiritual exile in a state that flaunts Jewish law.12

176   M.J. Aronoff Yet, there has been a growing convergence in recent years between the national religious Orthodox and previously non-­Zionist ultra-­Orthodox. Younger generations of Orthodox graduates of the state religious institutions tend to be more religiously observant and more nationalistic than their parents. Among many of the ultra-­Orthodox (particularly those born in Israel) nationalism has been developing. The convergence of belief and practice between the younger generations of the two groups has been labeled hardal, combining haredi (ultra-­ Orthodox) and leumi (national). This phenomenon is exemplified by the Ezra youth movement which defines itself as an ultra-­Orthodox-nationalist movement. Aryeh Dayan notes: “Ezra operates 356 branches, with around 8,000 members and some 700 youth leaders. Most study at the more prestigious schools of the state-­religious educational network” (2001). Evidence from recent social surveys indicates that a militant nationalism has developed among them. Yuchtman-­Ya’ar and Peres conclude: “The anti-­Zionist struggle has become an antisecular one [for some haredi Jews]. Jewish control of the historical Land of Israel and its Jewish shrines seems, under the terms of our times, consistent with a haredi worldview” (2000: 122). The pendular swing between exile and redemption represents a movement in both time and space. According to Handelman and Shamgar-­Handelman (1986: 3–5), it represents a cycle of movement from the sacred center, its loss, and redemptive return. Ravitzky suggests that the tensions between the State of Israel and such messianic expectations are: “(1) that between the partial, contingent, uncertain historical present and the perfect, absolute, Utopian messianic future; and (2) the internal tensions and even contradictions within the messianic idea itself ” (1990: 13). Like the Balinese experience of “pure simultaneity,” devout Orthodox Jews experience “Then is now, and now then” (Geertz 1973: 391; Heilman 1984: 64). Paine, summarizing the work of several scholars on Jewish temporality, concludes that “the present is prefigured by the past; nothing new can be learned except how to experience that past in the present” (1992: 154). Yet he also recognizes that even the most devout contemporary Jews operate on both temporal notions of “meanwhileness” and “simultaneity”; “paradigms of modernity and premodernity, respectively” (Paine 1992: notes 14 and 16). Specific context determines which mode is relevant and therefore operative. For example, while immersed in prayer or religious study, a religious Jew would likely operate on a different time perspective than while he or she was working in a physics lab. For both the haredi ultra-­Orthodox and the national religious Orthodox Jews, space and time are intertwined, mandating action. Yet the actions mandated, according to the interpretations of their rabbis, are radically different. Ezra Kopelowitz and Matthew Diamond (1998) explain how these theological differences translate into different policies regarding borders.

Political movements and parties The socialist Zionists who formed Mapai (1930) and the parties that merged with it to form the Israel Labor Party (1968) secularized the eschatological myth of

Contested Israeli nationalisms   177 Exile and Redemption, creating an “ethnoscape,” legitimated by what Liebman and Don-­Yehiya (1983, 1984b) defined as a civil religion. The Labor Party’s position regarding the borders of the state, while fluctuating over the years in response to the vagaries of leadership and factional competition, tended to be pragmatic, focusing primarily on security requirements in determining borders during the years it dominated the political system (approximately 1935–1977). The void between the biblical past and the Zionist present was filled by the Likud Party leader, Menachem Begin, when he came to power in 1977. Begin added a patina of religious symbolism, rhetoric, and rite to his ideological mentor Vladimir Jabotinsky’s secular, martial, nationalistic version of Zionism, which had become codified in the Herut Party (1948) dogma and practice and was reflected in the platform of the Likud when Herut and other parties merged in 1973 (Aronoff 1989: 129). Begin’s less secular version of Zionist homeland was based on the biblical heritage that especially appealed to traditional (mesorati) Jews, mainly of Middle Eastern background, for whom it was a form of national identity through which they could gain acceptance without having to conform to Labor’s secular Zionism.13 Although Begin didn’t make a biblical claim on Lebanese territory during the war, in his letter to President Ronald Reagan (August 2, 1982), Begin associated Arafat with Hitler and Beirut with Berlin. Begin’s obsession with the Holocaust (in which he lost his family) shaped his perceptions of present and future and influenced his policies. Begin represents a vivid example of “mixed time frame” and “ethnic republicanism.” In Begin’s view, the contested Golan Heights, which also fell within the Land of Israel (Numbers 34), was part of Jewish Galilee during Hasmonean times, and remained so until the Arab conquest in the seventh century. Although Begin’s biblical and historical claims to the Golan were considered less significant than the Golan’s strategic importance by both Labor and the Likud, there is a difference in the positions they have taken. For Labor, security was the primary consideration and politics was secondary. Most of the settlements on the Golan – unlike those on the West Bank and Gaza – were affiliated with Labor. For Begin, security and history were insepar­ ably intertwined on the Golan as well as the West Bank. The first government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (1996–1999), in which Ariel Sharon was Foreign Minister, reportedly secretly communicated a willingness to make territorial concessions on the Golan. Yet, as the Likud Party leader in his second campaign for prime minister (2009), Netanyahu made the rejection of withdrawal from the Heights a major issue in his attacks on the Barak Labor government.14 After Sharon was elected Prime Minister, he took no initiative to conclude an agreement with Syria based on relinquishing the Golan. Former Likud defense minister and Knesset member Moshe Arens suggested that withdrawal from the Golan Heights would signal the end of Zionism: “ ‘The danger [of withdrawal] goes to the very future of Israel. It’s a moral threat’ ” (Hirschberg 2000). Sharon has made similar statements. This is distinctly different from Labor’s more pragmatic position – which is all the more striking, because many of the Jewish settlements on the Golan are affiliated with the Labor Party.

178   M.J. Aronoff Religiously traditional, ethnic republican nationalists like Begin and secular ones like Sharon and Arens occupy intermediary positions between the predominantly religious ethno-­nationalists and the overwhelmingly secular civic nationalists.15 Ethnic republicans tend to operate most consistently on a mixed cyclical and linear time frame. Preoccupation with the past in understanding the present and a tendency to project the past (i.e., history treated as myth) into an understanding of the future is characteristic of the ethnic republican orientation.16 While making maximal territorial claims when faced with sufficient domestic and international pressures, they reluctantly make compromises, as exemplified by the 1979 Israel–Egypt peace treaty. Yael Aronoff (2001, 2009) explains why an even a more militant nationalist like Begin’s successor as premier, Yitzhak Shamir, negotiated pragmatically with surrogate representatives of the PLO, although he did not fundamentally alter his positions regarding territorial claims. After Sharon was elected Prime Minister in 2001, he insisted that “time is on our side. . . . There is no reason to hurry. . . . [T]ime is not working against us and therefore it is important to achieve solutions that will take place across a lengthy period” (“Ariel Sharon Makes It Clear: Peace Can Wait,” Time, April 16, 2001). Nevertheless, Sharon initiated the unilateral evacuation of all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and four on the West Bank in August 2005 based on a pragmatic calculation of demographic factors (Palestinian birthrate constituting one of the highest in the world) that were working against Israel in the long run.17 Politically liberal Israelis (who are predominantly secular) tend to operate primarily on linear historical time and are the most willing to treat the borders of the state pragmatically in exchange for peace, which they view in terms of national security. During his brief tenure as Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, a civic nationalist, demonstrated a clear linear time orientation by repeatedly stressing the notion of a critical “window of opportunity” for peace. We are required to decide: Do we await the future passively with our eyes shut, [a stance he attributed to the previous Netanyahu government] or do we take an active stance vis-­à-vis the reality and try to modify it to our advantage? (Cohen and Susser 2000: 38) As a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force and his country’s most decorated soldier, Barak (like his mentor Yitzhak Rabin) was personally invested in the national security approach to borders.

Consequences of border changes Changes in the territorial boundaries of a state create conditions that can call into question fundamental assumptions upon which the legitimacy of the political system is based. Israel has undergone several border changes – most dramatically following the 1967 war. The Sinai Peninsula, captured by Israel in 1967, was returned per the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt. Again, following the

Contested Israeli nationalisms   179 Camp David Accords (1979) and the interim agreement with the Palestinian Authority (1993), the peace treaty with Jordan (1994), and the unilateral evacuation of all settlements in the Gaza Strip and four on the northern West Bank (2005), additional changes in Israel’s borders were made. A final settlement with the Palestinians and a peace treaty with Syria would result in even more significant and emotionally charged border changes. Acceptance or anticipation of these changes – reflected in the far-­reaching concessions offered by Ehud Barak at Camp David and at the January 2001 Taba negotiations – called into question basic cultural assumptions that led to an incipient crisis of political legitimacy for the Labor government (Aronoff 1999, 2001; Migdal 2001, 2006). Uncertainties regarding the borders of the homeland, as Joel Migdal suggests, open up a “Pandora’s box,” questioning the outermost structure and inner essence of society: “When state boundaries are in flux, the reach of institutions – their space – is questioned, undermining their efficacy. It is at this point that we see severe conflicts over what the new institutions will be”18 (1996: 196). Similarly, Ruth Gavison notes: “The reopening of the questions of borders, together with the long occupation, has legitimated the reopening of the original challenge of the very idea of a Jewish state and its legitimacy” (1999a: 45–46). As David C. Rapoport observed: New state boundaries create enormous uncertainties about the future of groups, uncertainties which can be cruelly aggravated if linked to memories of injustices and atrocities and to fears of how groups will exploit their new strength or protect new vulnerabilities. (1996: 7) In such uncertain conditions competing models of nationhood vie to provide meaning and the psychic need for certainty. In Israel, these models give very different emphases to the state’s Jewish/religious/ethnic and democratic/secular components exemplified in the scholarly and public debate over the question of whether or not Israel constitutes an “ethnic democracy,” i.e., one that privileges one ethnic group over others (Dowty 1998, 1999; Gavison 1999a, 1999b; Ghanem et al. 1998; Kopelowitz 1999; Peled 1992; Peled and Navot 2005; Peleg 1998, 2008; Smooha 1990, 1997).

Perceptions of personal and collective security: predisposition and context In comparative analyses in different cultures (including Israel) a strong sense of security has been shown to positively correlate with political tolerance (Shamir and Sullivan 1983). Certain underlying social-­psychological attributes, such as a sense of personal security, as well as more contextually variable perceptions of collective security, are related to citizens’ ideological sentiments and orientations. Wilson Carey McWilliams (1995) defined ideological temperament, as distinct from more codified ideological doctrines, as “dispositions of the soul.”

180   M.J. Aronoff For example, Aronoff (1999: 37–53) identifies relatively high tolerance of ambiguity as a key attribute of the liberal temperament. The extent to which the non-­ Jewish “outsider” is perceived to be hostile directly correlates with the type and degree of militancy of Israeli nationalism. Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-­ Yehiya (1983) noted the different perceptions of anti-­Semitism among the different variants of Israeli civil society, which roughly correspond to the typology of nationalisms analyzed in this chapter. They found that due to the stress of Menachem Begin’s version of ethnic republicanism (which they termed the “New Civil Religion”) on Jewish isolation and Gentile hostility, it was more ethnocentric than the more inclusive Labor version of civic nationalism. The increasingly important role of the Holocaust in Begin’s interpretation of the Zionist narrative and such expressions as “Esau hates Jacob” and “a people that dwells alone” – expressions of traditional Jewish sensitivity to anti-­Semitism and the Jew’s sense of isolation – became more prevalent as the discourse became more nationalistic. The biblical prophesy of Balaam, “Lo, it is a people that shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:9), according to Aronoff (1991: 135), was interpreted by liberal Rabbi Menachem Ha Cohen (who represented the Labor Party in the Knesset) as a curse which he claimed had been transformed by the ethno-­nationalist rabbis of Gush Emunim into a blessing. The latter interpretation stresses the singularity of the Jewish people and the isolation of Israel. Citizens who feel personally more secure and who are confident about the security of the state tend to support the more liberal, inclusive form of civic nationalism. The most insecure members of society and the groups with which they affiliate – who sometimes border on paranoia – tend to be ethno-­nationalists. (Even paranoids can have real enemies and clearly Israel does not lack enemies.) Aronoff argues that “the more extreme form of national paranoia can become a self-­fulfilling prophesy by producing the results it most fears” (1991: 137). Those falling in the middle tend to associate with ethnic republicanism. Clearly, the objective security situation directly influences one’s perception of relative security and insecurity. Evidence of this may be seen in public opinion polls and in the results of elections. At times of high levels of violence the nationalistic Likud tends to gain and, in times of greater calm, Labor, with its more moderate ethnic republicanism that contains more elements of civic nationalism, tends to fare better at the polls

Conclusion The tension created by the dual attachment to ethnicity and state is manifest and seeks resolution in Israel through competing civic nationalist, ethnic republican, and ethno-­nationalist forms of collective identity. The temporal perspective most closely associated with civic nationalism is linear and is grounded in selective narrative history. Civic nationalists emphasize the liberal-­democratic over the Jewish character of the state. Israeli ethno-­nationalism is associated with mystical notions of cyclical messianic time, and those who support it privilege the

Contested Israeli nationalisms   181 Jewish character of Israel over a secular-­democratic identity. The intermediary mixed time perspective combines linear historicity and cyclical mythology. Its adherents (more than those more closely identified with one or the other type of time) oscillate between the two, favoring one over the other in different contexts. Those Israelis who operate on the mixed time perspective tend to support ethnic republicanism. Different ideological versions of ethnic republican Zionism have been politically ascendant at different stages of Israeli history and have offered different compromises in an effort to balance the tension between Israel as a democratic and a Jewish state. The more liberal version articulated by Labor’s David Ben Gurion leaned in the direction of civic nationalism. Under the leadership of the Likud’s Menachem Begin the “New Zionist” version of republican nationalism tilted more toward ethno-­nationalism. While the Land constitutes an ethnoscape of emotive poetic space and a site of salient collective memory for most Jews and all Zionists, conflicting interpretations of its meaning divide them among themselves.19 Supporters of civic nationalism, such as the Meretz Party, tend to be the most pragmatic about the borders of the state, seeing them primarily in rational terms. Therefore, they are the most willing to bargain territory for peace with Israel’s neighbors. Their linear sense of history leads them to perceive an urgency to find a political compromise while it is still possible to do so. They conclude that time is running out for such compromises, as was dramatically expressed by former Prime Minister Barak: “I compared our government to the people listening to the orchestra on the Titanic. We are sailing into an iceberg” (Aronoff 2009: 166). Adherents of the more conservative version of ethnic republicanism, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are much more convinced that time is on Israel’s side. However, as exemplified by the evacuation of the Sinai by former Prime Minister Begin as a condition for peace with Egypt and former Prime Minister Sharon’s evacuation of Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip indicate, demographic factors (i.e., the higher birthrate of Palestinians which will mean that they will become a majority if Israel would incorporate more Palestinian territory into Israel) and outside political pressures can bring about policy changes. They occupy a middle position in which the historic heritage of the ethnoscape is primary, but ethnic republicans demonstrate greater flexibility than the ethno-­ nationalists, for whom the biblical Land (Eretz Yisrael) is a religious fetish and therefore indivisible. Whereas republican nationalists like Begin and Sharon have compromised under pressure and withdrawn from previous borders, the settler-­supported National Union is a militant opponent of such compromise. The ethno-­nationalists more than the ethnic republicans believe that time is on Israel’s side – particularly those who are convinced it is part of a divinely ordained plan. The overwhelming majority of supporters of civic nationalism are secular. Among the minority of religious supporters of this liberal form, many are intellectuals. Most traditional Jews (including the majority of those who migrated from Arab lands) are ethnic republicans. Orthodox Jews are divided between those for whom Israel is Exile as long as it is not based on Jewish Law (halacha)

182   M.J. Aronoff and for whom messianic Redemption is deferred until the deeds of pious Jews bring it about in the future; and those for whom settlement of the Land by Jews is imperative for the continuation of the Redemptive process, which they believe is underway. The latter (and increasing numbers of the former) are overwhelmingly ethno-­nationalists. For example, Gush Emunim’s conviction that time can be conquered through space (settlement of the Land facilitates Redemption) makes territorial compromise extremely difficult, if not impossible, in the case of the most militant elements, since they believe that settlement of Jews in the biblical heartland establishes the territory of the Messianic Kingdom in time. The relationship between temporal and spatial perspectives and competing visions of nationhood may be summarized as follows. The more messianically oriented nationalists with the strongest religious identification with the Land as a sacred ethnoscape are ethno-­nationalists. Their religious messianism is linked to more xenophobic nationalism. Those most clearly identified with historic linear time have more pragmatic and flexible attitudes toward the boundaries of the state, and are most supportive of civic (more liberal) forms of nationalism. The middle position of ethnic republicanism, identified with individuals and groups with more mixed temporal and spatial perceptions (oscillating between the two in different contexts) have historically constituted the dominant majority. This traditionally dominant central position is challenged by the competing alternatives which it, in turn, critiques. The confrontation over defining the national “we” is at the heart of many of the current political struggles taking place in the world today. Therefore, it is hoped that this analysis of contested Israeli nationhood may provide a model for comparative analysis of the construction of identity and political legitimacy in other nation-­states.

Notes   1 This chapter was first presented at two different year-­long (1999–2000) scholarly seminars at Rutgers University. Thanks to John Gillis, David Gutterman, Jan Kubik, Robin Wagner Pacifi, Gadi Taub, Michael Warner, Eviatar Zerubavel and Yael Zerubavel for their thoughtful comments. A later version was given at an Intercongress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Goettingen, Germany, on July 25–27, 2000. An abstract of it was published in Aronoff 2003: 269–272. A later, revised version was presented at a workshop on “Contentious Politics in Israel: Past and Present” at the University of Antwerp (October 18–19, 2006) organized by Cas Mudde and Ami Pedahzur who I thank for their invitation to participate in it, and Ehud Harari for his comments on that draft. I am grateful to Shaul Shenhav for his useful critique of the version presented at the 23rd Annual Association for Israel Studies Conference (June 11–13, 2007) at the Open University of Israel. The penultimate draft was presented at the UCLA Conference in Honor of Professor Emeritus David Charles Rapoport on June 21–22, 2008. I am indebted to Jean Rosenfeld for her careful reading and extensive comments which were incorporated into this final version.   2 See Benedict Anderson (1983), who traces the relationships among the development of print capitalism, vernacular languages, and changing conceptions of time in modern nationalism.   3 The radical break with the past was symbolically expressed by the abolition of the

Contested Israeli nationalisms   183 Christian calendar (which reflected deliberate breaks with earlier Hebrew and Greco-­ Roman calendars) and the inauguration of a new world era by the French National Convention in 1793.   4 Hereafter I use the term the Land (with a capital L) for the Land of Israel – synonymous with the “Holy Land” used more commonly by Christians.   5 Although, as Kevin Avruch notes, “Herzl himself (after the Kishenev pogroms) accepted the idea of Uganda briefly and this indicates better than anything else the radical change in religious Zionism – so did the leaders of Mizrachi, in 1903!” (1998: 150). It should be kept in mind that the Zionists were in the minority and that the masses of Jews in Eastern Europe chose to immigrate to the West, especially to the United States.   6 Steven Grosby (1993) argues that this covenant may have been the essential factor in the constitution of the very images of the land and the people in the nation of ancient Israel. P.J. Taylor (cited by Itzhak Galnoor 1995:13) notes: “There may well be only one deity, but he or she has certainly been generous in designating ‘chosen people’.” (Taylor 1985: 128).   7 David Gutterman’s 2005 analysis of prophetic politics in the United States reveals the implications of imagining America as a “promised land” and a “wilderness” derived from the Exodus narrative.   8 A discussion of the Arab/Palestinian citizens of Israel is beyond the scope of the chapter’s limitations of space.   9 Sherry Ortner (1973) defines root metaphors as symbols with elaborating power sources for conceptualizing the world. For Zionists it is also a key scenario, i.e., a guide for social action. 10 See Christopher G. Flood (1996) on myth and Henry Tudor (1972) on political myth. I use the term as an anthropological concept which attributes no truth value to myth and has no derogatory connotation. There were also very pragmatic motivations, not the least of which was the need to provide a refuge from the persecution of growing anti-­Semitism in Europe. 11 Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-­Yehiya (1984a) distinguish between those who affirm modernity (modern Orthodox) and those who reject modernity (neo-­ traditionalists). Most modernists in Israel are Zionist while most neo-­traditionalists are non-­Zionists. A minority of the latter are anti-­Zionist. Menachem Friedman (1990) distinguishes between conservative and innovative fundamentalism. His terms are virtually synonymous with Liebman and Don-­Yehiya’s categories of neo-­traditionalist and modern Orthodox. There are divisions with both camps. 12 Aviezer Ravitzky (1989: 89) asks and answers the following question: “Who is a haredi? Whoever views and experiences life in the Jewish state in Eretz Israel as exile – the exile of Israel in the Holy Land.” 13 Arnold Lewis (1984). Whereas the movement led by Jabotinsky claimed both sides of the Jordan River, only the claim to its West Bank was made by the party led by his self-­proclaimed successor, Begin, after the June 1967 war. No less significant is the fact that when the government led by Begin launched the war in Lebanon in June 1982, it declared that it had no territorial claims. It could have claimed southern Lebanon as part of the historic Eretz Yisrael that was assigned to the tribe of Asher (Joshua 19:28). Adam Garfinkle (1998) notes that the Palestine Jewish Colonization Society and early Zionist settlers purchased and worked land on the Golan Heights before 1920. 14 Isabel Kershner (2000: 24) quotes a “senior Washington source,” who claims that Syrian Prime Minister Asad had “elicited from Netanyahu a commitment on a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights, almost to the June 4, 1967 lines – though in the end the Israeli prime minister failed to come through with the maps.” 15 In Israeli discourse the terms dati (religious) and chiloni (secular) force Jews into

184   M.J. Aronoff dichotomous categories, an opposition which is fundamentally misleading and politically explosive. The perpetuation of this dichotomization contributes to a Kulturkampf (cultural war) between the two (Kimmerling 1998; Peleg 1998, 2008). The term mesorati (traditional) is an important intermediary category between the two. Cohen and Susser suggest that the success of the embattled and crumbling consociational agreements on religious–state relations depends upon the traditionalists. Secular, traditional, and religious Israeli Jews tend to have different temporal and spatial perceptions and support different forms of nationalism. The pre-­state struggle between the choices of the designation “Hebrew” or “Jew” and the contemporary contestation between “Israeli” and “Jew” as the central identifier of collective identity reflect this division (Gertz 1998). 16 Yael Aronoff (2000, 2001, 2009), in explaining their shift from hawkish to more dovish positions, argues that Yitzhak Rabin was primarily focused on the present while his old party rival and successor Shimon Peres is much more future-­oriented. In response to the question posed by Leslie Susser (2001: 26), “Do you share the view Sharon has expressed that time is on Israel’s side, and there is no rush to agreements?” Peres replied: “No. It’s like having a sickness and saying time will heal it. You need doctors, medicine, and operations. You also need to understand the time we live in and the future.” Each eventually accepted the necessity of recognizing the PLO, but for different reasons (See also Aronoff 1993). 17 Ari Shavit’s 2000 lengthy, in-­depth interview of Barak is most revealing on this point. Gideon Levy, on Barak’s time perspective, concludes: As in the past, time is only working against us. What was possible to achieve only a year or two ago appears now, after the second Intifada and Israel’s power-­driven responses, after the hate for Israel that they ignited, to be much harder to achieve. (Levy 2001) The three-­hour interview of Barak on June 28, 2004 which Yael Aronoff and I conducted amply confirmed this point (Aronoff 2009). For an interesting debate between scholars of Israel on the time factor see the debate between Efraim Inbar and Ian S. Lustick (Inbar 2008). 18 “In the prevailing existential situation in Israel, its geopolitical borders play an important role, in the perception of self and for the mechanisms of internalization, externalization, and displacement” (Shalit 1987: 36). Dov Waxman (2006) analyzes the relationship between Israeli identity and foreign policy. 19 For an excellent analysis of the evolution of Israeli national movements see Nadav Shelef (2010).

