11 September 2001: Terrorism and After-I

19 Sep, 2001    ·   580

Shabnam Mallick and Rajarshi Sen contend that the roots of terrorism are often more prosaic, more ordinary, more commonplace than is usually understood
The sense of shock at the unprecedented tragedy befalling one of the greatest nations of this world on 11 September 2001 is matched only by a feeling of numbing bewilderment. Official responses and policy matched the fractiousness of information on the perpetrators of today’s incidents of terrorism. Whether or not Osama bin Laden is responsible and how to punish him if he was is unclear, notwithstanding assertions of the inevitability of US’s retaliatory response. There is no general consensus or even idea, let alone specifics, on any vital question in the nature of when, where and how, beyond the immediate emergency attentions and evacuations.

 

 

Those of us who are devoted to the esoteric branch of national security dealing with asymmetric threats, on any given day, find us in the minority in terms of attention, influence, or understanding. Coming to light of the resource scarcity in the American human intelligence community is indication of that minority status. Yet, even if we concede that terrorism, at least, has been in the process of establishing its niche in policy space of late, particularly since the end of the Cold War, those of us who analyze the realms of roots and causes of terrorism are an endangered species indeed. This is significant because tied closely to the correct analyses of the emergence of terrorism, is the factor of correct response to that threat.

 

 

Since the roots of terrorism are slow and ever emergent, so should be the analyses and response to that – patient. Our lifestyle has mutated in modern time to an extent that patience is a luxury we do not have today, leading to slam-dunk responses to threats. Such attitude creates an asociological bias in the study of terrorism, which remains an inexact science, as are most of its cohorts, like the one of intelligence, on whom it traditionally depends.

 

 

The roots of terrorism are often more prosaic, more ordinary, more commonplace than is usually understood. Poverty, deprivation, being socio-culturally dominated, and other everyday causes, often, give rise to the frustration-aggression syndrome. As the name suggests, if one’s aspirations are prevented from being realized for sufficiently long, one may get aggressive beyond the canons of civility; once that feeling is put in a context of socio-economic deprivation beyond a certain threshold, it mutates to a collective sense of victimization. Throw in a handful of already highly mutated zealots fanatic enough to act as leaders of any cause – religious, ideological, self-serving or whatever – then we also have a terrorist group, complete with a constituency or pool from where to draw cadres ready to become martyrs for a cause, however repulsive. Terrorism, thus, remains a weapon of the weak; their way of getting at the strong by attacking the weaknesses of the strong – the logic of asymmetry. And the strong can never be strong enough that they will have no weaknesses.

 

 

Retaliatory strikes against such a situation may perpetuate the cycle of violence. (The comparison of 11 September’s events to Pearl Harbor ends here). Not retaliating may elicit criticism of the Hamlet syndrome – the feeling of not being able to do anything for want of a perfect solution. Lost amidst it all, is the price of freedom – eternal vigilance.

 

 

The crude fact is that as long as vast disparities remain among populations who cohabit one world, the threat of terrorism may not be erased. They can, nevertheless, be reduced to a minority. That, above all, requires moral sanction; and moral sanction is unfortunately even more elusive than the terrorists who have perpetrated the events of 11th September 2001. Moral sanction can come, however, by a change in our lifestyle. The change will have to come through patient sacrifice, not of the type that is now worrying America : that freedom will have to be sacrificed at the altar of heightened security in air travel, for instance. But, sacrifice in America’s surprising innocence that while one must have their own way of life, it is not enough to only not interfere in others’ ways of life elsewhere, but to actively aspire to fulfill that those ‘others’ receive what they too want as theirs. The immediate response, then, must come in the form of a genuine sharing of common security concerns that threaten the collective interests of freedom around the world.

 

 

Unlike in Cold War days of manifest threats, America no longer retains the readymade clout to create ‘an empire by invitation.’ In keeping with lessons of history, if we examine America ’s peculiar situation (a powerful nation facing an indeterminate strategic climate) we begin to wonder if, despite her military might, America will remain invulnerable, after all. Further, if we take a cue from the emerging threats to international security, asymmetric or otherwise, our wonder widens to the point of asking if we do not require a major shift in paradigms so that it is of collective benefit to America and rest of the world.

 

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