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12 South Africa’s paradox of violence and legitimacy1 Barry M. Schutz

South Africa is an anomaly among African states. It is more economically developed, has more skilled labor, a higher percentage of high school graduates, and more estimable universities than any other African country. Moreover, its governments have proven to be more stable and democratic, especially since the ascension to power of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994, when the voting franchise was opened to the entire adult population of South Africa. However, South Africa has also experienced a significant increase in violent crime during this time.2 This pervasive crime has made life more difficult for all South Africans. The concurrent development of popular, stable, and democratic government with rising crime triggers several questions. What have been the elements of government in South Africa since 1994 that have sustained the legitimacy of ANC governance? How has the terror-­filled apartheid era affected the current paradox of violence from pervasive crime and intermittent jihadist terrorism with a seemingly legitimate, democratically elected government having broad national support? How has the rising crime rate affected such legitimacy and how has the lack of success in stemming crime affected the actions and beliefs of the population? How have people coped with ineffective police operations? And, finally, how has popular perception of the ANC been affected by the government’s problematic performance in controlling crime and violence? South Africa has also had one of the few homegrown jihadist terrorist campaigns in Africa. PAGAD (People Against Gangsterism and Drugs) mutated from being a communal anti-­crime movement against local gangs and drug dealers into an organization of radical Islamist terrorists bombing crowded malls and restaurants in the greater Cape Town area. A radicalized PAGAD introduced jihadist terrorism to South Africa in 1995. However, Muslim inhabitants of the affected areas turned against PAGAD with defiant disdain after PAGAD elements began killing or attacking moderate Muslims. Although PAGAD cells may have withdrawn into the seams of Cape Town’s Muslim neighborhoods, their terrorist activities have been effectively curtailed since the mid-­1990s. The emergence of PAGAD terrorism suggests that al-­Qaeda or like-­minded Muslim terrorists have the potential to instigate resurgent terrorist activities in South Africa. The ANC government under both Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki found a critical mass of Muslims in the Western Cape who would not tol-

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   191 erate the excesses of militant Islamism. Can this episode provide an example for other South Africans to mitigate the pervasive impact of criminal violence? And could the Muslim community withstand jihadist violence if it is directed against a splintered government losing its legitimate authority in South Africa?

A theory of legitimacy Polling data have suggested trends in political legitimacy. Afrobarometer has done the best polling in Africa south of the Sahara. Its 2007 political polling of South African opinion revealed a strong belief in the governance of the ANC government but without comparable aversion to “strong man” or military rule. Compared to other African countries, South Africa’s government shows belief and constancy of support over time, at least since 1994 (Mattes 2007: 11ff.). Legitimacy, as a concept, has gained greater significance in the study of politics since the proliferation of new states in the international system from the late 1940s forward. Legitimacy has been defined in a variety of ways but it essentially “encompasses a people’s sense of the good, rightness, or acceptability of the authority over them” (Schutz and Slater 1990: 3–4). M.G. Smith has distinguished legitimacy from legality: “Legality connotes conformity to the law . . . while legitimacy refers to a wider order of norms and principles, and ultimately to the traditional moral system, not all the elements of which are adequately represented in the law” (Smith 1960: 20). However, Smith’s distinction doesn’t grasp the concept in terms of the modern state. Rupert Emerson put legitimacy into context within the modern state: “in earlier times the state achieved legitimacy through . . . its monarch or religion, it is now legitimate if it is the embodiment and expression of a nation.” And “the nation is . . . the largest community which, when the chips are down, effectively commands men’s loyalty” (Emerson 1960: 95–96). From these perspectives, political legitimacy in the contemporary nation state is more attainable if it is in harmony with the nation’s history and culture. Given the distinct and separate traditions of South Africa’s ethnic groups, how is it that Robert Mattes, among others, has discovered that the ANC government is achieving greater political legitimacy than other African countries? Further understanding of the central role of inherent political legitimacy in states might begin with the Italian historian, Guglielmo Ferrero (1871–1942), perhaps the first historian to explain and understand the centrality of political legitimacy past and present (Ferrero 1942). Ferrero spent his early academic career in Italy writing on the dynamics of ancient Rome. After his expulsion from Italy by the Fascist government in 1929 and while resident in Geneva, his interests focused on the French Revolution. His treatise of comparative history, Principles of Power, traced the genesis of the principles of legitimacy from Rome through the French and Russian Revolutions, to the international chaos at the onset of World War II. Ferraro built his theory on a history of salient European governments and their crises from Rome to communist Russia and fascist Italy.

192   B.M. Schutz Ferrero infers from European history that legitimacy is a scarce political condition. When states form, they have to adapt to their own social and cultural realities. If state formation is violent, the process of legitimization can be rough, ultimately falling short of establishing a principle of such legitimacy. Ferrero’s hypothesis is that legitimacy is the primary condition determining the nature of government in a state. He cites two historic principles of legitimacy: monarchical/hereditary and democratic/elective. The older, monarchical principle places one person at the helm of the state or polity, who rules on the basis of his or her family’s traditional and, usually, divine right to rule. Monarchy depends on heredity as the basis for political succession, for choosing political leadership. The democratic principle of legitimacy allows for popular (or limited popular) election for political leadership and representation. Under this principle, the people of a polity can elect to retain existing leaders or replace them with new ones. Any attempt by a monarchical pretender to seize the monarchy subverts the principle of legitimacy. And, similarly, any attempt by a leader to maintain power outside of the legal basis of election negates the democratic principle of legitimacy. A government is “legitimate” when it is perceived to have the right to authoritative rule by the people subjected to that rule. Thus, a monarch’s right to rule is determined by popular consent, just as a democratically elected government’s right to rule is determined by popular consent. While monarchical government based on hereditary succession was dominant in most of the world’s polities until World War II, democratically elected government has become the predominant basis of legitimacy in most economically developed modern states. Global realignment and the processes of decolonization after 1945 created myriad new states and political crises. This pervasive transformation of the international system may have rendered obsolete Ferrero’s perceptions of past political crises – though the opposite may be argued – including the existential reality of the great global crisis that caused World War II. (Ferrero died in 1942 before he could see the outcome of that crisis.) According to Ferrero’s framework, the French Revolution introduced the democratic/elective principle of legitimacy but without fully replacing the monarchic/hereditary principle. Throughout the nineteenth century France alternated between the two principles in what Ferrero referred to as a state of “quasi-­ legitimacy” (Ferrero 1942: 213ff.). Ferrero referred to states whose legitimacy had not yet stood the test of time as “pre-­legitimate.” States that have monarchies have needed several hereditary successions to achieve legitimacy. While monarchies have survived in a few states (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, and Swaziland), most new states today are pre-­legitimate democracies with elected governments, rather than hereditary rulers. In Ferrero’s typology other states are either quasi-­legitimate governments or revolutionary governments. The quasi-­legitimate government historically has been caught balancing two principles of legitimacy, sometimes successfully (for a period of time), sometimes not. Revolutionary government is characterized by an emerging revolutionary principle of legitimacy. He did not regard revolutionary government as legitimate government due to the reciprocal fear of the gov-

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   193 ernment by the people and of the people by the government. Revolutionary governments such as France under Napoleon, the Soviet Union under Stalin, and, more currently, Zimbabwe under Mugabe are fearful of the people because the people are fearful of those revolutionary governments. Revolutionary governments have a tendency to drift into illegitimacy. Without the mutual confidence of government and citizens, elites in power tend toward corruption. Fearing the loss of their own authority, leaders seek the more immediate and material goal of wealth. This may then trickle down to the population so that the entire country establishes a corrupted political culture (Rapoport 1968: 411–432). When the military and police also become corrupted, the state can degenerate even further into desuetude, where no trust exists outside one’s own nuclear family (Banfield 1958; Golding 1954).

Legitimacy in South Africa As discussed above, we would have difficulty determining government legitimacy in regard to Africa using Ferrero’s framework because of the relatively brief time period since state creation (1958–1991). In contrast, both South Africa and Ethiopia have existed as independent states in Africa for extended periods of time. Thus, each state’s political legitimacy may be viewed in the context of Ferrero’s historical framework. In specific terms, South Africa’s colonial political system has evolved since Great Britain established rule over the Dutch settlers in Cape Province around 1820. The British Colonial Office was the source of rule even after Natal was established as a separate province in 1850. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, when South Africa’s mines became a source of precious minerals, more white settlers immigrated to the country. In 1890 Cecil John Rhodes became the Prime Minister of Cape Colony, increasing the significance of white settler governance in South Africa, and by 1850 Natal was already governed as a distinct British colonial province. Boer independence in the Transvaal and Orange Free State was established after the Great Trek in the 1840s, but was terminated following the Anglo-­Boer War (1899–1902). After the establishment of the Union of South Africa as a member of the British Empire in 1910, the remnants of the Boer resistance initiated a cultural movement called Afrikaner nationalism. During the period 1910–1948 white South Africans wrestled with the idea of either a united (white) South Africa or Afrikaner domination (Thompson 2001: 154–155). After World War II, Afrikaners established political domination (they comprised 55 percent of the white population) and under their Afrikaner National Party (NP) won a predominant majority in the 1948 election and imposed their policy of “apartheid” (Thompson 2001: 155–156). Ironically, it was the Dutch settlers (called Boers in the nineteenth century) who presented the major threat to British colonial rule. Colonial domination is, by definition, an illegitimate foundation of government. Thus, South Africa’s authority was lacking in legitimacy from the time the British intervened to take control in the Cape. While there was some Dutch adaptation, if not assent, to

194   B.M. Schutz British rule in Cape Town, the push of anti-­slavery policy emanating from London and the pull of fertile empty lands in what was to become the Transvaal (after the Zulu expansions) and the Orange Free State during the late 1830s impelled thousands of Boers to mobilize for the Great Trek (Thompson 2001: 87–96). In the meantime, the British settlers in the eastern Cape regarded the Africans in that area with fear and contempt. The separation between British, Dutch, Africans, Colored, and imported, indentured Indians provided the matrix for the racially mixed polity. British and Afrikaner whites institutionalized a faux democracy by alternating each ethnicity’s rule over the overwhelming majority of voteless, unrepresented Africans.3

The legal system Guglielmo Ferrero also pointed out that states that had successful transformations in principles of legitimacy maintained the legitimacy of the legal system (Ferrero 1942: 289–290). South Africa’s legal system has remained in its essential English common law form, with constitutional additions occurring during the British-­ controlled Union of South Africa (1910), the Afrikaner nationalist government (elected in 1948), and the post-­apartheid, ANC government after 1994. The legal system has not been static and has been shaped to venture into new juridical territory with the creation of the Union, the enactment of the Industrial Conciliation Act (1923), and the near-­revolutionary government during apartheid.4 Despite the revolutionary connotations of apartheid, the Parliament remained elective (for a severely restrictive white minority franchise), but to the legal system – English common law in form – the new Afrikaner nationalist government rapidly added a plethora of repressive segregationist laws to be applied to the majority of the population (the 85 percent Africans, Coloreds (mixed race) and ANC whites). Since the expansion of the franchise to all South Africans in 1994, the ANC government has made more changes, primarily to accommodate and facilitate the political, social, and economic equality of South Africans from all races and groups. However, from 1994–2010 the impact of these changes on the existing governmental and legal system has not been nearly as pervasive as the changes to those systems wrought by the apartheid government of 1948–1994. The South African legal system is a more eclectic structure than suggested by its link to English common law, as Afrikaners adopted Roman–Dutch law in the Cape in the seventeenth century and in the Transvaal and Orange Free State in the nineteenth century. The British military victory in the Anglo–Boer War re-­ established English common law until the post-­1948 apartheid era. The new legal system established by the ANC government created the unprecedented Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to investigate human rights abuses by both supporters and opponents of apartheid, with the commitment to amnesty for those who volunteered to testify truthfully. The TRC helped generate unprecedented legislation to abolish discrimination and to guarantee equality before the law and human rights, enhancing the legitimacy of the post-­apartheid government (Chanock 2001).

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The government Despite widespread anticipation that South Africa would burst into civil war between the ruling Afrikaners and the banned ANC in the early 1990s run-­up to the historic 1994 election of the ANC government, President F.W. de Klerk and ANC leader Nelson Mandela achieved a difficult compromise in their negotiations between 1990 and 1994. De Klerk’s critical and courageous leadership led to a whites-­only referendum in 1992 that endorsed his ongoing negotiations with Mandela and the ANC (Davenport and Saunders 2000: 561). The ANC’s sweeping victories in local, provincial, and national elections in April 1994 ensured institutional continuity from the regime of racial apartheid to the single-­party dominant rule of the African National Congress. The ANC government inherited the Afrikaner National Party (NP) governmental structure plus the military, the civil service, and the aforementioned legal system. Newly elected president, Nelson Mandela, had to conciliate conservative, but anti-­apartheid, Africans from the countryside (usually from the apartheid-­created Black Homelands), with the radical younger leaders, activists, and popular supporters emerging from the violence-­prone townships. At the same time Mandela’s government had to be strategically distanced from the ANC-­supporting South African Communist Party (SACP). President de Klerk had to conciliate the NP’s traditional base while trying to reach out to gain the backing of the Cape Coloreds, Indians, and liberal whites. Meanwhile, both Mandela and de Klerk were engaged in forging a legitimate identity for South Africa by mollifying or repressing violent extremist elements in their own racial groups. Popular acceptance of the ANC government by these diverse groups placed South Africa on a promising road to legitimate government. Ferrero might have considered this success story as leading to pre-­ legitimacy – consensual government that has not yet stood the test of time.

Charismatic leadership Ferrero’s framework places political legitimacy beyond the popularity of any specific leader. From his perspective how can any one leader span the length of time necessary to meet the temporal requirements for attainment of legitimacy? However, if we can argue that a single leader can help establish conditions that enhance the prospect of legitimacy, then we can meet Ferrero’s theory part way. American history points to its “Founding Fathers” and to George Washington specifically, and India has its Gandhi. South Africa has its own personal leader with a magic touch: Nelson Mandela, described by some South Africans as God-­given and a deity on earth, has been a contemporary manifestation of the charismatic leader who carries his mythic reputation with honor, humility, and wit.5 Although de Klerk won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Mandela in 1993, the Afrikaner president has never been mistaken as a charismatic leader. Mandela put his poignant touch on the existing institutions of South African government and law while negating the

196   B.M. Schutz stigma of the apartheid era. Moreover, he reached across the social divide to the Afrikaners in a legitimizing setting that was viewed by the vast majority of South Africa’s 43,000,000 inhabitants and by many other television viewers around the world. After South Africa’s national rugby team executed a stunning upset of the powerful All-­Blacks from New Zealand to win the Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg in 1995, President Mandela went out on the field to shake every player’s hand. All but one of the South African rugby players on the national team were white Afrikaners and yet Mandela, as the symbol of black liberation, visibly embraced all of them as heroes to the new, united South African nation. This emotionally charged unity in South Africa’s moment of triumph in the sport most beloved by the politically subordinated Afrikaners projected the reality of a united South Africa.6 Mandela’s magnetism and charm appears to be part nature and part acquired manipulation. To his great intelligence, imposing physical presence and inherent qualities of leadership, he added a subtle political ability necessarily acquired during his 27 years of captivity in Robben Island and Pollsmoor prisons in Cape Town. While maintaining his premier status as leader of the ANC, Mandela assumed great stature among the guards and superintendents on Robben Island and ultimately within the highest echelons of the National Party (Sampson 2000: 279–295). His meetings with Neil Barnard, Director of Intelligence; Kobie Coetsee, Minister of Justice; and P.W. Botha, Prime Minister contributed greatly to Mandela’s rising esteem among the National Party elites even before he was freed from prison (Carlin 2008:49–60). Mandela studied the Afrikaans language, as well as Afrikaner culture, traditions, and behavioral traits while he was on Robben Island (Mandela 1994:542–545). He used this knowledge to enhance the status and leverage of the NP’s perceived enemy, the African National Congress. And, of course, he applied this leverage for his own release as well as for other ANC prisoners. Ferrero dismissed personal leadership as a principle of legitimacy. He insisted on looking at “the big historical picture” when proclaiming a country’s basis of political legitimacy. His treatment of historical leaders like Julius Caesar and Napoleon as subordinate characters in the history of legitimacy, rather than as legitimate actors, would likely have led him to characterize Mandela similarly (Ferrero 1942: 222–226). Max Weber (1947) looked at legitimacy and legitimate authority in a more structural sense. He compared the monarchical/hereditary principle of legitimacy to “traditional authority” and the democratic/elective principle to “legal-­rational authority.” However, between those two types of authority Weber interposes a third type which he calls “charismatic authority.” The charismatic leader emerges in times of peril and change. He or she has a mission that is effectively communicated to the followers. The charismatic connection lasts only as long as does the leader’s effectiveness in executing the mission. The binding relationship between the ruler and the ruled establishes the leader’s charisma. The leader and followers then legitimize charismatic authority to succeeding institutions. The leader who succeeds the charismatic one must link himself or herself to the

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   197 institution (government, movement, party, family, clique) to retain that charisma. Some of the developmental literature of the 1960s and 1970s used the term “routinization of charisma” to describe the succession process (Bendix 1960: 308–328). Mandela’s charisma has given South Africa a chance to have legitimate government. As mentioned above, at the 1995 Rugby World Cup Final in Johannesburg, Mandela donned the winning Springboks cap and jacket while congratulating each of the players. This act of overt unity with “the enemy” contributed to a sense of nationhood and put his ANC into a stronger position of authority. Mandela’s acts of personal genius in prison and since his release transferred his charismatic authority to the African National Congress as a political party and ultimately to the government it has led.

The ANC and Mandela The ANC began its existence in 1912 to protect the rights of Africans. Between that time and 1948, it was the organization primarily promoting African economic concerns, especially through appeals for workers’ rights. It was always multi-­ethnic, but people of Xhosa descent from the eastern Cape have tended to greater prominence. After the Afrikaner nationalist victory in the 1948 election (from which other Africans were excluded), the ANC became a vehicle for growing numbers of Asians, Coloreds, and even South African whites who supported a single, multi-­ethnic South Africa. It was then that Nelson Mandela, a well-­educated Xhosa in his thirties with royal heritage, became active in the ANC (Sampson 2000: 5–77). The ANC’s culture and tradition was generally activist but non-­violent. It had been influenced by Gandhi’s anti-­colonial actions against the British in both South Africa (where Gandhi was born) and India (after he returned to the land of his family). The ANC’s non-­violent commitment and strategy were spelled out in the Freedom Charter of 1955.7 It espouses a commitment to socialism through democratic means and has no mention of class warfare or violent force. It was this non-­violent statement that contributed to the split of the Pan-­Africanist Congress (PAC) from the ANC in 1958. However, the Sharpeville Massacre of March 21, 1960 catapulted the ANC and Mandela into a more aggressive and liberationist posture.8 They formed a military wing and allegedly attacked state structures. In October 1963 Mandela and several of his compatriots in the ANC were brought to trial for sabotage and possibly high treason in Rivonia, South Africa. Mandela convincingly argued that while he was not a communist, it was the communists in South Africa who treated Africans as equals and partners. His speech in his and the ANC’s own defense was so courageous that the judge, who was expected to apply capital punishment to their case, sentenced Mandela and ANC cohorts to life in prison (Sampson 2000: 179–198). During negotiations between F.W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, the legal ban on the African National Congress was lifted, the movement’s other notables in prison were released, and those in exile returned home. Mandela remained

198   B.M. Schutz steadfastly loyal to the ANC throughout his 27 years in prison and during the political transition from 1990 to 1994. Although there are numerous ANC leaders and members responsible for the movement’s victory, it was Mandela who virtually carried the ANC on his back in the critical years before the transition of power.9 Without Mandela could the ANC have gained this unexpected acceptance by the white minority in such a short space of time? In the tense days before the all-­South Africa election in April 1994, Mandela maintained a strong grip on the ANC. When the ANC was accused of provoking violence against the Zulu-­dominated Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in Johannesburg in the days just before the election, Mandela defended the ANC and accused the IFP of the provocation (Thompson 2001: 261–263). Mandela’s presidency transformed the ANC from a liberation movement to a democratically elected political party. The ANC was suddenly a dominant party in Parliament, opposed by the remnants of the old National Party (rebranded as the New National Party), the Democratic Party (mostly English-­speaking whites), and the IFP (the KwaZulu party created and led by Gatsha Buthelezi). There were myriad smaller parties that did not threaten sufficiently even to gain seats in Parliament. The ANC had to rely on Mandela’s charismatic touch and white civil service holdovers from the previous government to get them through the early years of the first term. The ANC also lost much of its unity as a movement as it contained three politically defined organizations within it: the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU); the South African Communist Party (SACP); and, more recently, the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL). The base of the ANC’s popular support exists in the urban townships and, to a lesser extent, the rural areas. Mandela’s luminous popular image kept the labor union and communist support groups in place for the first term, but the subsequent Thabo Mbeki government had more difficulty in holding on to COSATU and SACP backing. Current President Jacob Zuma, meanwhile, has a more ambitious ANC Youth League gaining influence and notoriety in his government.10 Nelson Mandela not only created a basis for legitimate government in South Africa, he solidified it by deciding against running for a second term in 1999. He explained that at age 81 he did not have the energy to remain President for five more years. Furthermore, he had already transferred the bulk of presidential duties to his Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, so that the succession was set in motion for months, if not years, before President Mandela’s decision to retire from office. Nevertheless, the decision was of more than symbolic significance. Mbeki floated a run for a third presidential term on a South Africa Broadcast Company (SABC) interview on July 2, 2007. The Mandela example bolstered those inside and outside the ANC to prevent such an event. Thabo Mbeki was replaced as Chairman of the ANC at a party convention on November 1, 2008 before he could make his desire for a third term come to fruition (Cape Argus, July 2, 2007).

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Violence and terrorism: the apartheid era South Africa had experienced more violence and terrorism under apartheid than it has since under ANC governance. However, street crime is a greater problem today. The apartheid governments directed their anti-­violence campaigns against political targets, especially the ANC. They had only partial legitimacy and even that was based on fear. The minority whites lived in fear of African claims and perceived intentions. The African population lived in fear of white police and military might. The apartheid government ruled, in Ferrero’s conceptual terminology, as a revolutionary government (Ferrero 1942: 187–189). The African population, losing patience, supported the ANC, waiting to be liberated by them. Before the ascension of the Afrikaner apartheid revolution in 1948, the ANC functioned as an organization primarily pursuing civil rights for all South Africans. Indeed, South Africa’s first nationalist revolution in 1948 involved Afrikaner capture of what had been heretofore British- or liberal Afrikaner-­dominated governments from the Anglo–Boer War to immediately after World War II. The Afrikaner NP governments made pervasive constitutional revisions so that their policy of apartheid could affect all aspects of South African society. The ANC, animated by apartheid policies in general and by the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 in particular, revised their non-­violent objectives. On December 16, 1961 the ANC created a military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe – Spear of the Nation (or NK) – to carry out what the ANC considered a fight for liberation. The South African government under the Afrikaner NP regarded these tactics as violent and communist-­supported terrorism (Thompson 2001: 187–220). State terrorism was a much greater threat to South Africa during the apartheid government’s tenure. The Suppression of Communism Act (1950) banned specified organizations or individuals adjudged communist on the basis of the government’s unreasonably broad definition. After Sharpeville, the government’s fear of black resistance movements quickly rose. In 1967 The Terrorism Act made terrorist actions a statutory crime and implemented indefinite detentions on those apprehended. The Affected Organizations Act of 1974 followed, preventing political opposition organizations from receiving foreign funding. Finally, the Internal Security Act, buttressing all of the above acts, was made law in 1982 (Clark and Worger 2004: x–xii). The Soweto Township Uprising in 1976 brought the terror home to the apartheid government and its white supporters. The government responded by declaring war on the banned SACP and ANC, and individuals defined as members or supporters of any of these organizations were banned from public life, restricted to their homes, allowed visits by only one person at a time, and barred from visiting schools, newspapers, and courts. In 1985 the government declared a state of emergency – imposing police and military rule until 1989. The ANC did not need to carry out an abundance of terrorist operations to be a serious threat to the apartheid government. The ANC’s organizational resilience and enduring trust from the bulk of South Africa’s majority black population allowed them to take credit for the many other African uprisings during the

200   B.M. Schutz apartheid era. The ANC–township linkage burgeoned after the apartheid government made 18,000 arrests in response to Sharpeville. This led to the implementation of the Pass Laws requiring all Africans to carry identity cards at all times. The ANC and PAC were quickly banned, resulting in their both going underground. By 1961 the ANC’s efforts to bring together representatives from all ethnic groups was met by brutal police reaction. The ANC had to call off their strike against the Pass Laws and went on to form the Umkhonto we Sizwe (NK) military wing that conducted tactical sabotage on selected state structures. In 1963 Mandela was tried for treason. Later, in the 1970s, the Black Consciousness Movement emerged under the leadership of the young, energetic Steve Biko. Influenced by the U.S. Black Power movement, it endorsed black pride and African customs, instilling self-­ esteem in black youth. Biko was seized by police in August 1977 and murdered shortly thereafter while in detention (Davenport and Saunders 2000: 449–454). Even before Biko’s murder, the 1976 Soweto Uprising burst out of the apartheid government’s imposition of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in all schools. Black students took to the streets in what was meant to be peaceful protest. The police opened fire, killing, by some estimates, over 500 students and injuring 4,000 more. The Soweto Uprising was a rallying cry for young blacks in the townships. Several student organizations were formed against apartheid, leading to school boycotts throughout the 1980s. By 1985 political violence grew rampant as black townships became the focal point in the conflict between the ANC-­backed anti-­apartheid organizations and the NP government led by P.W. Botha. On July 22, 1985 the ANC’s Chairman, Oliver Tambo, explicitly proclaimed that the ANC’s aim was to make the townships “ungovernable” (Davenport and Saunders 2000: 506). The barely organized attacks on local black authorities accused of collaborating with the apartheid government led to the collapse of township councils and the rapid creation of people’s courts (Davenport and Saunders 2000: 509). Soon many residents were accused of being government agents and were attacked by petrol bombs and grotesque murders called “necklacing”: victims were burned alive by tires filled with ignited gasoline wrapped around their necks (Davenport and Saunders 2000: 488–496). After the government’s State of Emergency was declared in 1985 in the Johannesburg, Pretoria, Vereeniging region (The Rand) and the eastern Cape, the police and military were given sweeping powers. The Emergency was then extended to the western Cape (Cape Town and environs), and by 1987, to the entire country. Detention without trial, often accompanied by torture, became routine and by 1988 30,000 people were detained (Thompson 2001: 228–230). Most of the violence emanating from the townships during that time was directed at the Botha NP government, but increasingly it was black on black. Some of this violence pitted the Zulu-­based Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) against the ANC and its ostensible surrogate inside South Africa, the United Democratic Front (UDF). Much of the violence was apparently promoted or intensified by government agent provocateurs. Later, the 1995 Truth and Reconciliation Commission

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   201 Report accused NP government agents of assassinating opponents inside and outside South Africa and attacking purported ANC and PAC bases in cross-­ border army and air force raids. The ANC and PAC retaliated by exploding bombs at restaurants, shopping centers, and government buildings (Sparks 1994: 163–168). President Botha died in office in 1990 and was replaced by F.W. de Klerk, who lifted the State of Emergency shortly thereafter.

The transitional years: 1990 to 1994 Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February 1990. Most of the other ANC activists who were imprisoned on Robben Island with Mandela were released before the end of 1991. At that time, the most serious violence occurred in KwaZulu (then called Natal) Province where ANC and IFP fighters were engaged in guerrilla warfare. From July to September 1990 the fiercest battles in modern South African history took place when Gatsha Buthelezi’s IFP launched raids in the Transvaal’s predominantly ANC-­supporting black townships. “Zulu male migrant workers, housed in squalid hostels, started a series of brutal attacks. Also, gangs of unidentified people murdered passengers on trains commuting to and from Soweto” (Thompson 2001: 250). More than 800 people were reportedly killed. The ANC supporters staunchly defended their own territory before the South African Police intervened to stifle the hostilities. Sporadic battles continued between the rival movements, mainly in Natal, until the transfer of power in 1994 (Armed Conflict Events Data 1990–1994). The battle between the ANC and Inkatha was complex. Buthelezi, the IFP’s founder and leader, and a scion of the Zulu hereditary dynasty, resented Mandela’s sudden claim to leadership. As soon as the ANC was unbanned in 1990, plans for negotiations between the South African government under de Klerk and the ANC were revealed. Buthelezi, until Mandela’s release, had wanted to be seen as the most legitimate leader to work with the NP. Mandela and the ANC were flatly opposed to seeing Inkatha’s ethnic Zulu base become a separate pole of power. Mandela and the ANC had much broader and more passionate international support. Conservative observers inside and outside South Africa generally viewed Buthelezi positively, but with the legal emergence of Mandela and the ANC, Buthelezi’s support outside South Africa diminished. The consensus at the time was that history was not on the side of either the Afrikaners or Inkatha.11 It should not be forgotten that up until and through the transitional years, international expectations were for a violent South African civil war between the white bitter-­enders and the forces of African nationalism. As negotiations took place between de Klerk and Mandela, tensions rose.12 Afrikaner nationalist extremists began plotting and implementing terrorist attacks against black individuals and organizations. Chris Hani, an ANC official and Chairman of the SACP, who was considered the most popular member in the movement after Mandela, was gunned down in front of his own home by a white extremist on April 27, 1993 (TRC Report 1998). In a somewhat more fanciful but equally

202   B.M. Schutz threatening operation, a contingent of the extreme right-­wing Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) and Afrikaner Volksfront (AVF) invaded Bophuthatswana to support its leader, Lucas Mangope, against an attempted coup. Bophuthatswana, an apartheid-­created tribal homeland inside South Africa, was slated to lose its autonomous status under a democratic government. After the invaders engaged in a shooting spree against unarmed Bophuthatswana citizens, killing over 40 and injuring scores more, the Bophuthatswana Defense Force responded by driving the white extremists out of the homeland, killing three AWB leaders in the process (Bestor 1994). Some African nationalists also engaged in terrorist operations against whites during this period. The military wing of the Pan-­Africanist Congress, the Azanian People’s Army, conducted several terrorist attacks in 1993 and early 1994. On June 25, 1993 they massacred parishioners at the St. James Evangelical Anglican Church in Cape Town. On January 1, 1994 they hit a popular pub near Cape Town University, killing four more people (Sparks 1994: 192). General crime expanded during the 1990 to 1994 period, especially in urban areas. Many of the apartheid laws, grand and petty, had been lifted, allowing blacks to move freely into previously white-­only areas. Robberies were the crime of choice in the urban downtown areas while more violent crime became more prevalent in the townships. Firearms were being registered in record numbers, and thefts of firearms enhanced the dispersal of guns throughout the population. Terrorist attacks continued until the very last days of the apartheid government. Once the ANC won the democratic general election held from April 27–30, 1994 with nearly 63 percent of the vote, the terrorist attacks subsided – but the street crime did not (Thompson 2001: 260–261).

Violence and terror after 1994 Crime continued to be a problem for the police after 1994 but two criminal problems stood out: (1) the campaign by and against People Against Gangsterism And Drugs (PAGAD); and (2) the taxi wars. These two phenomena have been characterized as “terrorist” (Anonymous 2009: 7).

PAGAD: from vigilantism to terrorism The Cape Town-­based PAGAD organization was created in 1995 to combat organized crime in the Muslim community. It was formed primarily out of the Muslim activist organization, Qibla. PAGAD was originally an issues-­oriented citizen’s action and community-­watch group focusing on crime and drug-­dealing in Cape Town. Motivations for vigilantism grew out of public impatience with ineffective and increasingly corrupt behavior by the local South African Police Service (SAPS). PAGAD began with marches in drug-­active areas of Cape Town, petitioning police to pursue drug-­dealers servicing Muslim youth, and with community meetings to produce information for targeting the drug-­dealers. According to one assessment, “members would storm into a known drug dealer’s

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   203 house and issue an ultimatum, ‘We are giving you 24 hours to clean up your act, or we will come back for you’ ” (Anonymous 2009: 8). As PAGAD became more aggressive and recognized, remaining members of Qibla linked up, adding the call for a holy war to fight against gangs and drugs. This spiritualization of PAGAD created an organizational split in 1996. Violence ensued with a bombing campaign by PAGAD’s “G-­Force,” or Gun Force (Botha 2005). Operating out of small cells, PAGAD’s G-­Force claimed responsibility for the killing of many gang leaders and also for an assault on public places. From 1996 to 1998, there were a reported 222 attacks against drug-­dealers and gang leaders. Bombings of public places began in 1998 with targets such as the popular Victoria and Alfred Waterfront shopping mall. In August 1998 the Planet Hollywood Casino, linked to United States ownership, was bombed on the western Cape coast, just outside Cape Town. In 2000 a magistrate who was presiding in a PAGAD case was murdered in a drive-­by shooting. During this period, PAGAD was also implicated in planting bombs to terrorize moderate Muslims, opposition parties, police structures, synagogues, Jewish-­owned establishments, gay nightclubs, and tourist attractions (U.S. Department of State 2001). The bombings, shootings, and jihadist terrorism of PAGAD awakened the Mandela government. Police pursuit and surveillance, along with increased prosecutions reinforced by solid community cooperation and support, decimated PAGAD’s militant leadership and widespread membership. Vigilantism subsided in 2002. PAGAD’s bombing of the police Serious Crimes Unit in the western Cape in November 2002 was their last attributed act of terrorist violence. PAGAD still exists but has membership in the hundreds, as opposed to the 100,000 it reportedly had in 1996. Its jihadist, anti-­state elements, Movement Against Global Oppression and Movement Against Illegitimate Leaders, are presently contained, but they maintain their links to international jihadist terrorism (Botha 2005: 3). PAGAD’s brief reign as an international terrorist organization in South Africa may be attributed to the growing pains of the incredibly diverse ethnicity within the country. Muslims comprise less than 4 percent of the entire South African population, yet out of this minority emerged the first explicitly violent terrorist threat in majority-­ruled South Africa. PAGAD was aided by the emergence of international jihadist terrorism, especially the perceived threat of al-­Qaeda. Most South African Muslims are Sunni, as is al-­Qaeda. However, PAGAD’s even more precipitous decline after 2000 was more a result of the vast majority of South African (and particularly Cape Town) Muslims’ belief that their new government was more legitimate than a violent jihadist, terrorist PAGAD. The community looked at first to PAGAD as vigilante reinforcement against pervasive and community-­threatening drug-­dealing. When PAGAD delivered an effective, though rough, anti-­crime performance, the community (and many of the police) gave them support. However, when PAGAD became violent and unpredictable, and even turned against moderate members of the community, the group’s authority was denied. The Muslim community then turned back to the

204   B.M. Schutz government to support its fight against crime, while the government, in turn, increased its efforts to fight crime in the Muslim neighborhoods.

The taxi wars The taxi-­cab industry in South Africa was restricted to white-­only taxi drivers until 1987 when the taxi business was deregulated, bringing in an influx of black taxi drivers anxious to make a living from the high demand for a local transportation service. Taxis are big business in South Africa. Over 60 percent of South African commuters use taxis. With no centralized supervision of vehicles, routes, and passenger rights, corruption took over as taxi associations and individual drivers fought over turf. The conflict over routes and passengers quickly turned violent. Drive-­by shootings and hit men targeted taxi operators and taxi association executives (Wines 2006). Deregulation of the taxi industry created havoc between 1987 and 1994. Some speculated that the apartheid government was using the burgeoning taxi wars for the purpose of exacerbating more violent divisions between Africans. Some of the violence did accrue from ethno-­tribal rivalry over routes and business. Most South Africans assumed that the taxi wars would die down after the ANC won the 1994 election, but violence actually increased after that date. The ANC government attempted to re-­regulate the industry in 1995 but was resisted by the dominant organizations that controlled the taxi trade. Continued killing and maiming pushed the government to employ the market as the primary instrument of re-­regulation. However, the streamlining of the taxi industry meant fewer but larger shuttle bus-­type vehicles. This, in turn, would reduce the number of taxi drivers while concomitantly minimizing the influence of the old, powerful taxi associations. A new bus system established with government help in 2009 is gaining in popularity, but the taxi drivers seem not to be deterred (Brulliard 2009). The taxi wars continue but the violence has become more sporadic. The commitment by the ANC government of Jacob Zuma to hold the World Cup Soccer Football Championship in South Africa in August 2010 has made the issue of violent taxi wars a serious concern for the expected throng of fans, as well as for the image of South Africa itself. The taxi wars continue to exist as a low-­key, mafia turf battle. The conflict is a continuing inconvenience for South African citizens and a deadly threat to taxi operators and owners. The government is aware of the taxi wars’ impact on tourism and commerce and has tried to use market regulation as a “soft power” approach. However, unless the taxi wars become more threatening to more people, it is unlikely to have a significant impact on South Africa’s legitimate governmental authority. So long as South Africans believe that the government is working to solve the problem and to deal with the violence, the taxi wars will remain a wound that needs to heal rather than a cancer on the government.

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   205

“Detective Fictions” Perhaps not enough has been said about the threat of criminal violence to South Africa’s legitimacy. In “Detective Fictions” John and Jean Comaroff report that, “In South Africa, murder rates have become diagnostic of violence run amok, of governance threatened by a brutal legacy that no constitutional reform, public reconciliation, or ritual restitution can fully dispel” (Comaroff and Comaroff forthcoming: 1).13 In 1997 Police Inspector Jackson stressed “that the coming of democracy seriously challenged the state’s ability to police itself; that, even more scandalously, there might be an inherent contradiction between popular empowerment and the sovereign force of law” (ibid.). There is a growing view that the post-­apartheid government does not appear to possess the will or capa­ city to monopolize the means of violence: The effort to convert what was the jackboot of the apartheid state into a police service rooted in human rights has enhanced the sense that the law lacks bite, that discipline has crumbled in the face of the unruly. All of which is exacerbated by policies of liberalization, under whose sway the government has privatized the means of force, franchising a swelling army of security companies and private police, and turning a blind eye to vigilante operations that offer protection to the hoi polloi. (Comaroff and Comaroff forthcoming: 2) As a result, there is a public outcry for stricter state laws, including capital punishment, in order to convince the state to restore its ultimate authority under the law. The Comaroffs identify this as a media-­engendered “intensifying hysteria over allegedly unprecedented levels of crime and corruption” (ibid.). They point to the experiences in Latin America and post-­Soviet Europe where “democratization . . . is often accompanied by an increase in violent crime and corruption, by an erosion of the force of law, and by the rise of . . . criminal phantom-­states” (ibid.: 3). However, this post-­Cold War phase has given crime and crime fighters a mystical dimension. With citizens feeling bereft of a comfortable sense of law and order – ordinarily found in the forces sufficiently provided by the state—there is a search for an otherworldly solution to the feelings of abandonment by the people. The unequivocal monopolization of violence that . . . grounds the harsh law of the modern state – and that for Hobbes, was the very condition of the social contract – is in question in many places, rendering ambiguous the sovereignty of the polis, and the basis of moral and social being. In such circumstances, where the efficacy, source, and legitimacy of enforcement are often uncertain, the public imagination dwells, often obsessively, on wresting law from disorder. (Comaroff and Comaroff forthcoming: 5) The Comaroffs’ first case study centers on a fundamentalist Christian Afrikaner, Colonel Kabus “Donker” Jonker, who operated out of an Occult Related Crimes

206   B.M. Schutz Unit waging “valiant battle against the Satanic subcultures” (ibid.: 7). He was obsessed with making occult-­related crimes open to modern investigation and prosecution. Despite similarities with colonial tendencies to criminalize indigenous cultures, Jonker’s approach was treated with some respect, if for no other reason than he sought to solve crimes not capable of routine resolution (ibid.: 7–9). Another case focuses on the Scorpions, whom the Comaroffs refer to as “Supercops,” South Africa’s version of the FBI. The ANC government established the Scorpions as South Africa’s Special Investigating Unit (SIU) after the PAGAD terrorist attacks. But the Scorpions became entangled in proliferating government scandals involving Deputy President Jacob Zuma, ANC parliamentarians who had been falsifying official expenses, and Jackie Selebi (head of the South African Police Services). The Scorpions’ formal existence ended after Zuma had been elected to lead the ANC in December 2007 (ibid.: 15–16).The Scorpions, who had been praised by all as South Africa’s salvation against pervasive crime, met their demise by uncovering pervasive corruption in the ANC government. By pursuing everyone, no matter their level of power and authority, the Scorpions were accused of harboring personnel linked to the apartheid government, an accusation that clearly rang their death-­knell. Their determination to go after any and all politicos, regardless of the evidence at hand and blind to the degree of the corrupt act, alarmed the ANC elites.

Conclusion South Africa has demonstrated a democratic capacity to alternate leaders. Having endured the systematic violence set in motion by the dominant minority NP in 1948 and the ultimately violent response emanating from the banned ANC and PAC, South Africans were relieved by the essentially non-­violent tenor of passage to an African-­majority, democratically elected government. The historic leadership of Nelson Mandela and to a lesser degree, F.W. de Klerk, established a sense of unity in the country. Mandela’s display of charisma at the 1995 Rugby World Cup championship symbolized the unity of a New South Africa. His decision not to pursue a second term as President and the ANC’s determination to maintain key institutional continuity in government facilitated the election of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki first as ANC Party Chairman and then to the presidency. South Africa’s four general elections since the end of apartheid have partially met Guglielmo Ferrero’s conditions for legitimacy. However, the pre-­World War II Italian historian would think it much too early to consider South Africa’s dominant single party government as legitimate. It would seem that for Ferrero the prevalence of uncontrolled violent crime, the threat of imported jihadist terrorism, the smoldering embers of revolutionary nationalist ideology (white as well as black), as well as the lack of an established long-­term democratic–elective principle would disqualify South Africa’s claim to legitimacy. He would, however, likely admit that in the context of recent post-­colonial African history,

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   207 South Africa’s claim to pre-­legitimacy is in order. It has not come near to Nigeria’s sorry dalliance with illegitimate government, but there are some who would argue that there are indications pointing South Africa in that direction (Johnson 2009). Corruption was a contributing factor to the end of white rule, but it looms as an even greater threat to the ANC government. Many hope that the recent ascendancy to the presidency of the popular Jacob Zuma will put an end to the intellectual elitism of the Mbeki presidency, but the fact that Zuma received some of the tainted largesse from that regime and in 2009 fathered a child out of wedlock is not a hopeful sign. The ANC governments have managed the internal and external threats from terrorism reasonably well. White right-­wing fringe groups have been effectively isolated and the extremist Pan-­Africanist groups now have to seek accommodation with an African majority government. PAGAD’s bombings and shootings in Cape Town and environs in the mid-­1990s presented an Islamic jihadist threat that was mitigated by the disenchanted Muslim community. The adversely affected neighborhoods effectively sought support from and cooperated with the government they had thought originally abandoned them. Jean and John Comaroff compare South Africa’s struggles with violent crime to similar situations in other states coming out of authoritarian rule into a democratic and more human rights-­oriented government (Comaroff and Comaroff forthcoming: 3–5). The South African Police are now the South African Police Services, and they display a marked tolerance toward deviance as well as diversity. In consequence, an often ill-­educated and poverty-­stricken African underclass, especially the youth, threaten the black as much as the white population with firearms that are available everywhere. Not every young, poor South African is a criminal, but there are not enough police to contend with those who do engage in crime. The South African popular response is to seek out individuals or organizations that offer services perceived to be effective in comprehending their fears about the crimes, if not actually solving them. Unlike Ferrero, the Comaroffs reach back to Hobbes to underscore South Africans’ frightened perceptions of life enveloped by unconstrained crime. When the government did establish an entity like the Scorpions to spearhead government concerns over ineffective police performance against crime, the search for criminals reached into the corrupt corridors of power, prompting leadership to close down the Scorpions as the people’s choice. The realization of legitimacy for South Africa’s democratic government rests on its own currency with its people. If it cannot help the people to prosper, at least it should be able to make them feel safe and secure.

Notes   1 David Rapoport has written extensively about terrorism, violence, corruption and the politics of paradox and irony. I have been interested over time in the politics of legitimacy, especially in southern Africa and emerging countries. Our mutual interests converged in post-­apartheid South Africa’s own current paradox of violent crime, incipient terrorism, and relatively stable political legitimacy. Rapoport first suggested

208   B.M. Schutz this focus to me in the 1980s after he co-­founded the journal Terrorism and Political Violence. I wish to thank Richard Roberts, David Abernethy, and the Center for African Studies, Stanford University, for permitting me to present an earlier version of this study. Their suggestions have helped shape the paper, but I alone am responsible for its content.   2 According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, South Africa is per capita ranked second in the world in murder and first in assaults and rapes. According to the 2002 United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operation of Criminal Justice System, while the numbers of reported murders and robberies have declined slightly in recent years, the rates of rape and car hijackings have increased. (NationMaster.com: accessed March 10, 2010).   3 The white South African (both British and Afrikaner) response to this view focused on the alleged disparateness and mutual hostility of traditional African societies (e.g., Zulu vs. Xhosa). Apartheid policy-­makers often used this argument to rationalize the imposition of white minority rule over all Africans, which, in turn, led to the engineered creation of distinct tribal homelands referred to as “Bantustans” (Thompson 2001: 194–195).   4 The Afrikaner National Party’s program of apartheid was not revolutionary in the twentieth-­century sense. But Ferrero would label as revolutionary any program in which the foundation for legitimacy is transformed or replaced by a government “in which the power is bestowed and exercised according to principles and rules imposed by force over too short a period of time and not accepted by a large majority” (Ferrero 1942: 187). The apartheid government manifested these attributes from the late 1950s to the early 1990s.   5 “Charisma” has a specific etymology: the Greek word, to favor, charizesthai deriving from the Greek noun, charis, meaning “grace.” To the Greeks, Hellenic Jews, and Early Church Christians it connoted “possessing a gift of grace from God.”   6 Carlin’s book is the basis for the film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood and released in the United States in December 2009.   7 Although the ANC’s Freedom Charter is viewed by some as a revolutionary document, it is closer to a social-­democratic statement reflecting the predominant values of democratic/elective legitimacy. During the treason trial against the ANC (1959–1960), the Freedom Charter was brought forward by the defense counsel to show the absence of any reference to class, revolution, or violence in the document. (Karis and Gerhart 1977: 63–69, 205–208).   8 In 1959 Robert Sobukwe’s Africanist wing of the ANC broke away from the ANC to form their own Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). The PAC initiated a campaign against the Pass Laws by appearing at various police stations throughout South Africa without passes, hoping to get arrested and clog the court system. At the Sharpeville police station, near Johannesburg, the police opened fire on the demonstrators, killing 67 and injuring 186; most were shot in the back while fleeing (Thompson 2001: 210).   9 Critical to the ANC’s fortunes was Oliver Tambo, Acting President of the ANC from 1967 to 1985 and National Chairperson from 1985 until his death in 1993. Tambo kept a steady hand on the diverse factions of the ANC while living in exile (London) until 1991. Mandela himself minimizes his own role in bringing the ANC to power, insisting with characteristic humility that it was the ANC as a movement, party, and institution that enabled him to negotiate the majority Africans into power in South Africa. I am indebted to Professor Emeritus David Abernethy of Stanford University for accentuating this aspect of Mandela’s political persona for me. 10 Mbeki’s leadership problems were never revealed in the ANC’s landslide general election victories in 1999 and 2004. The ANC has recently been labeled a “Tripartite Alliance” by scholars and journalists (Lodge 2002: 19–31). For the enduring influence of Nelson Mandela, see Daniel (2006: 26–50). 11 This view is based on my own observations while in southern Africa on a Fulbright

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   209 lectureship during 1991 to 1992 and by information gained as an analyst for the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, 1994 to 2003. It was also inferred from a presentation by Mr. Buthelezi at the “South Africa Breakfast” series, sponsored by the Dr. Pauline H. Baker and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in early 1993. 12 There was a surfeit of deadly violence between 1990 and 1994 emanating from the fractious Inkatha–ANC war in KwaZulu (then Natal) province and in Johannesburg. While Mandela and the ANC suspected that President de Klerk and the transitioning NP government were involved in this war, there was never any proof that de Klerk had a direct hand in its existence. These suspicions caused problems in the de Klerk– Mandela negotiations but never enough to derail the talks. 13 Professor Jean Comaroff has generously allowed me to cite from “Detective Fictions and Sovereign Pursuits: Further Adventures in Policing the Postcolony” by her and her spouse, Professor John Comaroff, in their forthcoming volume, The Metaphysics of Disorder.

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210   B.M. Schutz Pursuits: Further Adventures in Policing The Postcolony,” The Metaphysics of Disorder: Policing The Postcolony. Daley, Suzanne (1996) “Drugs, Guns, and Vigilante Justice in South Africa,” New York Times, September 20. Online. Available at: www.nytimes.com/1996/09/20/world/ drugs-­guns-and-­vigilante-justice-­in-south-­africa.html (accessed February 27, 2010). Daniel, John (2006) “Soldiering On: The Post-­presidential Years of Nelson Mandela 1999–2005,” in Roger Southall and Henning Melber (eds) Legacies of Power: Leadership Change and Former Presidents in African Politics. Cape Town: HSRC Press. Davenport, T.R.H. and Christopher Saunders (2000) South Africa: A Modern History, Fifth Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Dugger, Celia W. (2010) “A Bus System Reopens Rifts in South Africa,” New York Times, February 22. Emerson, Rupert (1960) From Empire To Nation: The Rise of Self-­assertion of Asian And African Peoples. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Ferrero, Guglielmo (1942) The Principles of Power: The Great Political Crises of History. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Golding, William (1954) Lord of the Flies. New York: Berkley Publishing Group. Gevisser, Mark (2009) A Legacy of Liberation: Thabo Mbeki and the Future of the South African Dream. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Jeffrey, Anthea (2010) Peoples’ War: New Light on the Struggle for South Africa. London: Ballantine. Johnson, R.W. (2009) South Africa’s Brave New World: The Beloved Country Since the End of Apartheid. London: Allen Lane. Karis, Thomas and Gail M. Gerhart (1977) From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa 1882–1964, Vol 3, Challenge and Violence 1953–1964. Stanford, CA: Hoover Press. Lodge, Tom (1983) Black Politics in South Africa Since 1945. London and New York: Longman. —— (2002) Politics in South Africa (From Mandela To Mbeki). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. —— (2006) Mandela: A Critical Life. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Mandela, Nelson (1994) Long Walk to Freedom. London: Abacus. Mattes, Robert (2007) “Democracy Without People? Political Institutions and Citizenship in the New South Africa,” Afrobarometer, Working Paper No. 82. Mkhwanazi, Siyabonga and Mzolisi Witbooi (2007) “Mbeki Bid for Third Term is a Good Thing,” Cape Argus, July 2. Online. Available at: www.highbeam.com/ doc/1G1–167057287.html (accessed July 17, 2009). Mzala (1988) Gatsha Buthelezi: Chief with a Double Agenda. London and Atlantic Highland, NJ. Omond, Roger (1987) The Apartheid Handbook: A Guide to South Africa’s Everyday Racial Policies. Middlesex: Penguin Books. Rapoport, David C. (1968) “The Corrupt State: The Case of Rome Reconsidered,” Political Studies, 16(3): 411–432. Russell, Alec (2009) Bring Me My Machine Gun: The Battle for the Soul of South Africa from Mandela to Zuma. New York: Public Affairs. Sachs, Albie (2009) The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Sampson, Anthony (2000) Mandela: The Authorized Biography. New York: Vintage Books.

South Africa: violence and legitimacy   211 Schutz, Barry M. and Robert O. Slater (1990) Revolution and Political Change in the Third World. Boulder, CO, and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers and Adamantine Press. Smith, M.G. (1960) Government in Zazzau. London: Oxford University Press. —— (1965) The Plural Society in The British West Indies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Sparks, Allister (1994) Tomorrow is Another Country. Sandton, SA: Struik Publishers. Sparks, Allister (2003) Beyond the Miracle: Inside the New South Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Thompson, Leonard (2001) A History of South Africa. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (1998) “Conclusions about the Chris Hani Assassination,” Vol. 2, ch. 7 (October). Online. Available at: http://africanhistory. about.com/od/apartheiddocuments/a/TRC-­Hani.html (accessed March 10, 2010). United States Department of State (2001) “People Against Gangsterism and Drugs PAGAD,” Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000, Washington D.C.: Department of State Office of Public Affairs, April 2001. Online. Available at: www.nps.edu/Library/ Research/SubjectGuides/SpecialTopics/TerroristProfile/Prior/PeopleAgainstGangsterismandDrugs.html (accessed March 12, 2010). Weber, Max (1947) Theory or Social and Economic Organization, ed. and trans. by Talcott Parsons and ed. by A.M. Anderson. New York: Oxford University Press. Wines, Michael (2006) “Cartels Battle for Supremacy in South Africa’s Taxi Wars,” New York Times, September 17. Online. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/world/ Africa/17africa.html (accessed February 27, 2010). Zartman, I. William (ed.) (1995) Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

13 Legitimacy, culture of political violence and violence of culture in Ethiopia Negussay Ayele

Prologue This chapter focuses on the paradox of Ethiopia’s unprecedented longevity as one of the oldest polities in the world on the one hand and its pervasive and perennial culture of political violence on the other. To deal with the conundrum, operative Aristotelian and Weberian concepts on state formation and legitimacy are profiled. Likewise, theories of political culture and political development advanced by more recent social scientists, including Gabriel Almond, Sydney Verba and Lucien Pye, are highlighted as tools of analysis for the study. Ethiopia’s historical and geographical evolution in the context of domestic, regional and colonial violence in Northeast Africa is described. The case study of the culture of political violence and violence of political culture in Ethiopia is then examined within the historical span of 1769 to 2009. The theme that shapes and informs the analysis in this chapter is why, despite its historical longevity,1 Ethiopia has not been able to forge a peaceful, democratic or quasi-­democratic political culture. To this very day political violence is the mode of attaining, sustaining and transferring ‘legitimacy’ and/or political power in Ethiopia, which establishes a thesis of the violence of political culture in Ethiopia and perhaps in other states where legitimacy is likewise routinely attained through violence. In his book, Africa and Africans As Seen by Classical Writers, Volume II, historian William Leo Hansberry2 stated: It is a curious fact that centuries before the geographical and historical terms  Babylon and Assyria, Persia, Carthage and Etruria . . . Greece and Rome had made their first appearance in the writings of classical authors; Ethiopia was already an old and familiar expression. Long after the names of Babylon, Assyria, Carthage and Etruria had become scarcely more than vague memories, preserved only in the morgue of history, the hoary designation Ethiopia continued in use as the appellation of a nation which the later writers of classical antiquity regarded as contemporary with their own native lands. (Hansberry 1977: 20)

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   213 In the ancient world Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans – among others – had contacts with Ethiopia and Ethiopians. The Greeks, in particular, have left a considerable corpus of verbal and visual documentation on contemporary Ethiopia/ Africa. Homer, Herodotus, Diodorus, Aeschylus, Hesiod, Heliodorus and others were prolific in their positive perceptions and portrayals of Ethiopia in their writings. In Blacks in Antiquity classics scholar Frank Snowden noted that although Herodotus himself did not travel to Ethiopia, he had identified its location as being “further south of Egypt.” By the third century BC Greeks and Romans, including Democritus and Pliny the Elder, respectively, are said to have visited Ethiopia. Diodorus interviewed Ethiopians. And there were Ethiopian residents in the ancient Greek and Roman world as well (Snowden 1970: 186ff.). According to Greek legends their gods, including Zeus and Poseidon, went to Ethiopia for twelve days a year to feast at the “Table of the Sun” for absolution and blessing in advance of an upcoming battle or mission back home. A unique feature of Ethiopian history was that the country was never occupied by any foreign powers. Classicist Frank M. Snowden cites Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, noting: the Ethiopians say that they were the first to be taught to honour the gods and to hold sacrifices and festivals and processions and other rites by which men honour the deity . . . they call upon the poet (Homer) who in the Illiad represents both Zeus and the rest of the gods with him as absent on a visit to Ethiopia to share in the sacrifices and the banquet which were given annually by the Ethiopians for all the gods together. And they state that because of their piety towards the deity they enjoy the favour of the gods . . . and they have never experienced the rule of an invader from abroad. (Snowden 1970: 186)

Legitimacy of authority in political systems The concept of legitimacy is important for understanding the basis of power and/ or authority in political systems. The German social scientist, Max Weber (1864–1920), advanced a useful and still relevant typology on the subject. In one of his major works, Economy and Society, Weber posits that there are three “pure types” of legitimate rule (Whimster 2004). In terms of the historical evolution of the state the oldest form is the pre-­bureaucratic ‘traditional rule’ in which the patriarch, lord or monarch claims legitimacy “on account of the particular worthiness of his person that is sanctified through tradition; The content of his command is fixed by tradition: he is obeyed out of piety and . . . norms of tradition” (Whimster 2004: 135). Another source of legitimacy for Weber is the personal “charisma” of the warrior, prophet or cultural icon. The masses bestow their fealty on such an extraordinary personality, with little or no effort on his part to merit it. Weber cites as examples Napoleon, Jesus and Pericles. He adds that “charismatic authority is indeed one of the great revolutionary powers of history, but in its true form it has a thoroughly authoritarian and dominating

214   N. Ayele character” (Whimster 2004:140). A third and more modern source of legitimacy for political authority is “legal” or “bureaucratic” rule that elicits its legitimate authority over people through constitutional (legal) means. Weber is careful to point out that “any law (Recht) can be created and any existing law can be changed by enactment that is decided by formally correct (legal) procedures” (Whimster 2004: 133). Likewise, in a legal system of rule “it is not the person who is obeyed by his own right but the enacted rule. . . . Also the person who commands has himself to obey the rule – the law” (Whimster 2004: 133). As we shall see in succeeding pages Weber’s typology will shed light on a contextual understanding of political developments in Ethiopia.

Historical and geographical dimensions of political violence in Ethiopia’s history Violence is a behavioral syndrome that has been part of human society and history from time immemorial. Its dimensions are many and its manifestations tend to escalate in modality and lethality. For the purposes of this discourse, our focus is on political violence as the use or threat of use of deadly force by a given group or party to attain or retain political power. The world today is replete with political violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Iraq, Israel/ Palestine, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan Congo, and Colombia, to name a few. In the contemporary world, the nomenclature term, “violence,” is becoming rather mild and pedestrian, and the operative term for the dynamics of political violence is “terrorism.” The phenomenon of political violence/terrorism has been the focus of academic scrutiny for at least four decades. Professor David C. Rapoport has been engaged in research and publishing on political violence during that time. He launched a new journal, Terrorism and Political Violence,3 and has been its editor or co-­editor ever since. Professors Rapoport and Yonah Alexander edited a volume in 1989, The Morality of Terrorism: Religious And Secular Justifications,4 that explored theoretical and empirical dimensions of terrorism including, in their words, chronic terror, enlightened terror, general terror, international terror, rebel terror, religious terror, and state terror. While the foregoing helps us to put the case of Ethiopia in a world context, what one confronts in Ethiopia is the use of deadly force to wrest and/or to sustain political power continuously. In the period under scrutiny the dimensions of cyclical political violence germane to the Ethiopian situation include intrastate, regional and colonial armed struggles. To paraphrase historian Edward Gibbon: “the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by which they were forgotten.” In point of fact, however, Ethiopia and the rest of the world were in contact without interruption from ancient times to this day. To be sure, the relationships were checkered. More often than not they entailed malign, deadly violence to conquer and colonize Ethiopia or alienate its territory/resources. Occasionally, they facilitated benign bilateral or multilateral relations with Ethiopia. Colonialists and regional expansionists were not able to conquer Ethiopia – Mussolini’s fascist Italy toiled

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   215 for five years (1936–1941), but failed. However, colonial marauders managed to nibble and alienate Ethiopian territories along the coastlines and the western borderlands, and Ethiopians paid a high price to sustain their country’s extraordinary longevity. Historically, the Northeast Africa region in which Ethiopia is located includes Sudan, Egypt, the Red Sea, Yemen, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, and, as of 1991, Eritrea. In the region as a whole today, nearly all the countries are or have been entirely or primarily Muslim since the rise of Islam in the seventh century AD. The only majority Christian countries are Ethiopia (60 percent) and Kenya (75 percent), while Eritrea is about evenly divided. The ruling classes in Ethiopia had adopted Judaism around 1000 BC as a result of a visit by the Queen of Sheba, or Queen of the South, to the court of King Solomon in Israel (1 Kings 10: 1–13). According to Ethiopian legend inscribed in Kebre Negest (Glory of Kings), King Solomon had, characteristically, the best of the Ethiopian Queen before she left for home, and a son was born (see Brooks 1995; Clapp 2001). She named him Menelik (Ibn’al Hakim) or the son of the wise – Solomon – and declared him the first king of the “Solomonic Dynasty” in Ethiopia. Subsequently, the official title of the late Emperor Haile Selassie was “Elect of God, King of Kings, Lion of Judah.” and he claimed to be the 225th monarch of that “Solomonic or Jewish royal lineage.” During the first century AD a representative of Ethiopia’s Queen Candace was converted by Apostle Phillip (New Testament, Acts 8: 26–38) to Christianity during his visit to Jerusalem. Ethiopian Christianity is the Orthodox variety similar to that of Greece, Russia, Armenia, and Egypt. Initially, Islam spread through Ethiopia peacefully as of its inception in the seventh century AD (Trimingham 1965). For much of the past 1,400 years, Ethiopia sustained continuous and, at times, simultaneous Muslim invasions by Ottoman Turkey, Egypt, Sudan, and, more recently, Somalia, for political or religious dominance as well as for territorial expansion. Invariably, victory on one front led to victory on other fronts. Consequently, Christian Ethiopians had to redouble their defensive struggles and they succeeded at the cost of intensifying and perpetuating the culture of violence. Until 1915 Ottoman Turkey was the dominant Muslim power for several centuries in the Middle East, North Africa, and in parts of Europe. In the mid-­sixteenth century the Ottomans ventured into Northeast Africa at a time when a powerful local Muslim warlord, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim el-­Ghazi (Ahmad Gurey) of the Adal/Somali region of southwest Ethiopia refused to pay taxes to the Christian overlord, Lebna Dengel (1508–1540) and decided instead to wage a jihad (holy war) against him. The Ottoman Turks backed Ahmed Gurey (Wallis Budge 1970: 325–336),5 who launched his military forays deep into the Christian heartland in 1529 and conquered virtually the whole country. Meanwhile, some European Christians had an idyllic concept of a gallant Christian king whom they nicknamed ‘Prester John’ in the environs of Ethiopia and they decided to link up with him after an appeal for Christian help by Queen Helena, the mother of beleaguered Emperor Lebne Dengel (1508–1540). In the event, Portugal sent 400 troops of whom half were killed by

216   N. Ayele Gurey. But the Portuguese rallied and by 1543 the war was over, Gurey was killed, and his fighters were forced to retreat. This Muslim vs. Christian armed struggle – supported by elements from outside the region – was a high-­profile bloody confrontation. The confessional divide and strain in the region continued to perpetuate tension and violence in subsequent years. By the nineteenth century another genre of invaders from Europe came to the region intent on colonizing Africa, including Christian Ethiopia. Colonialism became the new plague of the region because it threatened to subdue everyone. Africans in Northeast Africa had opportunities to align with one another against common alien enemies, especially in light of the ensuing rivalries among the colonialists in the region – British, French, and, later, the Italians. Unlike situations in much of the rest of Africa, it appears that from the very beginning the influx of numerous European “travelers” or “missionaries” were regarded as advanced colonial scouts by Ethiopian rulers. One such “traveler,” French-­Irish Arnauld d’Abbadie, reported in 1842 the blunt nationalist words of northern Ethiopian ruler, Dejazmach Wube: Take care that you never again tread on the soil of my country. The English and you are confined to cursed land and you covet our healthy climate; one collects our plants, another our stones; I do not know what you are looking for, but I do not want my country to be where you find it. (Rubenson 1978: 54)6 As is the case of every country, Ethiopian groups engaged in internal struggles for power, which were influenced and exacerbated sometimes by concurrent regional and colonial incursions and pressures. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Britain, Egypt, Italy, and Sudan invaded Ethiopia repeatedly and often simultaneously. In the process, domestic Ethiopian politics became enmeshed with its struggles for survival or independence in what I call a collision-­collusion syndrome.7 The British invasion of 1868, for instance, succeeded in toppling its bete noire, Emperor Tewodros of Gonder, by courting an aspirant to the Ethiopian throne, Lij Kassa Mercha of Tigray. In return for his support the British left him much of their military hardware, which assured his claim to the throne in 1872 by force of arms, like his predecessor. From that time, Queen Victoria and the Anglophile Ethiopian Emperor became hand and glove. In the 1880s and 1890s the Italians played crass divide-­and-rule games with Emperor Yohannes and Tigrayans, on the one hand, and king Menyelek and the Shoans, on the other, in order to advance their desideratum for occupying the Red Sea coastal area – named Eritrea in 1890 – as a launching pad for colonizing the whole of Ethiopia. As noted earlier, the fundamental defining sinews of the persistent culture of political violence in Ethiopia are intrastate, regional, and colonial factors. The intrastate elements of political violence involve brute struggles for the pinnacle of political power by aspirants mainly of Amhara, Tigreyan, and Oromo ethnic groups from among Ethiopia’ sixty ethnic groups. Intrastate struggles have also

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   217 been aligned along localized geographical entities such as Shoan in mid-­ Ethiopia, Gonder, or Gojjam in northwestern Ethiopia, all of which are basically Amhara territories that pursued intra-­Amhara rivalries for power. Tigrean ethnic groups in northern Ethiopia in Tigray and Mereb Melash – better known today as Eritreans – also carried on rivalries across the Mereb River which delineates part of the northern border between them. The Oromo people of Ethiopia, who comprise the largest ethnic group and are spread throughout the country, have been power brokers for the past few centuries. Somali nomadic clans inhabit a very large span of territory in eastern Ethiopia and in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean littoral as well as the Ogaden.8 By the end of the nineteenth century however, the British, Italians and French had colonized nearby coastal Somali lands. In the 1950s and 1960s the British were campaigning for a Greater Somaliland comprising their colony and Somali-­inhabited Ethiopian Ogaden – under their tutelage, of course. This notion became an irritant in Somalian–Ethiopian relations and on occasion sparked armed skirmishes between them. Islamic Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia have conducted forays from time to time into Ethiopia. In 1977 Somali President Siad Barre invaded Ethiopia, sending his troops some 700 kilometers to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. It was the peak of the Cold War and the United States and the Soviet Union took sides to arm and cheer the struggles at the expense of Somalis and Ethiopians. The Russians supported Siad Barre even though they were virtually allied to Mengistu Hailemariam’s regime in Ethiopia. Then the Soviets switched sides and some of the same Russian officers who masterminded the Somalian invasion became part of the Ethiopian defensive struggle. More importantly, it was Cuban intervention on Ethiopia’s side that turned the tide and the Somalis retreated behind their borders in 1978. As Cuban leader Fidel Castro,9 who was enthusiastic about the Ethiopian Revolution, put it, “We fought in Ethiopia, pushing back the aggression launched by Siad Barre against the revolution there” (Castro and Ramonet 2004: 261). The umbilical cord of friendly relations between Ethiopia and the United States had snapped following the 1974 revolution, its bases and establishments in Ethiopia were vacated, and the United States consistently opposed Mengistu Haile Mariam all the way to his fall in 1991. In the polluted atmosphere of the Cold War, preposterous pronouncements were sometimes made. During the Somalia invasion of Ethiopia in 1977 to 1978, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski,10 national security advisor to President Carter, said that “Détente (between the Soviet Union and the United States) lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden” (1985: 189). The Carter administration did not oppose Somalian violation of Ethiopia’s territorial integrity, but warned Ethiopia and its allies not to trespass Somalia’s international borders in hot pursuit. In 2007 the current regime in Ethiopia invaded Somalia, exacerbating the long-­simmering Islamic Somalia– Christian Ethiopia confrontation. It is important to point out here that regarding Egypt and to an extent, Sudan, the leitmotif for their continuous pressures and aggressions against Ethiopia has to do with the flow of the Blue Nile emanating from Ethiopia and possible control of the sources of the river, which provides more than 80 percent of water, as well as silt, for Egypt. Their fears about the

218   N. Ayele Table 13.1  Colonial and regional expansionist wars against Ethiopia, 1868–1896 Location

Invader

Date

Outcome

Meqdela Gundet Gura Kufit Dogali Sahati Metemma Amba Alage Meqele Adwa

Britain Egypt Egypt Sudan Italy Italy Sudan Italy Italy Italy

April 1868 November 1875 September 1885 March 1876 January 1887 March 1888 March 1889 December 1895 January 1896 March 1896

British victory Ethiopian victory Ethiopian victory Ethiopian victory Ethiopian victory Italian victory Sudanese victory Ethiopian victory Ethiopian victory Ethiopian victory

water have been promoted by British colonial agents in those countries. Colonial incursions and their Machiavellian tactics exacerbated internal dissensions and struggles for supremacy, which were also exploited by regional expansionists. Ethiopians were awash with arms from Europeans that were used to determine internal political struggles, external wars, and the struggles against imperialists and regional expansionists. However, Emperor Menyelek (1889–1913) and Queen Taitu applied the colonial playbook of divide et impera to their colonial adversaries by using Italian-­supplied weapons to attain a series of ignominious defeats, culminating in the famous “Battle of Adwa” on March 1, 1896 (see Abdussamad and Pankhurst 1998; Ayele 1999). In the course of these interminable battles for independence, Ethiopian patriotism was defined in terms of armed resistance and victory in the field of battle. Hence, martial prowess or political violence became a sine qua non in Ethiopia’s political culture. It should also be noted that Ethiopia and the region of Northeast Africa was replete with European arms that were distributed or sold to different states and to various internal elements with the aim of having them fight with one another or to protect colonial interests against local or other colonial challengers. Table 13.1 summarizes the Expansionist Wars Against Ethiopia (1868–1896) culminating in the victory over the Italians.

Culture of political violence in Ethiopia (1769–2009) The concept of ‘political culture’ gained currency and high visibility as a paradigm for political analysis principally with the publications of Almond and Verba’s The Civic Culture 1963 (see Almond and Verba 1989) and of Lucian Pye and Sidney Verba’s Political Culture and Political Development (1966). At times, one sometimes wonders how much or how little Western political thought has advanced from Aristotle’s thoughts and typologies some 2,300 years ago. In Book III of his Politics Aristotle noted that “Governments which have regard to the common interest, are true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverse forms, for they are despotic, whereas the state is a community of freemen” (Jowett 2000: 114). The “true forms” of gov-

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   219 ernments are those governed by one (monarchy), by a few (aristocracy) or by many (constitutional government) in the interest of all. These forms of government can also have perversions; royalty can be perverted to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, and constitutional government to democracy/anarchy. The Almond/Verba/Pye theory of political culture as predisposition and relation of people to political processes and institutions is reminiscent of Aristotle’s paradigms. In essence, the modern notion of political culture posits that one can identify three forms and/or levels of political orientations by people in relation to government. These are: (1) traditional or parochial levels of minimal awareness of political phenomena and virtually no role in governmental activities; (2) some basically subdued awareness of political matters and rights, and remaining subject to authoritarian centers of power; and (3) the highest form of citizenship and participation, as in modern democratic governments. The third or highest form of a citizen-­participatory political system is highlighted in their earlier work, Civic Culture. Their models are the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Mexico. Nearly two decades later, Almond and Verba published The Civic Culture Revisited (1989),11 a collection of essays reflecting the strengths and weaknesses of their work. What can we learn about Ethiopia’s political culture if we apply a blend of Aristotle’s rendition on politics and the state on the one hand with modern notions of political culture a la Almond and Verba? For the most part, Ethiopia has had monarchic authority systems buttressed by feudal, aristocratic coteries, which, more often than not, have exercised tyrannical or absolute rule over the masses to this day. For centuries the Ethiopian people have had little or no say, role, or share in governing or political participation. The people were subjects, not citizens. The people’s attitude toward politics was, for the most part, parochial and to some extent subdued obeisance. On occasion, an ambitious personality who covets high office gathers followers and launches armed rebellion and becomes a shifta, i.e., an armed rebel. If he succeeds, he wipes out the incumbent and takes over. Almost invariably, the new ruler becomes a carbon copy of the one he supplanted and thereby subject to being hounded in turn. Ultimately, the path to political ascendancy and retention of power is paved with arms and political violence. Generally, kings and emperors claimed to have been chosen by “God” to rule, not by the people. Hence, the political culture of Ethiopia emanates largely from the hoary history of its culture of political violence. It has been developing over centuries of simultaneous and continuous internal, regional and colonial armed conflicts, battles and wars. It is evident that in the period under review nearly all the rulers in Ethiopia assumed power by removing incumbents by political violence. A qualified exception is the case of Empress Zewditu Menyelek, who was called upon to assume the throne in 1916 following a coup d’etat – not of her own making – that deposed Lij Iyasu. When one turns to the mode of rule, the use of political violence by the autocratic feudals, fascists, military rulers, and the current regime is unmistakable. These autocrats ruled and still rule by the gun with only lip-­service to “constitution,” “peace,” “parliament”, “power to the people,”

220   N. Ayele “election,” “democracy,” “socialism,” “federalism” “Ethiopianism,” etc. Any claim to legitimacy in the Ethiopian political system does not emanate from the will of the people, but is arrogated by the rulers, who claim that their right to rule comes from “divine,” rather than human sanction. Emperor Haile Selassie in effect ruled Ethiopia for nearly six decades (1916–1974).12 Applying Weber’s terminology, we find that Haile Selassie’s hybrid mode of rule reflected all three types of authority. The Emperor fits partly into the “pre-­bureaucratic” traditional type “that is sanctified by tradition” – in this case the Solomonic dynasty – and therefore he was “to be obeyed out of piety and norms of tradition.” At the same time, he had also benefited from his charismatic personality at home and abroad. In addition, the Emperor was also a skillful autocrat who “legalized” his legitimacy for authority. During his reign he proclaimed two Imperial constitutions, one in 1931, which was revised in 1955. Thus, he covered all bases politically to portray his rule as traditional, charismatic, and legal. In the 1960s, however, the Emperor had a close call when his own security chief, his Imperial body guard leader, as well as his younger brother and other elements, staged a coup attempt while he was on a visit to Brazil. Thanks to America’s discreet intervention and church and army opposition, he survived the attempt. Nevertheless, throughout the 1960s there was sustained militant opposition to imperial rule led mostly by university and high school students at home and abroad. These movements against the Emperor and his government reached a crescendo in the 1974 popular revolution when the Emperor was dethroned relatively peacefully, and monarchic rule was eliminated (see Selassie 1997; Tareke 2009; Ayele 1980/81). The mode of rule in Ethiopia was, until 1974, feudal and semi-­feudal, characterized by total anarchy at one end of the political spectrum and centralized rule at the other. The vast majority of the Ethiopian people have chafed under a mostly regimented, blatantly militaristic, minority hegemony for centuries that continues to this day. (A qualified exception occurred in the waning years of Emperor Menyelek (1889–1913) who ruled with more civility than his predecessors, even if the semi-­centralized feudal system was still in place.) Three chronic problems for Emperor Haile Selassie and his successors were the secessionist movement in Eritrea, Somalia’s irredentism in the Ogaden, and persistent radical student opposition to his rule. He retained the title of Emperor – which meant “king of kings” – even though he had abolished kingships (see Caulk 2002).

The question of Eritrea The empire had cracks, and one of them was in the Red Sea “province” of Eritrea, which was detached from Ethiopia and colonized by Italy in 1890. When Mussolini’s fascist Italy was defeated in Ethiopia in 1941, the British became Ethiopia’s caretakers until a post-­war spoils-­of-war settlement system for colonies of Axis powers was worked out. Subsequently, when the United Nations was formed in 1945, it assumed the responsibility of determining the future of Eritrea, Somalia, and Libya. In the event, the UN established a Commission to study the situation in Eritrea to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants, consult

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   221 with the Ethiopian government, and submit a report and recommendations to the General Assembly for its deliberations and voting on the matter. Consequently, on December 2, 1950 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 390A (V) (see Final Report of the United Nations Commissioner in Eritrea 1952; Ayele 2003; Medhanie 1986). The Preamble and the First Article declares: Taking into consideration, (a) The wishes and welfare of the inhabitants of Eritrea, including the views of the various racial, religious and political groups of the provinces of the territory, and the capacity of the people for self-­government, (b) The interests of peace and security in East Africa, (c) the rights and claims of Ethiopia based on geographical, historical, ethnic or economic reason, including in particular Ethiopia’s legitimate need for adequate access to the sea, The General Assembly recommends that Eritrea shall constitute an autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian Crown. The concept of federation was not familiar to the people concerned, and neither the Ethiopian government nor Eritrean activists called for it. The options on the table were either for unity or for independence. Consequently, neither the Ethiopian government nor Eritrean proponents of unity or independence were satisfied with the Resolution. Regardless, the UN implemented the federation scheme in 1952. The federation was wobbling from the start, and by the early 1960s there were armed skirmishes between Eritrean secessionist elements and Ethiopian government forces. By the late 1970s the struggle for Eritrean secession from Ethiopia had reached a critical level with the emergence of a single guerrilla force, the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), which gained momentum in the 1980s with the active support of a Tigrayan anti-­government movement to the south of Eritrea, the Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Movement (TPLF), which was patterned after and tutored by the EPLF. The majority of the people in both territories are Tigrigna speakers and share other historical and cultural commonalities. They joined forces and gave the Derg, the military government in Ethiopia, a run for its life climaxed by total victory. The rebels occupied Asmara (Eritrea’s capital) and Addis Ababa in May 1991. In the decades of struggle between the guerrillas and Ethiopian forces, the rebels had the logistical support of Sudan; the financial support of Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia, Syria and Pakistan; and especially after the fall of the Emperor and souring relations with the military government (Derg) in Ethiopia-­American support to enemies of the Derg, were critical factors in the success of the TPLF and EPLF.13 Here then is another facet of the culture of violence in Ethiopia that features intrastate, regional, and colonial/external elements in play at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives and the desolation of the land. Table 13.2 features the interplay of forces and factors in the making and entrenchment of Ethiopia’s culture of political violence.14

Natural death of Emperor Menyelek II Lij Iyassu ousted, jailed

Brief, weak, unstable rule Semi-feudal rule semi-centralized rule Semi-centralized semi-feudal rule Ras Teferi and supporters launch coup d’etat

1868–1872 Gonder pretender attempts to rule

1872–1889 Tigre rebel becomes Emperor Yohannes IV with British support

1889–1913 Menyelek II of Shewa becomes Emperor Italians in Asmera

1913–1916 Nominal succession of grandson Lij Iyasu

H.S.I. restores centralized rule; promulgates Imperial constitution

1941–1974 The British escort Emperor to Addis Ababa; Cold War draws USA/USSR to Ethiopia

Meles Z. carries on ethnic based reign of Col. Mengistu HM flees to Zimbabwe; terror in Ethiopia TPLF invades Somalia Eritrea secedes EPLF vs. TPLF border war

USSR and USA carry on proxy Cold War in Somalia/Ethiopia

Note Colonial violence sources are highlighted with bold letters while all forms of intrastate and regional political violence are identified with underlining.

1991–2009 EPLF &TPLF occupy Addis Ababa and Asmera, supported by Sudan, United States

1974–1991 Military group (Derg) under Major Mengistu Centralized military rule, continuous H.M. takes over; socialist orientation internal wars; Somalia invades Ethiopia

Ethiopian patriots defeat and oust Italians with some British support

Brutal Italian fascist violence and protracted resistance by Ethiopians

1936–1941 Mussolini invades and occupies Addis Abeba; Emperor self-exiled in London.

People’s revolution cum military mutiny topples Emperor HIS

Natural death of Empress Zewditu

Semi-feudal, more centralized rule 1916–1936 Zewditu Menyelek is Empress; co-ruler; Teferi later crowned Emperor Haile Sellassie

Sudanese dervishes behead Emperor Yohannes IV in Metemma

Violent overthrow of ruler by Kassa M

British invasion of Ethiopia; suicide of Emperor Tewodros

Semi-centralized semi-feudal rule

Gonder rebel Kassa subdues warlords

Transfer of rule

1855–1868 Tewodros II becomes Emperor of Ethiopia

Mode of rule Total autarchy under local warlords

Rise to power

1769–1855 Zemene Mesafint war of all against all

Period

Table 13.2  Rise to power, mode of rule, transfer of rule in Ethiopia, 1769–2009

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   223

The culture of political violence and the violence of culture in Ethiopia It stands to reason that in a system where multifaceted political violence is continuous and pervasive, transfer of power from one regime to the next has nearly always been by force of arms. Under the heading “Transfer of rule” in Table 13.2, incumbents are subdued, assassinated, toppled, beheaded, ousted, or forced out of the country to make room for armed victors and their retinue. Intruding or invited foreign powers and entities have also had direct and indirect roles in transfers of power in Ethiopia besides being the ones availing the military hardware to combatants. Such incursions include those of the British in 1868, the Sudanese in 1889, the Italian fascists in 1936, and the Soviet military intervention in Somalia and then in Ethiopia in 1977 to 1978. Lij Iyassu was dethroned, jailed (1916), and later died in undisclosed circumstances. In an act of poetic justice Lij Iyasu’s jailer, Haile Selassie, was in turn incarcerated in 1974 and died in shady circumstances in 1975. Haile Selassie in 1936 and Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991 were self-­exiled. Only two Ethiopian rulers, Emperor Menyelek and his daughter Empress Zewditu, died of natural causes. The cycle of internal, regional, and colonial/neocolonial/Cold War political violence in Ethiopia and Northeast Africa continued unabated. Consequently, in the very long stretch of its history, Ethiopia became a poster child, not only for its famines in the 1960s and 1970s, but also for its debilitating culture of political violence. The perpetual culture of political violence in Ethiopia poses a conundrum. On the one hand, Ethiopians are entitled to savor their capacity to maintain their independence in spite of continuous regional and colonial assaults – more so than other polities in Africa. On the other hand, how can one explain Ethiopia’s incapacity over many centuries of its existence to generate a civil political system in which martial prowess is no longer the road to ascend to power, to rule, and to maintain power? Why has it been impossible to end the long cycle of culture of political violence and mutate to a quasi democratic political system? As noted above, Ethiopia was not an isolated polity. Consequently, it had opportunities to share its good with the outside world and, besides arms, adapt some good from others in the social and political realms. After Mussolini’s “rape” of Ethiopia in 1936 Emperor Haile Selassie seemed interested in “modernizing” his country to bring it up to par with advanced countries (see Sbacchi 1985). He started by sending young Ethiopians for education abroad, and he offered concessions for oil and gas exploration in Ethiopia to the United States. But in the political field the Emperor’s five-­year sojourn in London led him to adopt British royal attire and protocols but not their democratic system. The Emperor served as head “Marshal”of the Ethiopian armed forces. He had virtually absolute power which he exercised with relish during his second phase of rule of forty-­ four years following the fascist invasion in 1941. His almost absolute rule was  sustained by a feudal coalition consisting of the monarch, the aristocracy, and the clergy. Despite muted suggestions, including gentle nudging by his

224   N. Ayele American friends and protectors that he voluntarily hand over power to Crown Prince Asfa Wessen, the Emperor refused. A short-­lived coup spearheaded by the Emperor’s own imperial bodyguard in December 1960 named the crown prince as the new Emperor (see Greenfield 1965). Professor Donald Levine of the University of Chicago studied Ethiopic lingua franca, did field research in the 1950s and shortly thereafter published an important study, Wax and Gold (Levine 1965) on Ethiopian culture and the double entendre of Ethiopic, specifically Amharic language. He summarized “Cult of Masculinity” traits among a representative cross-­section of Ethiopian peoples in his book, Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of Multiethnic Society.15 Table 13.3 shows excerpts from “Cult of Masculinity” representing the majority of the Ethiopian peoples. In the past three and a half decades there were at least two historical occasions that promised to break the cycle of political violence and facilitate a democratic system. The first was in February 1974 when a genuine people’s revolution occurred in Ethiopia. Without any organized leadership, the rank-­and-file students, peasants, workers, Christian and Muslim clerics, military and police elements in Addis Ababa and throughout the country spontaneously marched in the streets. They called for fundamental change in the political leadership, land to the tiller, power to the people and accountability of civil and military officials. In the event, non-­commissioned and lower rank military elements organized themselves into an “interim” council, or Derg, ostensibly to ensure the security and territorial integrity of the country as it went through its revolutionary convulsions. The genuinely popular Ethiopian Revolution was peaceful, euphoric, and hopeful. People’s power was palpable and most observers, especially in the socialist/Marxist world, believed that Ethiopia was embarking on a positive, egalitarian, and representative future, that it would never be the same again. For several weeks there was a power vacuum as the Emperor’s powers were being peeled off to the core like an onion. Meanwhile, the military committee (Derg) Table 13.3  Selected Pan-Ethiopian traits in cult of Masculinity Cult of masculinity traits

Peoples in Ethiopia who exhibit cult of masculinity

Special status accorded to killers

Afar, Amhara, Arsi, Borana (Oromo), Dorze, Hadiya, Konso, Konta, Kunfel, Marya, Mensa, Somali, Tigrean

Special genre of songs to praise warriors

Afar, Amhara, Bilen, Borana, Dorze, Gurage, Kefa, Konso, Marya, Mensa, Somali, Tigrean, Tulema

Use of stelae or stones to honor brave heroes

Afar, Amhara, Beni Amer, Bilen, Dorze, Gurage, Harari, Kefa, Konson Mensa, Sidamo, Tigrean

Strongly pejorative images of woman

Amhara, Beni Amer, Bilen, Dorze, Gurage, Harari, Kefa, Konso, Somali

Exclusion of women from public assemblies

Afar, Beni Amer, Borana, Dorze, Guji, Kefa, Konso, Kunama, Nara, Sidamo, Somali

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   225 gained substantial visibility as it carried out arrests of high officials who did not voluntarily give themselves up at designated camps. Derg representatives shuttled in and out of the Imperial Palace, negotiating with the Emperor to turn in millions of dollars that he had allegedly hoarded in Swiss secret bank accounts. Finally, on September 12, 1974 Emperor Haile Selassie I was driven to a military barracks in an old beetle Volkswagen as he was jeered and derided by onlookers. He was kept under house arrest until his death (under suspicious circumstances) in 1975. The next phased task of the revolution was to establish a transitional government. To its credit the military initially asked young and old educated elites to get ready to select leaders for the country. But the educated elites were unable to pre-­empt a military takeover, because they could not get their act together. In short order, the so-­called “creeping coup” developed as the military, riding the waves of revolution, obliged and assumed power. Despite the Derg’s announcement that its slogan of rule would be “Yaale menem dem, Ethiopia tiqdem” – “Let Ethiopia advance without the shedding of blood” – the gap and tension between military and civilian elements – especially the young educated groups – widened, and full-­scale armed struggles ensued. The civilian combatants, young and old, gave as much as they got from the military. While the ruling military remained more or less united at first, the civilian elites were increasingly fragmented into splinter parties, resulting in internecine fratricide. More critically, the ethnically based guerrilla movements, such as the Eritrean EPLF and the Tigrayan TPLF, stoked and exploited the bloodletting in Ethiopia for their own secessionist and ethnic agendas, which they realized in 1991. Consequently, an opportunity to break the cycle of political violence was lost. In fact, the seventeen-­year tenure of the Derg was a period of unrelenting violence on many fronts and intensities. The Eritrean and Tigrayan armed forces toppled the Derg, occupied Addis Ababa, and severed Eritrea in May 1991. The TPLF promised a season of peace and democracy. The first thing they did was to disarm the population so that they retained a monopoly of deadly force. They refashioned Ethiopia’s internal boundaries along major ethnic lines, necessitating massive forced population movements of people who had lived for centuries in what they believed was Ethiopian territory. They deliberately and gratuitously made Ethiopia landlocked. In reality, the TPLF agenda was to lay the foundations of ethnic Balkanization in Ethiopia for a divide-­and-rule policy while they were in power or disintegration when they no longer ruled. The second opportunity to break the culture of political violence cycle came in 2005. Under some pressure from European countries and the United States, the TPLF regime allowed democratic parties to participate in an upcoming election in May 2005. It was too good to be true, but the challenging parties were ready to campaign vigorously. Kinijit (the Coalition for Unity and Democracy) quickly gained support. Just days before election day an estimated two million people filled the city of Addis Ababa cheering for Kinijit, whereas the ruling junta could not muster even a quarter of that number with carrots and sticks.

226   N. Ayele Ethiopia had never in its history witnessed such enthusiasm and hope attached to an election. When the votes were counted, alternative parties in general and Kinijit in particular won hands down in Addis Ababa and nearly everywhere except in Tigray – which, for all intents and purposes, has become a self-­ governing “state” without a seat at the United Nations General Assembly. In an act of highway robbery, the TPLF autocrats scrapped the actual election results and decreed themselves the winners, making the election a zero–sum game for the democratic challengers. When people came out to the streets to protest the action, they were shot dead indiscriminately. At least 193 people were killed by regime gendarmes. Shortly thereafter, the regime incarcerated 131 mainly Kinijit leaders, academics, journalists, and activists for over a year and a half. Once again, political violence was used to retain power, despite the loss of an election.16 The Ethiopian scene was back to square one, validating the hypothesis of the violence of culture as an outcome of a long-­standing culture of political violence, as we have seen above. More often than not, political violence has become the preoccupation of a “culture of masculinity,” which is often proudly acknowledged by its practitioners. As depicted in Table 13.3, which represents at least 80 percent of the population, the culture of masculinity is embedded as a “default” norm of male behavior. It remains the manifest expression of the long history of Ethiopia’s culture of political violence perpetuated in the unrelenting violence of political culture. Illustrative of the theme of this chapter is the phenomenon of how “death” or moat permeates even casual conversations, especially in northern Ethiopia. People prepare for death more than they do for life. Those who are demeaned, slandered, and spat upon when alive are saluted with a sense of reverence and serenity when dead – even by people who did not know them. If one wants to be believed about anything, one vows to speak the truth on pain of one’s own death or of one’s interlocutor, one’s mother, or father (ene lemoot, moot, enate temoot, abate yemoot). During the lifetime of Emperor Haile Selassie, saying “Haile Selassie yemoot” (Let Haile Selassie die)17 was the ultimate assurance. If a hostess wants to feed a guest who declines her offer, she will say “Afer Sehon” (Let me become dust, i.e., please accept my entreaty). All this may sound frivolous or unremarkable when first encountered, but it is a window to a political culture in which death, killing, and dying have been seared into the Ethiopian subconscious from generation to generation – including that of the current regime.

Epilogue The culture of political violence is an intrinsic and inevitable reality in Ethiopia. It has been and remains the normative mode of exercising political power in the country’s very long history. Politically minded, Westernized Ethiopians aspiring to the throne or political summit more or less assume political violence to be the means of attaining power, using power, and retaining power in the country. Under such circumstances the question of legitimacy of authority is not even

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   227 raised or discussed by power seekers or power brokers. Challengers for the hot seat of power know that ultimately they have to wrest power by force of arms – no matter their rhetoric to the contrary – and no one begrudges them or considers the exercise of political violence as illegitimate or immoral. To be sure, Ethiopia is not the only country in history where political violence is the final and certain arbiter. Whether one thinks of the countries of Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, the United States,18 or other African countries, political violence has figured in their historical past. But most of these countries have more recently made transitions to relatively civil, peaceable, and democratic governance. In the contemporary world one has become inured to active and bloody political violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and, off and on, in Israel/Palestine. What makes the Ethiopian case sadly unique is that in its hoary history it has not shed the culture of political violence, and is still ruled by political violence today. No one has been wearing new attires of power in Ethiopia, only the same centuries-­old, bloodstained, hand-­me-down ones–including the present-­day dictators in the twenty-­first century. As I write, Somalia in particular presents a tragic example of the ultimate consequences of the “violence of culture.” Since 1991, Somalia has been without a viable, functioning government and has suffered unabated internal wars.19 The international community has not been able to contain the colossal carnage in Northeast Africa. The long, continuous trail of the culture of political violence in Ethiopia predisposes it to be another Somalia, unless victims, academics, and all peoples of goodwill begin to deal with not only the processes of culture of political violence but with the understudied theme of violence of political culture.

Acknowledgments The writer would like to thank UCLA emeritus Professor David C. Rapoport, teacher, friend, and mentor since the 1960s. His lifetime body of work has engendered the publication project at hand. Professor Jean Rosenfeld, editor of this volume, deserves the gratitude of not only this writer but everyone else as well. She has been positive and constructive in steering the project with extraordinary professionalism and indefatigable labor. I would also like to thank Mr. Samson Mulugeta, my unfailing and untiring friend and computer guru for his technical support.

Notes   1 In early October 2009 paleoanthropologists announced the discovery of a 4.4 million-­ year-old hominid, Ardipithecus ramidus, in the Afar region of Ethiopia in the environs of the 1974 discovery of the 3.5 million-­year-old fossil, Australopithecus afarensis, nicknamed Lucy or Dinqnesh hominid fossil ancestor. Ethiopia is not a parvenu nation-­state, but has persisted independently for millennia in Northeast Africa. For more on the subject see Edey and Edye (1981), Johanson and Shreeve (1989), White et al. (2009). These scientific findings help put Ethiopia’s history in the larger perspective of human evolution.

228   N. Ayele   2 See Hansberry (1977: 20). For a comprehensive history of Ethiopia see Wallis Budge (1970). The period between 1769 and 1855 is referred to as the “era of the princes,” characterized by no central government, but autonomous principalities all over the country. Autarchy was the order of the day, laced with the usual political violence everywhere in small doses. It came to an end when in 1855 an ambitious aspirant to the throne from Gonder in northern Ethiopia managed to defeat enough of the princes to establish himself as Emperor Tewodros II. For more on the subject, consult Abir (1968).   3 The invaluable quarterly, Terrorism and Political Violence, edited by Professor Rapoport and colleagues, is published by Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group).   4 The Morality of Terrorism was published by Columbia University Press in 1989. Professor Rapoport has identified what he called “four waves of terrorism” since the threshold of the twentieth century. By “waves,” he means “activities in a given time period.” The four waves of terrorism in chronological sequence are Anarchist, Anti-­ Colonial, New Left, and Religious. See also Freilich et al. (2009).   5 The period of the “Mesafint,” or “era of princes” (1769–1855), was characterized by an absence of central governance manifested in Balkanized autarchy with the usual political violence in smaller doses. This came to an end when an ambitious aspirant from Gonder in northern Ethiopia rose to power by force of arms in 1855. See Abir (1965).   6 Rubenson closes his excellent coverage of Ethiopia in its regional and international relations in the nineteenth century with these words: By the end of the century, it was an axiom in Europe that “Africans have no fatherland.” The Ethiopians did not know this, and although they paid dearly by gradually losing Eritrea, neither diplomatic nor military means sufficed to impose foreign rule on the nation as a whole.   7 The expression, ‘collision-­collusion’ syndrome characterizes the manner in which the elements of collision and collusion are simultaneously manifested in the behaviors of Ethiopian ruling elements, on the one hand, and regional and colonial elements, on the other. Just as the colonialists tried and at times succeeded in using their divide-­ and-rule policies in Northeast Africa and elsewhere, at times the local rulers also tried to collude with one another to fight against a worse alien colonial enemy. See Ayele (1988). Note that Ethiopians do not have a last-­name system as in the West. A person’s second name is a father’s first name and lasts only for his or her lifetime, as each generation has different second names.   8 The Ogaden is a large swath of territory in southeastern Ethiopia inhabited mostly by Somali peoples of Northeast Africa. Over the years the Somali term, Ogaden, has become a name of choice used by Somalis, Ethiopians, and foreigners to refer to that part of Ethiopia.   9 In a speech on March 15, 1978 defending Cuba’s intervention in support of Ethiopia against Somalian invasion, Fidel Castro said, “Our revolution isn’t seeking glory or prestige; it simply fulfills its internationalist postulates and principles” (Taber 1981: 119). See also Gott (2004: 250ff.). 10 The author says that at one point, as National Security Advisor to President Carter, he “advocated that we send in a carrier task force in reaction to the Soviet deployment of the Cubans in Ethiopia.” That is why he made the statement that SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union) “lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden” (Brzezinski 1985:189). For all its implacable hostility to Col. Mengistu, the United States ended up arranging his safe self-­exile to Zimbabwe in May 1991. 11 Almond refers to the concept of “political culture” as “not a theory [but] a set of variables which may be used in the construction of theories” (Almond and Verba 1989: 26).

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   229 12 From 1916 to 1930 the Emperor had the title of “Regent Teferi Mekonnen” in Empress Zewditu’s government. In actuality, he was the day-­to-day decision-­maker in consultation with the Empress. With the passing of the Empress he assumed sole power with the throne name of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1931. His tenure was interrupted by Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in 1936 and he subsequently went into exile in London. However, the Emperor continued his struggles, maintaining contact with Ethiopian patriots fighting Italian fascist forces. In 1941, with some logistical help from the British he was escorted back to Addis Ababa and resumed his imperial rule until 1974. He died in 1975 (see Clapham 1969). 13 The vaunted military establishment of the Mengistu regime collapsed like a house of cards during the combined EPLF and TPLF onslaught with American and Sudanese logistical support. An interesting detail of the fall of Mengistu in May 1991 was how the United States helped plan and ensure his peaceful exile in Zimbabwe. Part of the reason was to make sure that 14,310 Ethiopian Jews, known as Falasha in Ethiopia and self-­described of late as Beit Israel, would have safe departure from Addis Ababa airport before the rebels took Addis Ababa. For more on this aspect of the turbulent events of 1991, see Spector (2005). 14 A careful scrutiny of the data in Table 13.2 reveals the complex, perennial, preponderant culture of domestic, regional and colonial political violence in the past 240 years of Ethiopian and Northeast African history. 15 Table 13.3 is a subset of the traits of masculinity listed on pp. 62–63 of the second edition of Levine’s Greater Ethiopia (2000). 16 For a summary of the 2005 elections in Ethiopia see Eskender Nega, Mercha 97: Merejanna Tenetanay (in Ethiopic Addis Ababa 1997/2005). Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar, which is eight years earlier than the Gregorian calendar. 17 The Ethiopic or Amharic expression “moot” means “you die”; “ene lemoot” means “let me die”; “ennate temoot” means “let my mother die”; “abbate yemoot” means “let my father die.” Ethiopians also swore by invoking the name of the Emperor during his lifetime, saying, “Haile Selasie yemoot,” meaning “let Haile Selassie die.” Ethiopians of all ranks, gender, age, or ethnic background or status pinned the veracity of their claims or promises on pain of the death of the most revered and feared Emperor and father figure in the land. 18 In its relatively short history the United States is no stranger to political violence. From the moment of its formation the first act of political violence in the country was the enslavement of African peoples. Then, it was engaged in expanding the territory of the United States ‘from sea to shining sea’ crushing indigenous peoples until the twentieth century. From then on, American political violence became outward bound in the inter-­European wars (World Wars I and II), as well as in Asia and the Caribbean. It is still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It sustained an unprecedented destructive suicide attack by al-­Qaeda at home on September 11, 2001. See Johnson et al. (1998), Lance (2003), Zinn (2003). 19 For a concise summary of political violence in Somalia today, see Pirio (2007).

Bibliography Abdussamad, Ahmad and Richard Pankhurst (1998) ADWA Victory Centenary Conference. Abir, Mordechai (1965) The Era of the Princes, 1769–1855. New York: Praeger. —— (1968) The Era of the Princes. London: Longmans. Almond, Gabriel and Sidney Verba (1989) “The Intellectual History of the Civic Culture Concept,” in Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (eds) The Civic Culture Revisited. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

230   N. Ayele Ayele, Negussay (1980/81) “The Horn of Africa: Revolutionary Developments and Western Reactions,” Northeast African Studies, 2/3: 15–29. —— (1988) “Ras Alula and Ethiopia’s Struggles Against Expansionism and Colonialism,” in Taddesse Beyene et al. (eds) The Centenary of Dogali. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University. —— (1999) “Adwa 1896: Who Was Savage, Who Was Civilized?,” Selected Writings on Ethiopia and Ethiopianity. Los Angeles. —— (2003) In Search of the DNA of the Ethiopia-­Eritrea Problem. San Diego: Media Ethiopia. Brooks, Miguel F. (1995) Kebre Negest: The Glory of Kings. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1985) Power and Principle. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Castro, Fidel and Ignacio Ramonet (2004) My Life: An Autobiography. New York: Scribner. Caulk, Richard (2002) Between the Jaws of Hyenas: A Diplomatic History of Ethiopia 1876–1896, edited with an introduction by Bahru Zewde. Weisbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Clapham, Christopher (1969) Haile Selassie’s Government. London: Longmans. Clapp, Nicholas (2001) Sheba. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Final Report of the United Nations Commissioner in Eritrea (1952) GA Official Records, Seventh session, Supplement No. 15 (A/2188). New York. Freilich, Joshua, Steven M. Chermak, and Joseph Simone, Jr. (2009) “Surveying American State Police Agencies about Terrorism Threats, Terrorism Sources and Terrorism Definitions,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 21(3): 450–475. Gott, Richard (2004) Cuba: A New History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Greenfield, Richard (1965) Ethiopia: A New Political History. New York: Praeger. Hansberry, Leo (1977) Africa and Africans as Seen by Classical Writers, Volume II.: Washington D.C.: Howard University. Johanson, Donald and Maitland Edey (1981) Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind. New York: Simon & Schuster. —— and James Shreeve (1989) Lucy’s Child. New York: William Morrow & Co. Johnson, Charles et al. (1998) Africans in America: America’s Journey through Slavery. New York: Harcourt, Inc. Jowett, Benjamin (trans.) (2000) Politics by Aristotle. New York: Dover Publications. Lance, Peter (2003) 1000 Years for Revenge. New York: HarperCollins. Levine, Donald (1965) Wax and Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. —— (2000) Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Medhanie, Tesfatsion (1986) Eritrea: The Dynamics of a National Question. Amsterdam: B.R. Gruner. Pirio, Gregory A. (2007) The African Jihad. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press. Rapoport, David C. and Yonah Alexander (1989) The Morality of Terrorism: Religious And Secular Justifications. Columbia University Press. Rubenson, Sven (1978) The Survival of Ethiopian Independence. London: Heinemann. Sbacchi, Alberto (1985) Ethiopia under Mussolini. London: Zed Books. Selassie, Teferra Haile (1997) The Ethiopian Revolution: From a Monarchical Autocracy to a Military Oligarchy. London: Kegan Paul International. Snowden, Frank M., Jr. (1970) Blacks in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ethiopia: political violence and culture   231 Spector, Stephen (2005) Operation Solomon. London: Oxford University Press. Taber, Michael (ed.) (1981) Cuba’s International Foreign Policy: Fidel Castro Speeches, 1975–1980. New York, Pathfinder. Tareke, Gebru (2009) The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Trimingham, J. Spencer (1965) Islam in Ethiopia. London: Frank Cass. Wallis Budge, E. A. (1970) A History of Ethiopia. Oosterhout: Anthropological Publications. Whimster, Sam (ed.) (2004) The Essential Weber. London: Routledge. White, Tim et al. (2009) “Ardipithecus ramidus and Paleobiology of Early Hominids,” Science Magazine, 326 (5949). Zinn, Howard (2003) A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper & Row.

14 Contextual issues in the study of domestic violence A Malawi case study1 Ralph A. Young

The question of violence against women in sub-­Saharan Africa has gained an enhanced and disturbing significance since the early l990s, following the several major civil conflicts that have endangered the viability of individual states as well as the stability of entire regions. Gender-­based violence has emerged not just as a woeful by-­product of civil war in a context of weak or “failed” states but rather, as in Rwanda, Darfur, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, as a political weapon to terrorize local populations and wither the very sinews of the political community. Yet the analysis of violence against women requires a broader remit – and not just in the African case; account must also be taken of the gender violence within a particular societal setting that is sanctioned indirectly by state indifference to social practice, or even active complicity in it (Geras 1998). A range of examples across the African continent (and elsewhere) of governmental failure to confront issues of gender violence, to deal with related questions of entrenched gender inequalities helping to shape the context for this, or to address the inconsistencies between lofty commitments to human rights in their constitutions and the ordinary laws governing the behavior of their citizenry, are all testimony to the role of indifference as an instrument of policy, especially when power is uncertain or insecure or where the instruments avail­ able for its exercise are insufficient (HRW 2005; Okereke 2007; Borwanker et al. 2008). These examples furnish evidence also of the limited convergence between a pervasive international culture of human rights that shapes, in part, the environment in which modern governments must work, political realities on the ground, and, in particular, the circumstances of normalized gender violence representing not so much an element corrosive of social order as a seeming component of its social and political stability. If gender-­based violence is the most widespread and socially tolerated of human rights abuses, domestic violence is undoubtedly its most common form. I will focus on the latter in the following discussion of the central African state of Malawi. As the former British dependency of Nyasaland, Malawi had incorporated more than two dozen indigenous communities; the Chewa alone represented around 50 percent of the population at the l966 census (Stubbs 1972: 72–73). The impact of the colonial dispensation in reordering Nyasaland’s social, economic, and political landscape was profound. With no significant

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   233 mineral deposits to be exploited, European plantation agriculture was encouraged in the Shire Highlands in the south and, to a lesser extent, in Central Province. African communities were pressed into servicing the colonial enterprise either through the conversion of traditional land rights to tenancy arrangements or through taxation, which forced tens of thousands of men into labor migration each year (Vail and White 1989). Overall, Malawi’s development base at independence in l964 was modest. Urbanization – a key indicator of industrial and commercial development or the presence of large-­scale mining – stood at around 5 percent (it was only 14 percent by l998). With a poorly developed road network, limited physical infrastructure, and low levels of literacy, the countryside was not just rural but “deeply rural” (Bryceson and Fonseca 2006: 1654). The government taking power at independence under the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) quickly consolidated its grip, with the new president, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, constructing an authoritarian state that was to prove unusual among post-­colonial African regimes in the extent to which Banda was able to centralize control and deploy a personality cult to impose his priorities on Malawi (Short 1974; Lwanda 1993). While using traditionalist values and imagery to crowd out alternative discourses from public arenas, he oversaw an official “national” culture centered on his own Chewa community (Vail and White 1989: 179–184). Women found themselves enlisted as one of the regime’s most visible support bases. Banda portrayed himself as their protector and benefactor, while appealing to a culturally conservative model of women’s role. He was the “Nkhoswe Number 1” (that is, senior uncle), and women formed his “mbumba” – resonant terms to Chewa women.2 Although in l987 Banda’s government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, it entered a reservation declaring that: owing to the deep-­rooted nature of some traditional customs and practices of Malawians, the Government . . . shall not, for the time being, consider itself bound by such of the provisions of the Convention as require immediate eradication of such traditional customs and practices.3 Women were expected to dance and sing praise songs at Banda’s public appearances. Although his speeches stressed the need to improve women’s position and he urged the ruling party to ensure their appointment to committees, even at local levels women had great difficulty in winning elective office. Few women gained legislative seats – save for one brief period in the early l980s – and only two reached Cabinet level. The party’s League of Malawi Women had limited impact on regime policy. As with other groups, the regime allowed women little space for autonomous action. However, their public exploitation in a legitimizing role secured a visibility for them that made women a target for resentment once the regime lost power (Hirschmann 1991; Mkamanga 2000; Chirwa 2007). The rebirth of multiparty politics in l993 to 1994, and the Banda regime’s defeat at the May l994 elections,4 was to open both a new era in Malawi’s politics and a new range of opportunities for women. Yet the agenda of reforms

234   R.A. Young necessary to ensure meaningful levels of gender equality in Malawi was formidable, and post-­Banda regimes have displayed ambivalence in confronting it. Malawi remains a poor country, ranking only 164th out of 179 countries on the 2008 “Human Development Index” produced by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP 2008: 232). Since 1981 Malawi has experienced an ongoing economic liberalization program under World Bank and IMF supervision (Harrigan 2001), but the economy’s dependence on agriculture constrains prospects. In 2007 agriculture represented 48 percent of GDP, with tobacco and tea accounting for over 90 percent of export earnings. Smallholder farmers with low levels of productivity account for 86 percent of output (Van Donge 2002; Van Buren 2009). The HIV/AIDS pandemic has made deep inroads, with perhaps 14 percent of the population currently infected (WHO 2008: 7–8). Statistics underline women’s many disadvantages compared to men.5 At the 1998 Census, women made up some 51 percent of its population of 9.9 million.6 All the indicators comprising the 2008 “Human Development Index” showed women as worse off than men, save the figures for life expectancy (53 years for women and 51 years for men), although HIV/AIDS infection levels are three to four times higher for women than for men in younger age groups (UNDP 2008). According to the 1998 Census, women remained overwhelmingly concentrated in agriculture (Table 14.1). It is thus not surprising that 63 percent of women were classed as poor by the Census and 28 percent as “ultra poor.” As Seodi White and her colleagues note, “in Malawi, poverty is largely feminized” (White et al. 2002: 27). The literacy rate for women was only 33 percent in 1999, as against 67 percent for men. Women also married younger than men; 38.2 percent of teenage girls (between the ages of 15 and 19) were already married, as against 8.3 percent of boys. With most marriages in Malawi occurring under customary rules, there were strong pressures on daughters to marry as young as possible to ease family financial strains – a practice that a government report termed an indirect form of forced marriage, and one driven by the “deepening levels of poverty” (CEDAW 2004: 78–79). The human rights chapter of the new Constitution, approved at a May 1995 referendum, accorded women equal rights to men (including the right to enter into contracts and acquire property, have custody and guardianship of children, and independently acquire citizenship and nationality). Section 24(1) guaranteed them freedom from discrimination on grounds of gender or marital status, while Table 14.1  Gender distribution by employment type

Farmers Employees Family business Self-employed Employers

Women (%)

Men (%)

90.2 4.8 2.1 2.8 0.1

66.8 21.2 2.8 8.8 0.3

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   235 Section 24(2) asserted the invalidity of any law discriminating against women and committed the government to eliminating discriminatory customary practices – particularly those involving sexual abuse and violence, discrimination in work or public affairs, and deprivation of property. Section 13 in Chapter 3 (laying out “fundamental principles”) required the state to promote popular welfare through legislation and policies regarding 15 stated goals, including, first, the “full participation of women in all spheres of Malawian society on the basis of equality with men” (Malawi 1995). The United Democratic Front (UDF) government of Bakili Muluzi which took power in May 1994 did indeed make the human rights enshrined in the Constitution a frequent point of reference, stressing Malawi’s conformity with international standards in this respect (CEDAW 2004: 10). The new order thus reversed the emphasis formerly placed on traditional culture, making international standards a strategic focus of attack against the complex of conservative social attitudes fostered by the Banda regime. Yet to the extent that the new government also promoted women’s rights, it found itself adding to underlying insecurities at grassroots levels in a society experiencing a marked degree of economic and social stress. Within Malawi, women are widely regarded as having a cardinal role as guardians and bearers of culture – in effect, acting as custodians of practices forcing them into subordinate roles. While the Banda regime had provided reassurance to the population over the continuity of core social values, post-­Banda governments appear to have set human rights and gender equality in opposition to Malawian culture. The anthropologist Ulrika Ribohn certainly noted the manner in which popular assumptions were regarded as under challenge (Ribohn 2002). A government report agreed: “At community level, there is misconception about gender and advancement of women. Gender has been viewed by women, men, girls and boys as a means to disturb the social fabric of Malawian Society” (MGCS 2004: 56). And the constraints to change rooted in local attitudes were a recurring concern for the team that produced the 2004 report on Malawi’s progress in meeting its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: The success and adaptation of appropriate measures to advance the development of women are hampered by limited funds, low literacy levels amongst women, and the negative attitude towards changing the existing cultural practices that impact negatively on women rights. During information collection, some communities indicated that because of women knowing and demanding their rights, the traditional fabric that promotes male dominance is threatened. (CEDAW 2004: 25) The scale of the likely resistance to change was highlighted by five recent reports documenting women’s experience of domestic violence and underlining its widespread occurrence.7 Indeed, some 48 percent of those interviewed by Pelser and colleagues reported being victims of domestic abuse; no less than 30

236   R.A. Young percent had experienced physical violence, but the rates for other types were also high – 28 percent for financial abuse, 25 percent for emotional abuse, and 18 percent for sexual abuse (Pelser et al. 2005: 9).8 The most vulnerable women fell into the 20- to 30-year age group; but because of early marriage, physical and sexual abuse levels for those in the 10 to 20 age range were significant (Pelser et al. 2005: 24–25). Women in lower income groups appeared most exposed to physical and sexual abuse, accounting for around 70 percent of cases under both headings (Pelser et al. 2005: 26–28; Chakwana 2005: 266–267). The most common forms of spousal violence included slapping and arm twisting (16–20 per cent of respondents) and marital rape (11–13 per cent) (Chakwana 2005: 273). The Malawi Demographic and Health Survey 2000 reported that nearly 36 percent of women accepted that husbands could beat their wives for inappropriate behavior; as Saur and her team noted: “women, men and children have internalized the fact that ‘educational beating’ is a necessary measure to become a responsible adult, or a wife for that matter” (Saur et al. 2005: 81, 12). Yet the Pelser study noted that the levels of women finding abuse acceptable were limited (Pelser et al. 2005: 9–17). Contrasting explanations of abuse were offered, with men attributing it to familial disagreements (27 percent), alcohol (18 percent), assumptions of male superiority (8 percent), and poverty (7 percent). Women respondents, however, commonly blamed deteriorating economic conditions, with alcohol also frequently cited. Nearly six in ten women stressed traditional culture and practices (Pelser et al. 2005: 6, 20–21, 47–48). Established cultural practices and rituals – especially those marking life cycle transitions – are essential for maintaining community cohesion and transmitting traditions and values to ongoing generations. But, certainly in the Malawi case, these impact differentially upon women and men and, in some instances, function to degrade the dignity of women, threaten their health, or deny rights promised by the Constitution (MHRC 2006a: 77–92; MGCS 2004: 27–28). A study undertaken by the Malawi Human Rights Commission found a number of traditional practices, such as the inheritance of widows (usually by a brother of the deceased husband) that were widely accepted by both male and female respondents as harmful to women, particularly in the context of concerns over HIV/ AIDS. Other practices – for instance, the payment of “bride price” or lobola (discussed below) – tended to divide respondents into gender groups with opposing views (MHRC 2006a). If the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic was to sharpen issues in the contentious sphere of gender dominance and domestic violence, it also marked out women’s broader vulnerabilities. While public education campaigns after the mid-­1990s had undoubtedly enhanced public understanding of HIV/AIDS, concern existed that these campaigns were placing stress on raising awareness rather than altering attitudes (CEDAW 2004: 58). Smith and Watkins did find evidence of changing behavior among both men and women, with women more inclined to divorce husbands suspected of infidelities and men more inclined to use condoms in their extramarital affairs though not with their wives – a pattern underlining the domestic “powerlessness” of women regarding their own repro-

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   237 ductive rights (Smith and Watkins 2005). Such powerlessness is especially marked among young women between the ages of 15 and 24, the age group most vulnerable to HIV infection. The fact that an estimated 60 percent of HIV-­ positive individuals are women testifies to the consequent “feminization” of Malawi’s HIV/AIDS pandemic (UNSM 2001: 64–65). As the CEDAW report observed, although Malawi’s law is marriage-­based, its concern is mainly the inception and dissolution of marriage, leaving life in the ongoing family very much unregulated. The family is regarded as a private sphere even where it is known that there is injustice. (CEDAW 2004: 80) Malawi has been unusual (and possibly unique) among African states in the dominance of communities possessing matrilineal rather than patrilineal family systems.9 While White and colleagues regard “the position of women in [either setting as] equal in terms of powerlessness” (White et al. 2002: 50), this understates women’s relatively greater autonomy within matrilineal societies. Under the patrilineal arrangements that dominate Malawi’s Northern Region, the payment of lobolo (or “bride price”) – whether in cattle, as traditionally, or cash – secures not only the wife’s labor and reproductive capacity but also brings her into her husband’s lineage; under such arrangements, the wife may be viewed as having been purchased, opening the door to abusive behavior (White et al. 2002: 53–54; Saur et al. 2005: 38–39; MHRC 2006a: 87–88). Access to land is at her husband’s discretion, and though the wife must share the work on the family farm, the husband is not obliged to share the proceeds from any produce sold. Should divorce or her husband’s death occur, any children normally remain with the husband’s family, as does all the matrimonial property (leaving the wife her clothes, jewelry, and usually her kitchen utensils) (White et al. 2002: 53–59). If the husband dies, the wife may either to return to her home village or accept “widow inheritance” by a brother-­in-law; she may sometimes be allowed to retain the family dwelling (and land) to permit the raising of her children. However, she may also be forced to leave by her husband’s relatives with a minimum of personal effects (White et al. 2002: 56–60, 64, 73, 75–76; Saur et al. 2005: 35). In the matrilineal societies predominant in the Central and Southern Regions, the determination of descent through the mother’s lineage still leaves the wife vulnerable to male exploitation of her person and property. The descent group typically consists of a group of sisters and their children under the guidance of a senior uncle or elder brother (or nkhoswe). The married couple usually reside in the wife’s village, and their children belong to the wife’s lineage; should divorce occur, the children remain with her – as does the matrimonial property. Should the wife die, the husband may be expected to return to his home village (White et al. 2002: 73–75; Saur et al. 2005: 35). Matrilineal marriage arrangements always entail a third party – the nkhoswe, who has responsibility for arranging land for the couple and for looking after the needs of their children (Saur et al.

238   R.A. Young 2005: 35, 39); in return, on the death of the senior uncle his property would go to his nieces’ children rather than to his own. Thus, although the woman maintains closer ties with her own family, she remains subject to male control – by her nkhoswe and by her husband, who is formally head of the household and who maintains control of household expenditures and farming activities (Pelser et al. 2005: 6–8; Saur et al. 2005: 30–34, 39). Under the matrilineal system, marriage is potentially a fragile arrangement owing to the scope women have for initiating divorce but also because of the inbuilt tensions regarding the husband’s role given the division of loyalties between his birth and marriage families, the role of the wife’s uncle or elder brother in family decisions, and the prospect that upon his decease, his property would go elsewhere than to his own children (Saur et al. 2005: 39). If the husband predeceases his wife, she is at risk of “property grabbing” by her in-­laws, which is often linked to family pressures to marry one of her husband’s brothers.10 That her own relations might then fail to defend her access to matrimonial property reflects entrenched understandings of feminized property within the household and what “properly” belongs to the husband (White et al. 2002: 57–60). The reshaping of Malawi’s priorities over gender rights was already under way during the final phases of the Banda era – though whether to shore up the regime’s support base as pressures for change emerged or to commence preparations for the international women’s conference that was scheduled for Beijing in 1995 remains uncertain. The government adopted a Poverty Alleviation Framework in 1992, while in 1993 a “Women in Development Policy and Plan of Action” was launched. With the arrival of the United Democratic Front (UDF) government, a succession of further measures targeted at improving women’s status occurred, marking out a field of considerable initiative at national level: the “Malawi National Platform for Action to Operationalize the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action” (March 1997);11 the “Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Declaration on Gender and Development” (September 1997), and the consequent addendum on the “Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women and Children” (September 1998);12 the “National Gender Policy (2000–2005)”, intended to facilitate the coordination of the government’s gender policies with those of UN agencies active in Malawi (Mwale and Makhambera 2006: 11–12); the “National Strategy to Combat Gender-­based Violence (2000–2006)”;13 and the “Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy” (2002) (CEDAW 2004: 18, 22). These measures were accompanied by practical initiatives (CEDAW 2004: 18–19). Thus in March 1998 women presented a petition to President Muluzi demanding the eradication of gender violence; this led in 2000 to a nationwide civic education campaign by NGOs and community action groups known as the “16 days of activism,” which became an annual event (CEDAW 2004: 18). Gender-­sensitizing activities were also targeted at elite groups, including senior officials, Cabinet members, MPs, and chiefs (CEDAW 2004: 11). In addition, efforts were begun to translate gender materials into local languages and, at ministry level, to make programs or recruitment practices more gender sensitive (MGCS 2004: 9).

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   239 Legislation was essential to reform the discriminatory framework inherited from the Banda era and to endow the rights provided in the Constitution with a “more practical and operational” form (CEDAW 2004: 19). One much-­resented law, the 1971 Decency in Dress Act, was repealed during the democratic transition in l993–1994, ending the ban on women wearing trousers or miniskirts (CEDAW 2004: 21). In addition, an Employment Act was passed in 2000, prohibiting discrimination against employees on grounds of sex and requiring equal pay for equal work (CEDAW 2004: 13, 17). However, the attempt to reform the 1967 Wills and Inheritance Act came to grief (and was subject to ridicule) in the National Assembly;14 the MPs accepted a single component criminalizing “property grabbing” by relatives following a husband’s death (Semu 2002: 90; CEDAW 2004: 16). In 2001, the Malawi Law Commission – established to review existing laws and draft bills for legislative action – introduced a special gender unit with a three-­year mandate to review gender-­related laws and break the logjam over reform efforts in this sphere (Semu 2002: 89; CEDAW 2004: 16). By the spring of 2006, a Land Act was on the statute books (CEDAW 2006b: 2), and a fresh attempt to revise the Wills and Inheritance Act as well as new bills on marriage, divorce and family relations, citizenship, nationality, and immigration had reached the legislature (CEDAW 2006a: 8; CEDAW 2006b: 4); a Gender Equality bill was under preparation.15 Nonetheless, by late 2008 none had become law.16 The single victory for women was a landmark Protection against [Prevention of] Domestic Violence bill – the first Malawi statute crossing the boundary conventionally marking off the family’s private sphere; this was shepherded past legislative resistance in June 2006 with ministerial prodding and considerable lobbying by women’s groups. Seodi White was able to describe the Act as “one of the greatest achievements ever undertaken in the fight for gender equality and in particular violence against women” (White 2007: 26). It covered both spousal and family relationships; defined domestic violence in broad terms to include physical, sexual, psychological and economic abuse; provided for protection, tenancy and occupancy orders; and allowed for both custodial sentences and monetary penalties. Women activists, however, had campaigned unsuccessfully to include marital rape as a criminal offence under the Act (CEDAW 2006a: 7, CEDAW 2006c: 4–5; UNDP 2006a, UNDP 2006b: 40; DFID 2007: 48; MLC 2009: 16–17). The reform process had been slower than hoped, and the barriers to an effective strategy of gender equality remained formidable. Indeed, as one observer noted: “through making various policy declarations and signing international conventions, the government has implied its willingness to improve the status of women . . . however, a large gap exists between the rhetoric and the practice” (Semu 2002: 89–90). Alhough a women’s ministry had been responsible after l994 for ensuring that gender was “mainstreamed” across all policy sectors and for coordinating activities at local level, its secondary status as only a “line” (rather than a central) ministry left it limited means for pressuring other ministries into action; at the same time, without more resources, “many Government departments and stakeholders are not able practically to mainstream gender” (CEDAW 2004: 18; Mwale and Makhambera 2006: 24–25). The Ministry itself

240   R.A. Young was constrained by inadequacies of finance while experiencing high staff turnover rates, partly due to low morale; its 36 posts requiring a university degree were, in February 2004, all vacant (MGCS 2004: 56). While the government had given recognition to gender equality as a goal, important initiatives such as the National Gender Policy and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper had largely ignored the need for temporary “positive discrimination” measures to accelerate progress (CEDAW 2004: 26, 27–28). Moreover, when a second poverty reduction strategy paper appeared in 2007, the attention given to gender-­based violence was considerably reduced.17 The 1998 Wills and Inheritance Act had stipulated that special prosecution officers be appointed to assist the Director of Public Prosecutions over cases of “dispossessed widows,” but by 2004 none were in place (CEDAW 2004: 16, 20). The Administrator-­General’s office, whose responsibilities included an arbitration role in disputes over the estates of deceased persons, had remained seriously understaffed and underfunded (WLSA 2000: 48–54, 110–111; White et al. 2002: 95–98). The Committee on Women’s Rights established by the Malawi Human Rights Commission was similarly underresourced, as were its other committees (MHRC 2006b: 3). Women activists complained in turn that the gender ministry had failed to use the constitutional review process between 2004 and 2007 to advance women’s interests, and had indeed opposed the inclusion of cohabiting partners under the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act. Even the Malawi Law Commission was critical of the Act, noting that its definition of domestic violence in terms of a criminal offense rendered it potentially unenforceable in cases of emotional, social, economic, or financial abuse (MLC 2009: 108–109). Moreover, once the latter Act was in place, the political will to apply it had faded, since by late 2008 no funding for its implementation had been provided nor any implementing structures established. (White and Kachika 2009: 5). If the 1997 “Declaration on Gender and Development” by the Southern African Development Community committed Malawi to achieving an ambitious target of a 30 percent representation of women in the higher echelons of politics and the civil service by 2005 (SADC 1997), the democratic transition in l993 to 1994 had seemed likely to threaten the limited gains by women in the public sphere under Banda. Women felt that their influence even in local affairs had declined (Ribohn 2002: 169). The electoral success of women in the l994 elections had been modest, at 5.6 percent of the MPs elected. However, the ten women representatives formed what was to prove an active cross-­party Women’s Caucus that lobbied forcefully for the introduction of an upper house, or Senate (Semu 2002: 91; Chirwa 2007: 155), and also, in 1998, sponsored the reform bill dealing with the Wills and Inheritance Act while also pressing for reform of the existing citizenship and marriage legislation (MGCS 2004: 8–9). Within civil society, women seemed similarly weakly placed; an American NGO representative noted at the time of the democratic transition that most of the civil organizations . . . are starting from scratch. Those affiliated to the Banda regime were very discredited and have disappeared. We would

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   241 love to work with human rights groups or women’s advocacy groups, but there are hardly any to speak of yet. (Ham and Hall 1994) Nevertheless, women’s organizations were soon advancing their interests in diverse spheres: development, civic and human rights education, advocacy, legal support, and research (Semu 2002: 92–94). By 2003 five groups were already focusing on gender violence and five more on property and inheritance rights issues. The government had established a Council for Non Governmental Organizations in Malawi in l998, bringing NGO representatives on to government committees to assist in shaping official strategies; it subsequently entrusted to women’s NGOs much of its own educational work and project implementation on gender issues, though concern existed that this willingness to delegate responsibilities significantly overstretched NGO resources (CEDAW 2004: 12, 22; MGCS 2004: 9; CRC 2009: 5). Women’s groups themselves created a Gender Coordination Network as well as a Network against Gender-based Violence (Mwale and Makhambera 2006: 24). The efforts of women’s groups were soon enough to be felt directly on the political terrain. The petition to the President in March l998 against domestic violence received its impetus from this emergent network, as had indeed the 2006 Prevention of Domestic Violence Act. Women’s organizations also were active, along with a range of civil society groups, in the public campaign to stymie President Muluzi’s efforts after 2001 to amend the Constitution to remove the two-­term limit on presidential officeholders (Chirwa 2007: 173; Saunders 2009: 699). In 2005 NGOs and the women’s ministry successfully overcame parliamentary opposition to the appointment of a woman as Inspector-­ General of Police (CEDAW 2006a: 5). When the government reneged, in 2001, on the promise of a Senate with representation for “special interests” (including women), women’s NGOs took the government to court, though judicial action came too late to block the government’s maneuver (Semu 2002: 94). As one analyst would warn, “[women’s] NGOs still lack the capacity – the financial, personal, and technical skills – that would make them effective agents of change” (Semu 2002: 94). Certainly many women’s groups employed few staff and lacked cars for ferrying activists into the rural areas for civic education campaigns. Yet despite such resource constraints, the endeavors of these groups have not been without impact. An organization like WLSA had found a key niche through its research programs, while Women’s Voice had become a respected actor in civic education and advocacy. The Malawi Centre for Advice, Research and Education on Rights invested considerable energy in practical work, training a network of paralegal officers, who in turn prepared community-­level volunteers for educational work on women’s rights (Semu 2002: 92–94; Chirwa 2007: 152–158). Between the l999 and 2004 elections women’s NGOs played a significant role in enlisting and preparing potential women legislative candidates. In July 2008 the Gender Coordination Network indeed launched an ambitious “50/50 Campaign” with the support of the

242   R.A. Young women’s ministry and seven donor agencies to boost women’s parliamentary representation. Such efforts did help raise the share of women MPs from 8.8 percent in l999 to 21.8 percent following the May 2009 elections. Women’s presence at Cabinet level had also increased to 29.6 percent by the latter date (Mweninguwe 2009). **** Malawi would seem to have made significant strides since the reintroduction of multi-­party politics in l993 in addressing issues of gender inequality. An impressive range of initiatives has aimed at improving the socio-­economic status of women to underpin the Constitution’s promises of equality of conditions between the sexes; among these have been both a strategy statement focused on gender-­based violence and a major domestic violence act. Since 1994 a Ministry for Women’s Affairs has maintained a continuous existence with responsibility for ensuring that gender issues are mainstreamed across governmental activities. The Ministry has also supported the emergence of an extensive network of women’s groups on which it has relied in part for the implementation of its strategies, and which itself has shown notable levels of activism despite limited resources. Due to the combined initiatives of ministry and women’s groups, the agenda regarding gender-­based violence has been broadened, including, for example, the formal recognition of certain customary practices as types of gender violence (and a contravention of women’s human rights) and of the ramifications of sexual abuse in the context of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The fact that the Ministry has provided no funding for women’s groups has allowed them to maintain their distance (and sometimes highly critical independence). But while women’s groups (and the parliamentary Women’s Caucus) have established a role in shaping policy, they have shown limited leverage in bringing about government action or even forcing the pace of its deliberations. There now also exists a web of external agreements to which Malawi is a party with a gender or human rights focus. The 1995 “Beijing Platform for Action” marked out an agenda with a high level of international legitimacy on which the government drew in shaping its own gender program. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women has functioned more directly to set standards for performance that could be monitored in a quasi-­public manner. At regional level SADC leaders agreed in August 2008 to adopt a Protocol to the l997 “Declaration on Women and Development” which specified 2015 as the target date for the fulfillment of many commitments and raised the targets for women’s presence in senior decision-­making positions from 30 percent (set in 1997) to 50 percent (SADC 2008). Although declining to sign the Protocol (along with Botswana, Mauritius, and Swaziland), Malawi has become part of a process within which external monitoring and the indirect pressures of “peer performance” by its regional partners will shape the government’s parameters for action; it is also subject to scrutiny by its own women’s movement, which joined the regional gender alliance campaigning for the Protocol.

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   243 During the year prior to the SADC Protocol, the Law Commission’s review of Malawi’s Constitution had suggested that it would be “futile” to consider a 50 percent target for gender balance in senior public positions when Malawi had failed to reach SADC’s 30 percent objective by 2005 – a view very likely shared in government circles (MLC 2007: 43–44). Nonetheless, the separate special commission preparing the Gender Equality bill included a formula designed to produce a variable 40/60 gender balance for parliamentary and local government candidates, political party executive organs, and the public service; this would be backed by financial sanctions and, in the case of parliamentary and local elections, by the threat of exclusion from electoral participation for noncompliance (MLC 2009: 38, 133–135, 144, 148). Even if such a bill were to be approved by Cabinet, the record underlines the important gaps that are likely to remain in translating guiding principles into action, and of actual policies into systematic implementation and enforcement. In reviewing Malawi’s performance over the  Beijing agenda, the Women’s Minister admitted that the “major progress to date is limited to formulation of policies, programs and strategies at national level” (MGCS 2004: 2). The problems that the Women’s Ministry has faced could partly be traced to persisting constraints of limited state capacity (CEDAW 2006c: 8; DFID 2007: 6). In part also, a divisive party system and the narrow reach of the country’s media (apart from radio) have tended to insulate the partisan struggles for power at the center from the public at large, limiting popular accountability. In any case, entrenched social attitudes narrow the government’s options regarding its gender agenda, and encourage reliance on “gradualist” strategies of civic education to alter popular understandings of women’s roles, particularly regarding goals of gender equality (MGCS 2004: 30–31; MLC 2009: 29, 120–121, 138–139). Finally, though the substantial external aid Malawi has received since 1994 has posed potential risks of donor “pro-­activity” in shaping the official agenda, the Women’s Ministry noted recently that the prime problem faced has instead been inadequate donor input, or rather donors who “do not match words with deeds. As a result there is a lot of talk and document development with little financial support” (MGCS 2004: 56). Across its sectoral responsibilities, those suffering particular neglect in this respect were the strategies addressing violence against women, with only the British and German governments providing significant support under this heading (MGCS 2004: 64). But there has also been readily evident a lack of political will on the part of the government – the “indifference” factor noted earlier – to address key issues on the gender violence and inequality agendas and, where policy initiatives have occurred, to pursue their implementation in a manner ensuring effective action. As a recent report observed: To a significant effect [sic], the legal framework to end violence against women is already in place. ‘The problem is that those with power to secure such a transformation in women’s life are not taking action. They must be challenged, pressed, and inspired to fulfill their obligations in practice.’18

244   R.A. Young The Malawi state may be viewed as a field of action across which move constantly shifting flows of influence emanating from different institutional sectors as well as domestic and external actors. Yet the Women’s Ministry has found itself constrained by an environment in which it has struggled to gain adequate support; after nearly a decade, a report issued by the Ministry could complain that “there is a very big misconception and misunderstanding of gender and development issues at all levels,” adding that “having gender as a department in a line Ministry marginalizes it. As a result it gets very little funding” (MGCS 2004: 56). The role of an independent gender ministry with a writ to promote gender priorities across the field of public institutions – including, of course, the prevention of violence against women – remained, in the Ministry’s view, “a dream and a vision” (MGCS 2004: 57).19

Abbreviations CEAFDAW Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (United Nations) CEDAW Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (United Nations) CRC Committee on the Rights of the Child (United Nations) DFID Department for International Development (United Kingdom) DPP Democratic Progressive Party HRW Human Rights Watch IMF International Monetary Fund MCP Malawi Congress Party MGCS Ministry of Gender and Community Services (Malawi) MHRC Malawi Human Rights Commission MLC Malawi Law Commission SADC Southern African Development Community UDF United Democratic Front UNDP United Nations Development Program UNSM United Nations System in Malawi WHO World Health Organization WLSA Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Educational Trust – Malawi

Notes   1 The full version of this chapter is available from the author at: [email protected].   2 An mbumba is a social unit consisting of sisters and their children under the leadership of a senior uncle or elder brother, and can be perhaps loosely translated as “sisterhood,” though with well-­marked dependence on male control. Although deriving from Chewa practice, the terms nkhoswe and mbumba have generalized application among matrilineal communities in Malawi (Richards 1950: 232; White et al. 2002: 49–50).

Malawi: a study of domestic violence   245   3 This reservation was withdrawn in 1991 (CEAFDAW n.d.: Reservations).   4 Bakili Muluzi’s United Democratic Front (UDF) won 47.3 percent of the votes, with its commanding strength in the Southern Region. But Kamuzu Banda’s MCP retained its Central Province stronghold, gaining 33.6 percent, while the Alliance for Democracy, based in the Northern Province, trailed with 18.6 percent. Muluzi won again in 1999 (with 51.4 percent of the vote). His successor as UDF leader, Bingu wa Mutharika, prevailed in 2004, though with a much reduced share (35.9 percent) (Van Donge 1995: 227–257; Saunders 2009: 698–700).   5 Unless otherwise indicated, the figures in this paragraph are drawn from CEDAW (2004: 4–6, 26).   6 Malawi’s population is currently estimated at over 14 million.   7 While varying in sample size and methodologies, these studies altogether included over 22,000 respondents, with women predominating (White et al. 2002; Chakwana 2005; Pelser et al. 2005; Saur et al. 2005; MHRC 2006a; see also Borwanker et al. 2008).   8 Chakwana recorded a lower level of abuse for ever-­married women (32 percent), but the 2004 Demographic and Health Survey on which she drew did not cover financial abuse (Chakwana 2005: 272–274).   9 At the 1966 Census, matrilineal groups constituted around four-­fifths of the population (Stubbs 1972: 72; CEDAW 2004: 5). 10 The incidence of ‘property grabbing’ in Malawi is described by Owen as “severe” and by the CEDAW report as “fairly rampant” (Owen 1996: 59; CEDAW 2004: 76). 11 Of the 12 areas identified by the “Beijing Declaration and Program of Action,” this selected four as principal concerns: violence against women; poverty alleviation and empowerment; the girl child; and peace (Mwale and Makhambera 2006: 9–11). 12 As well as committing the 15 member states of the Southern African Development Community to assigning gender a central role on their development agendas and ensuring that by 2005 women occupied 30 percent of senior decision-­making roles in both state and political parties, this Declaration obliged governments to take “urgent measures to . . . deal with the increasing levels of violence against women and children” (CEDAW 2004: 10–11; SADC 1997, 1998a). 13 This sought to define clear roles for stakeholders dealing with gender-­based violence; its operational plan focused on civic education campaigns, local victim support systems, and legislation on domestic violence. The Women’s Ministry followed this up in 2002 with a National Strategy to Combat Gender Based Violence to mark out specific areas of action for implementing the Plan (Mwale and Makhambera 2006: 12). 14 The most important reform measure affecting women under Banda, it had promised wives, children and dependants either 40 or 50 percent of a deceased husband’s property, depending on whether the marriage had occurred under matrilineal or patrilineal arrangements respectively. Its impact, however, remained limited, especially in the rural areas (White et al. 2002: 35–45). 15 The Law Commission’s ambitious legislative package was eventually submitted to government in July 2009, and included a Gender Equality bill (dealing with “harmful” traditional practices, sexual harassment, gender balancing in the civil service and in education, and women’s reproductive rights) and also amending bills relating to presidential, parliamentary, and local elections (to require gender balancing among candidates and within party executive machineries) and also employment rights (creating new protections for pregnant women and introducing paternity leave for men) (MLC 2009). 16 Divisions between President Mutharika and his predecessor (Muluzi) had led to Mutharika abandoning the UDF in May 2005 to form the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), unleashing a period of instability in Malawi’s parliamentary politics (Saunders 2009: 700–701).

246   R.A. Young 17 Although the 2002 Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy had listed the eradication of gender-­based violence among four objectives under “gender empowerment,” and identified 16 areas for action, the second poverty reduction strategy paper in 2007 gave the problem only passing mention, with a single area for action (IMF 2002: 38–39, 89; IMF 2007: 51, 166; Borwanker et al. 2008: 30–35, 60–63). 18 Mwale and Makhambera (2006: 22); in the two final sentences, the report is quoting Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN’s first Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. 19 With President Mutharika’s re-­election in May 2009 (with over 65 percent of the vote), progress over a range of gender questions may well occur. The choice of Joyce Banda as his running mate brings to the vice-­presidency a social entrepreneur with an extensive record of civil society activism. She was appointed Minister of Gender and Community Services after winning election to the legislature in 2004, and in June 2006 became Foreign Minister. While the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act and the appointment of a woman as Inspector-­General of Police testify to her ministerial lobbying skills, the 2004 “Progress on the Beijing + 10 Report,” produced during her tenure, provided a sobering assessment of the constraints facing the gender agenda, not least concerning violence against women. Much will now depend on her own priorities and the scope with which she is allowed to pursue these priorities.

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Malawi: a study of domestic violence   247 ment strategy.” Online. Available at: www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2007/cr0755. pdf (accessed December 12, 2009). Lwanda, J.L.C. (1993) Kamuzu Banda of Malawi: A study in promise, power and paralysis: Malawi under Dr. Banda, 1961 to 1993. Glasgow: Dudu Nsomba. Malawi (1995) Constitution. Online. Available at: www.sdnp.org.mw/constitut/intro.htlm (accessed May 15, 2007). Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) (May 2006a) Cultural Practices and Their Impact on the Enjoyment of Human Rights, Particularly the Rights of Women and Children in Malawi, Lilongwe. Online. Available at: www.malawihumanrightscommission. org/docs/cultural_practices_report. pdf (accessed December 16, 2008). —— (September 2006b) Mfulu, Bulletin of the MHRC. Online. Available at: www. malawihumanrightscommission.org/docs.mfulu_sept2006.pdf (accessed February 27, 2009). Malawi Law Commission (MLC) (August 2007) “Report of the Law Commission on the Review of the Constitution.” Lilongwe. Online. Available at: www.lawcom.mw/mw (accessed February 24, 2008). ——. (July 2009) “Final Report of the Law Commission on the Development of the Gender Equality Act.” Lilongwe. Malawi, Ministry of Gender and Community Services (MGCS) (August 2004) “Malawi: progress on the Beijing + 10 report.” Online. Available at: www.un.org/womenwatch/ daw/Review/responses/MALAWI-­English.pdf (accessed February 24, 2009). Mkamanga, E. (2000) Suffering in Silence: Malawi women’s 30 year dance with Dr Banda. Glasgow: Dudu Nsomba. Mwale, F. and Makhambera, M. (2006) “National Response to Gender-­Based Violence,” Report Submitted to the United Nations Population Fund. Lilongwe. Mweninguwe, R. (June 30, 2009) “Women MPs in Malawi increase representation,” Blade. Online. Available at: http://bistandsaktueIt.typepad.com/blade/2009/06/women-­ mps-in-­malawi-increase-­representation.html (accessed October 26, 2009). Okereke, G.O. (2007) “Africa: domestic violence and the law,” in N.A. Jackson (ed.) Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence. New York: Taylor & Francis. Owen, M. (1996) A World of Widows. London: Zed Books. Pelser, E., Gondwe, L., Mayamba, C., Mhango, T., Phiri, W., and Burton, P. (December 2005) Intimate Partner Violence: Results from a national gender-­based violence study in Malawi. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies. Online. Available at: www.iss.co.za/ pubs/Books/IntimatePartnerViolenceDec05/IntimatePartnerViolence.pdf (accessed September 10, 2008). Ribohn, U. (2002) “ ‘Human rights and the multiparty system have swallowed our traditions’: conceiving women and culture in the new Malawi,” in H. Englund (ed.) A Democracy of Chameleons: Politics and culture in the new Malawi. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Richards, A.I. (1950) “Some types of family structure amongst the central Bantu,” in A.R. Radcliffe-­Brown and D. Forde (eds) African Systems of Kinship and Marriage. London: Oxford University Press. Saunders, C. (2009) “Malawi: recent history,” in I. Frame (ed.) Africa South of the Sahara 2009. London: Routledge. Saur, M., Semu, L., and Ndau, S.H. (2005) Nkhanza: Listening to people’s voices. Zomba: Kachere Series. Semu, L. (2002) “Kamuzu’s mbumba: Malawi women’s embeddedness to culture in the face of international political pressure and internal legal change,” Africa Today, 49: 77–99.

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Malawi: a study of domestic violence   249 ——. (2008) Human Development Report 2007/2008. Online. Available at: http://hdr. undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2007–2008/ (accessed September 24, 2008). United Nations System in Malawi (UNSM) (March 2001) “UN Common Country Assessment of Malawi,” Lilongwe. Online. Available at: www.undg.org/archive_docs/1676Malawi_CCA_-_Malawi_2001.pdf (accessed August 22, 2007). Vail, L. and White, L. (1989) “Tribalism in the political history of Malawi,” in L. Vail (ed.) The Creation of Tribalism in Central Africa, London: James Currey. Van Buren, L. (2009) “Malawi: economy,” in I. Frame (ed.) Africa South of the Sahara 2009. London: Routledge. Van Donge, J.K. (1995) “Kamuzu’s legacy: the democratization of Malawi,” African Affairs, 94: 227–257. —— (2002) “Disordering the market: the liberalisation of burley tobacco in Malawi in the 1990s,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 28: 89–115. White, S.V.-R. (January 2007) “Malawi: country gender profile.” Online. Available at: www.jica.go.jp/activities/issues/gender/pdf/e06malaw.pdf (accessed January 16, 2009). ——. and Kachika, T. (January 26, 2009) “A List of Critical Issues to the Sixth Periodic Report of Malawi on CEDAW.” Online. Available at: www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ cedaw/docs/ngos/WLSAM.Malawi45.pdf (accessed February 10, 2009). ——, Kamanga, D., Kachika, T., Chiweza, A.L., and Gomile-­Chidyaonga, F. (2002) Dispossessing the Widow: Gender-­based violence in Malawi. Blantyre: Christian Literature Association in Malawi. Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Educational Trust–Malawi (WLSA) (2000) In Search of Justice: Women and the administration of justice in Malawi. Blantyre: Dzuka. World Health Organization (WHO) UNAIDS (2008) “Subsaharan Africa: AIDS Epidemic Update: regional summary.” Online. Available at: http://data.unaids.org/pub/ Report/2008/JC1526_epibriefs_subsaharanafrica_en. pdf (accessed December 10, 2008).

15 The myth of “institutional violence” Ivan Strenski

Physical violence can radically change the register of conflicts in ways that even  the weightiest of words cannot. Adding violence to a conflict does more than make a mere quantitative addition to a conflict; it has the distinct potential for altering conflict in qualitative ways. Some believe, for example, that adding violence to a conflict can change the register of a conflict by eliminating one of  the parties to the conflict. If only one could “do unto them, before they do unto us” – with “extreme prejudice” – as some Pentagon “wannabe” poet laureate put it, one could at least reduce one’s opponents to impotence or even liquidate them entirely. Massacres, such as the St. Barthomew’s Day, or genocides, such as that planned by the Third Reich, seem to proceed from the calculation that violence can change the register of conflicts by putting a final end to them. A kind of ugly peace reigns where conflict once prevailed because the winner “takes all.” But, in order really to “take all,” victory requires the physical – and necessarily violent – elimination of one’s enemies. Failing total liquidation, some Hamlet will seek to avenge the death of his father, and conflicts will threaten to continue to nag and drag on without resolution. Violence applied ruthlessly, however, promises to tie up all the loose ends of such irritations. Yet, since final solutions are rarely, if ever, achievable, intruding violence into conflicts is more likely to inflame them. Violence can easily transform relatively manageable conflicts into helter-­skelter ones. This chapter is in large part a meditation on the ineluctable difference of scale that physical violence introduces into conflicts. I think it is necessary to make this point about the special power of physical violence because I believe that talk of violence has become altogether too loose. I seek to encourage some attention to a respectful and precise use of language applied to such highly emotive subjects as violence. In the world of religion and politics we are perhaps even more susceptible than most to the mystifications of language. For that reason a re-­dedication to the warning of George Orwell about the use of language in politics may be in order. As he observed in his classic essay, “Politics and the English Language,” Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the

The myth of institutional violence   251 necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration. (Orwell 1956: 355) But what would such a first step toward “regeneration” in thinking about violence be? I propose that this might be to use words like violence in ways that mark distinctiveness, not mask it – that emphasize its salience rather than underplaying it. Here, I believe the locution, “institutional violence,” needs special attention. For the most part, talk about “institutional violence” seems to me pure mystification. I would go so far as to say that “institutional violence” is a myth. The term does not attend carefully enough – whether deliberately or not – to the ordinary language of violence itself, and, as I shall also argue, to the reality of violence in real-­life conflicts. Let me start with some assertions about language. When we talk, we can either be more or less narrow or broad in our usage. “Violence,” like “power,” for example, is just a word that can be used in focused or capacious ways. Michel Foucault, for example, has demonstrated the merits of speaking of “power” in the broadest terms – terms that go beyond the realm of the political as it is usually conceived – and developing a sense in which power is ubiquitous: “One is never ‘outside’ it. . . . There are no “margins” for those who break with the system to gambol with it. . . . [It] is co-­extensive with the social body; there are no places of primal liberty between the meshes of its network” (Foucault 1977: 141). Regarding the word “violence,” I propose that we might try an approach which gives it back its edge, its salience. Of course, having an “edge,” having a specific shape, can create its own problems for an inquiry. So, thinking about things like violence in an “edgy” way involves placing a kind of bet – namely that the value of a concept being “edgy” outweighs that of its being looser or more capacious. One of these overextended ways of talking about violence comes to us in the locution “institutional violence.” I take exception to the use of this phrase, not because I think institutions cannot “violate” human rights, such as the institution of Jim Crow laws, nor because I think institutions cannot act violently, such as a battalion of U.S. Marines storming a beach, nor because violence cannot be institutionalized, such as in our modern institution of warfare. I take exception to the phrase “institutional violence” because I think it fosters one of those “bad habits” of which George Orwell wrote. It is a stealthy way of insinuating that there are only, at most, quantitative differences between acts which involve physical force and those lacking it, and adding violence to a conflict is relatively risk-­free. Taken to its logical extreme, there would only then be, at most, a quantitative difference between, say, the “institutional violence” of a covenant that excludes me from owning a house in a given neighborhood and the violent force of being literally burnt out of my home, and so on. Yes, both cases are the same as members of a system of injustice. My point is that they differ as to violence. To be sure, in both the “institutional violence” of unjust property ownership laws and the violence of being burnt out of my home, the actuality of injustice is

252   I. Strenski equally real. That is not the point in arguing for recognizing a certain difference – an “edge.” What I do claim is that the locution, “institutional violence,” is a rhetorical device. It broadens the sense of the word “violence” to cover a very extensive field. Its purpose may well be to authorize and condone silently and without explicit argument the use of physical force – violence proper – to overturn “institutional violence.” This confusion between violence proper and “institutional violence” actually functions then to propose an action disguised as a truth about the world (Minogue 1995: 6). This broad use of violence asserts that there is really no qualitative difference between what is called “institutional violence” and physical violence. The two are regarded as just different forms of the one same thing, rather than categorically different things. The strategic and tactical conclusions which follow, therefore, would be that it makes no difference as to how one opposes “institutional violence.” Taking matters to their logical conclusion, were we to think about violence such that there was no qualitative difference between “institutional violence” and physical violence, we would be assuming that the use of physical violence in conflicts, say, over what one might call cases of “institutional violence” would not qualitatively affect the register and kind of those conflicts, because violence has already been initiated by those perpetrating the injustice. On this view, both “institutional violence” and physical violence are violence, and thus they are of the same kind. But, as a result, because a term like “institutional violence” collapses all things named violence into one thing, the term “violence” loses whatever logical edge it may have had over other kinds of conditions of injustice. Now, I understand that this loss of logical “edge” to the term “violence” may well be more than sufficiently compensated for, because the term “institutional violence” has an emotive “edge” for those who wield it. It breathes of a kind of political poetry. The locution, “institutional violence,” has, as well, clear utility in a struggle. But aside from rhetoric, the use of violence in “institutional violence” is, I would submit, really no different in meaning than “injustice.” The term “violence” adds an emotive charge to discourse employing it, and thus aids the causes pursued in connection with it. If the term “violence” means anything salient or distinctive, its root meaning from the Latin “violare” tells us that this term already denotes physical force. Thus, when Martin Luther King, Jr or Gandhi warned against using violence to remedy political and social injustice (what some would call cases of “institutional violence”) they were arguing against the use of physical force. When someone advocates the violent overthrow of a government, they are advocating a physically forceful removal of a regime. The term “institutional violence” thus builds on this primary meaning of violence by seeking to extend that meaning beyond the limits of the domain of literal violence to what one might call metaphorical or analogical violence. But the fact of such an extension should not be lost in the enthusiasm to embrace a potent metaphor capable of shaping how we think about violence. Furthermore, the use of the term “institutional violence” is problematic, because it plays down the extent to which conflicts may often change dramati-

The myth of institutional violence   253 cally and qualitatively when physical violence – violence proper – breaks out or is introduced. Even if physical and metaphorical violence may weigh equally on the scales of justice, there seems to be a world of difference between metaphorical and physical ways of being violated. I say this in part out of the conviction that being an embodied material being matters in certain irrevocable ways. Being “blind-­sided” by an underhand parliamentary maneuver in a faculty meeting and being “blind-­sided” in a football game differ, even if I would prefer taking my knocks on the gridiron. Similarly, racial or gender discrimination may deprive me of life options, but, although it may be cold comfort, it does not necessarily deprive me irrevocably of my life. It is, of course, just this lure of irrevocability that fuels the temptation to seek “final solutions” by way of massacre, extermination, and so on. I suspect that this insight into the difference between violence and “institutional violence” lies at the heart of the thinking of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr and, as we are witnessing today, the Dalai Lama. Rightly or wrongly from a pragmatic viewpoint alone, they believed that in “violent” (i.e., physical) conflict they would be “out-­gunned” and not prevail. They also believed, rightly or wrongly, that once a conflict becomes physically forceful, it has a way of running amok into a kind of uncontrollable chaos that leads to endless uncontrollable recriminations, endless runaway attempts to even the score. It becomes our greatest human nightmare, a real “war of all against all.” Violence itself, therefore, seems to add another factor of its own to a conflict, beyond the substance of the conflict itself. As presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were in conflict about who would better answer that “red phone” at 3 a.m. in the White House, among other things. But just imagine how the primary campaign would have changed register were Hillary actually to have “kneecapped” Obama, Tonya Harding-­style! Gandhi and King surely knew about struggle and believed that real violence was explosive; the Dalai Lama must know the same today. It was not just their loving-­kindness that made non-­ violence their tactic of choice; it was a hard-­nosed conviction about the qualitative difference between violence proper and other non-­violent forms of struggle and resistance that guided them. If one believes, as I do, that it makes sense to distinguish between physical uses of power and force (violence per se) and other, non-­violent uses of power, then it makes sense to reject the locution, “institutional violence.” Orwell again chimes in with a telling analogy: A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. (Orwell 1956: 355) While the broad usage of terms like power, mostly attributable to Michel Foucault, has served a number of good ends, it has also confused our thinking

254   I. Strenski about power and thus about violence. It has flattened discourse and prevented our being able to grasp the variety in human affairs. I am not engaged, therefore, in some mere quibble about the uses of words. A final word for those concerned about injustice who may feel that my critique of the rhetorical phrase, “institutional violence,” overstates the damage done by sponsoring such a misnomer. Consider the language of “injustice” itself, and the many realities it names. While “injustice” may not be the most provocative of words, can we really overstate the way intruding it into conflicts can change the register of the discourse and reality of those conflicts? While I have argued that deeds of violence are more potent than words, few words can escalate the intensity of conflicts faster and more qualitatively than tagging them struggles over “injustice.” As Dickens noted cannily about the feelings of children, “There is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.” Are we quite sure that in this respect we are not children, too, in our capacity for grievous hurt and fierce reactions to hurt when it comes to injustice? Adding the language of “injustice” to conflicts may indeed send a conflict teetering on the edge of a violent outbreak, largely because its use can add a transcendent legitimacy to action. Of course, Gandhi’s and King’s examples of the non-­violent resistance to extremes of injustice show that teetering on the brink is not the same as falling over the edge. They show that just because one may feel justified in using violence, that one need not, nor for all sorts of reasons, ought not, resort to violence. That is why I have argued that we should accord the term “violence” due respect. Ironically, the term “institutional violence” fails to give violence precisely the respect it richly deserves.

Bibliography Foucault, M. (1977) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977 (ed. C. Gordon). New York: Pantheon, pp. 134–145. Minogue, K. (1995) Politics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,. Orwell, G. (1956) “Politics and the English Language,” in R.H. Rovere (ed.) The Orwell Reader. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, pp. 355–366.

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Index

Abolitionists 148

Abu Sayyaf Group 53 Adams, John 139, 140, 142, 146–7 Adams, Samuel 140–1, 144, 147 Afghanistan 36, 87, 97; see also Soviet– Afghan War African National Congress 8, 190, 191, 194–202, 204, 206, 207 Afrikaner National Party (NP) 194–5 Afrikaners 193, 196, 199 Air India Flight 182, 116 Alarm 137 Alexander II (Tsar) of Russia 62 al-Qaeda 33, 34, 37, 39–40, 50, 61, 72, 87–9, 97, 115–16, 199, 127–8, 190, 203 al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) 89 American Revolution 6, 138, 140, 147, 159 Amir Group 106, 109 Amir, Yigal 109 anarchism see terrorism: anarchist Anderson, Benedict 40 anthrax attacks (2001) 54, 56 anti-Semitism 180; see also pogroms apartheid 193–4, 200 appeasement as analogy 37 Arafat, Yasir 74, 177 Aristotle 8 Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Algeria 108 Aryan Nation 127 Asahara, Shoko 58 assassination 20, 57, 70, 73, 113 Assassins (Ismaili) 93 Aum Shinrikyo 57–9, 75, 106, 127 Austro-Hungarian Empire 15 Azzam, Abdullah 34 Bangladesh 38 al-Banna, Hassan 34

Barak, Ehud 178–9, 181 Begin, Menachem 62, 173, 177–8, 180 Ben Gurion, David 181 Bin Ladin, Usamah 34, 36–7, 53, 87, 91, 118–19 biological terrorism 55–6, 58; see also CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons) Boer War (1899–1902) 193–4, 199 Boston Massacre 144, 146–7 Boston Tea Party 140–1, 154 Brzezinski, Zbigniew 217 Bush, George W. 37, 112, 115, 129 Camp David Accords (1979) 179 Camp David negotiations (2000) 179 Carter, Jimmy 217 Castro, Fidel 217 CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons) 4, 55, 56, 57, 59, 62 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 34, 74, 126 charismatic authority 196, 214, 220 chemical weapons terrorism 55–6, 58; see also CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons) Chechnya 115–16 chlorine gas 59 Christian fundamentalism 107, 127 Christian Identity 97–8, 127 Christian Militia 40 Christianity 2; terrorism 73 Civil War (United States) 148, 149 Civil Rights Movement 153 Clinton, Bill 116, 120 Clinton, Hillary 253 Cold War 17, 52–3, 74, 223 Colonialism 192, 216, 218, 232

Index   259 Colombia 36 Committees of Correspondence 145 Congo, Democratic Republic 232 Copeland, David 55 counterterrorism 60, 152 Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) 75, 98 Crenshaw, Martha 125, 128 Critical Terrorism Studies 6, 123–31 Crusades 37 cyberterrorism 59, 60, 62 Dalai Lama 253 Darfur 232 De Klerk, F.W. 195, 197 Department of State (United States) 126 Department of Homeland Security (United States) 54, 93, 117 drones see unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) Druze 174 ecoterrorism 51 Egypt 160, 178, 181, 217 Emancipation Proclamation 148 embassy bombings of 1998 (Kenya and Tanzania) 116, 120 ETA 90–1, 125, 160 Ethiopia 2, 8, 212–27; revolution 224 explosively formed penetrator (EFP) 52 failed states 232 FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) 36, 88 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 54, 56, 75, 97–8 Fifteenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution) 148 Forrest, Nathan Bedford 148–9 Fort Hood shooter see Hasan, Nidal Foucault, Michel 251, 253 Four Waves theory 2, 4, 6, 17, 34–5, 39, 46–7, 49, 50, 62, 77, 127, 157 Fourteenth Amendment (U.S. Constitution) 148 Franklin, Benjamin 138 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of AustriaEste 15, 113, 114 freedom fighters 138, 161n7 French and Indian War (Seven Years War) 145 French Revolution 6, 142, 192 Fuchs, Franz 55 Gandhi, Indira 113

Gandhi, Mahatma 141, 252, 254 Gaza 106, 178–9, 181 Golan Heights 177 Golden Hill, Battle of 156 Gordon Riots 138, 145 Governeur Morris 139 Grant, Ulysses S. 150–1 Great Britain 35, 55, 89, 120, 123–4, 131, 139, 141, 145, 149, 193–4, 199, 220, 222–3 guerrilla war 46, 112 Gush Emunim 67, 173, 175, 182 halacha 175 Hamas 36, 40, 106–7, 109–10, 127, 160 Hasan, Nidal 54 Haskala 174 Hayes, Rutherford 153 Haymarket Trial 137 hijacking 54, 125 Hitler, Adolf 113 HIV/AIDS 234, 236–7, 242 Hizbollah (Lebanon) 36, 74, 107–7, 127, 160; attack on US Marine barracks 119 Hoffman, Bruce 32, 125 Hofstad Network 106 Hofstadter, Richard 137, 159 hostages 20–1 Hulagu Khan 37 Hussein, Saddam 76, 115 Hutchinson, Thomas 140–1, 147 improvised explosive device (IED) 48, 52 India 38 insurgency 112 Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan 34, 38 Intifada (second) 109 Iran 17, 35, 53; support for groups in Iraq 52; support for groups in Lebanon and Palestine 106, 127 Iranian Revolution 16, 21, 35, 46–7, 72, 74, 127 Iran-Iraq War 76 Iraq 46, 52–4, 89 Irish Republican Army (IRA) 90–1, 112 Islam: diaspora communities in West 98; House of Islam concept 128; terrorism 4–5, 17 50; perception of other faiths 36; sense of decline 33 Ismaili 73, 97 Israel 7, 126, 126, 171–6; Labor Party 177, 180; Likud Party 171, 176–7

260   Index ITERATE 18–19, 25 Ivins, Bruce 54, 56 Jaish-e Muhammad 89, 127 Jewish law see halacha Jewish Underground 105–6 jihad 3–4, 34, 38–9, 61, 87–9, 21; against infidels and apostates 39; global 88 Johnson, Andrew 148–9 Johnson, Lyndon B. 113, 125 Jordan 160, 179 Judaism: terrorism 5, 104–5, 109 Kaczynski, Theodore 53, 55 Kahane 106, 109, 127 Kalashnikov (AK-47) 58 Kashmir 38 Kennedy, John F. 113 Kenya see embassy bombings of 1998 (Kenya and Tanzania) Khalid Sheikh Muhammad 34 Khan, A.Q. 76 Khobar Towers attack 120 Khomeini, Ruhollah 35, 46, 66 King, Martin Luther Jr. 140–1, 252, 254 Ku Klux Klan 6, 76, 138–59 Kurdistan Workers Party 53, 125 Kuwait 46 Laqueur, Walter 125 Lashkar-e Taiba 36, 89, 127 Lebanon 46, 49; Israel presence 116; U.S. presence 113, 118–19 left-wing terrorism 90 Liberty Tree (Liberty Pole) 155–6 Libya 116, 220 Lincoln, Abraham 148 Lockerbie bombing 52, 62, 116, 119 London nailbomber see Copeland, David Lynch, Charles 155 lynching 154–5 Maghreb 38 Mahdi Army (Iraq) 127 Malawi 7–8, 232–8; League of Malawi Women 233; United Democratic Front 235, 238 Mandela, Nelson 8, 190, 195–8, 201, 206 Mapai see Israel: Labor Party March 11, 2004 terror attacks 117 martyrdom 157–8; see also suicide bombing Marxism 6, 13, 17, 19–22, 24–6, 39, 124–5, 224

Masada 67 Mbeki, Thabo 190, 198, 206–7 McVeigh, Timothy see Oklahoma City bombing messianism 37; Jewish 173, 175, 182; see also millenarianism millenarianism 35, 73 mobs 6, 139–61 mob violence (mobile vulgus): definition of 139–40 Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group 53 Moro Islamic Liberation Front 106, 108 Moses 4, 67–8, 70 mujahidin 21, 35, 91, 110; U.S. aid 35, 38; see also Soviet–Afghan War Mumbai terror attacks (2008) 120 Mussolini, Benito 222–3 narcoterrorism 51 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 88 Nechaev, Sergei 158 Neo-Nazism 55 Netanyahu, Benjamin 177 New Left see terrorism: Third Wave Nixon, Richard 125 Nobel, Alfred 137 nuclear terrorism 55; see also CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons Obama, Barack 253 Oklahoma City bombing 98 Oliver, Thomas 143 Oslo Accords 106, 160, 179 Ottoman Empire 33–4, 215 Pakistan 36, 38, 53, 87, 89, 97; alleged support of terrorism 36, 38; Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) 38, 88–9; intelligence services see InterServices Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan Palestine 62, 88, 108, 160; British mandate 114, 160; demographics 181; terrorism 117 see also Hamas; Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); Palestinian Islamic Jihad Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 74, 108, 127, 158, 160 Palestinian Authority 179 Palestinian Islamic Jihad 106–7, 109 Pan Am flight 103 see Lockerbie bombing Patriot Act 130

Index   261 People against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) 190, 202–3, 206–7 Philippines 106, 108 PKK see Kurdistan Workers’ Party pogroms 116 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine 62, 124 posse comitatus 146 Posse Comitatus Act (1878) 153 Post, Jerrold 125 propaganda of the deed 158 Putin, Vladimir 115 Qaddafi, Muammar 74, 116 Qur’an 73 Qutb, Said 34 Rabin, Yitzhak 106, 109, 113 Radical Republicans 149 radiological terrorism 55, 58–9; see also CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons) Rapoport, David C. 1–5, 15, 19, 22, 25, 30, 35–6, 39–76; passim 90, 93, 103, 123, 125 180 Reagan, Ronald 119, 177 Reconstruction (United States) 148, 150, 152, 153 Red Army Faction 90, 125 Red Brigades 90, 125 reign of terror see French Revolution religious conflict 216–17 religious terrorism see terrorism: religious religious Zionism 103, 105–6 Republican Party 151–2 Revolutionary Catechism 158; see also Nechaev, Sergei right-wing terrorism 125–6 Roosevelt, Theodore 156–7 Rudé, George 138, 146 Rudolph, Eric Robert 98 Russia 62, 115–16 Russian Socialist Party 157 Russian terrorism 15, 48 Rwanda 232 Salafism 110 sarin gas 57, 59, 75; see also CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons) Saudi Arabia 46; funding of Afghan mujahidin 38 Selassie, Haile 220, 223, 226

Sendero Luminoso 36 September 11, 2001 attacks 35, 49–50, 117, 119–20, 127, 156 Shah (Muhammad Reza) of Iran 17, 35 Shamir, Yitzhak 178 Sharon, Ariel 171, 177–8 Shi‘ite terrorism 46; see also Hizbollah (Lebanon) Sinai Peninsula 178 Six-Day War 124, 160 skyjacking see hijacking Somalia 39, 217, 220, 223, 227; U.S. presence 113 Sons of Liberty 6, 76, 138–58 South Africa 2, 7–8, 190–207 South African Communist Party 195, 198 Soviet_Afghan War 16–17, 35, 38, 46, 74, 78, 87–8, 91 Soviet Union 17, 21, 46, 52, 72, 74, 76, 87–8, 91, 106, 193, 222 Spain 117 Sri Lanka 51; see also Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) Stamp Act (of 1765) 139, 140, 142–5, 147, 155, 159 Sudan 116, 217, 222–3 suicide bombing 17, 157; promise of seventy-two virgins 31; see also al-Qaeda Sunni terrorism 203; see also al-Qaeda Syria 53, 179 Taba negotiations (2001) 179 Taliban 36, 39, 53, 74, 116 Tamil Tigers (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam) 13 Tanzania see embassy bombings of 1998 (Kenya and Tanzania) Tahrik-i Taliban 127 terrorism: anarchist 21–5, 45, 48, 57, 77; bombing 156–7; colonialism 7, 2, 34, 46–7, 57, 77; copy-cat phenomenon 53; definitions 14, 112; dynamite 137; government reactions 117, 120, 152 (see also counterterrorism); lone wolf actor 53–4, 56, 61; First Wave 15; “Fifth Wave” 4, 39, 44, 47–9, 52–4, 57, 59–62; Fourth Wave 3–6, 17, 33–4, 39, 45–7, 90, 103, 123, 126–8, 131, 158, 160; nationalist 19, 21–4; origin of the term 142; radicalization 61, 87, 90, 97, 105; recruitment 109; religious 5–6, 19, 21, 23–5, 35, 39, 46–7, 49–51, 62, 66–77, 93, 100, 107, 160 (see also Terrorism:

262   Index terrorism: anarchist continued Fourth Wave); Second Wave 2, 15, 17, 39, 45; technology 52–3, 55, 59–60; Third Wave 2, 6, 8, 17, 46, 124–5, 127; see also CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Weapons); suicide bombing Terrorist Brigade 157 Thugs 73 Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) 221, 225–6 Torah 2, 175 Townshend Acts 147 training manual 158; see also Bin Ladin, Usamah Truth and Reconciliation Commission 194, 200 Turner Diaries 97 Tzrifin Underground 106

unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) 61 U.S.S. Cole bombing 49, 120

ummah 33, 91 Unabomber see Kaczynski, Theodore United Nations 221 United Soviet Socialist Republics see Soviet Union United States passim; involvement in Africa 222–3, 225; see also American Revolution

zakat 34, 36 Zasulich, Vera 45–6 Zawahiri, Ayman 34, 87 Zealots-Sicarii 67, 69, 72–3, 93 Zionism 7, 170, 173, 175–7, 180–1 Zulus 2 Zuma, Jacob 204, 206–7

Viet Cong 46 Vietnam War 46, 113 Wall Street bombing 62 Wallace, Michael 137, 159 war on terror 50 Weber, Max 67–8, 101, 196, 214, 220 West Bank 105–6, 110 Wilhelm II (Kaiser) of Germany 114–15 Wilkinson, Paul 125 weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 75–6, 118 World War I 2, 15, 46 World War II 2, 15 Yemen 49