I don’t buy the hearts and minds argument either, but neither do I think the global factors and unipolarity are mutually exclusive. Unipolarity perhaps makes it harder to create an ideology that pitches itself up against that of Russia or China, since they all, ideologically (with some variation), buy into the American world order/hegemony/empire (choose your poison).

The addition of a few more select countries that are the only other targets of global islamist terrorism could then, therefore, be the result of one or more of the following:

Resource mobilisation from diverse groups is made easier by simplifying, and then strengthening the ideology, rather than diluting the message.
The targets are open societies, making their actions highly visible through the media, compared to the opaqueness of Russian, Chinese and other middle-income countries.
Ideological groupthink caused by increased competition amongst terrorist groups prevents further shifts in focus. Though this also suggests that groups will die out once an effective strategy is found to combat them.

* “The Birth of Biopolitics” is a somewhat easier read than say, Discipline and Punish.
** Particularly, this paragraph in biopolitics:
The post-war period is “the first time that entire nations waged war on the basis of a system of pacts which were not just international alliances between powers, but social pacts of a kind that promised-to those who were asked to go to war and get themselves killed-a certain type of economic and social organization which assured security (of employment, with regard to illness and other kinds of risk, and at the level of retirement): they were pacts of security at the moment of a demand for war.”

Very well put. I would be inclined to generally agree with your conceptualisation of religion and culture. As long as we understand that the former usually has some impact on the former in the regions we are talking about. Even if the religion is misinterpretated (both wilfully and ignorantly) in this process.

Hell, now that I think about it, I doubt “pure” religion exists very much.

I am more tan big enough to say that Foucault goes over my head! I am however a big Bobbit fan, a signed copy of The Shield of Achilles has pride of place on my bookcase. Also, that link about Asia you provide is very interesting and recommended.

You talk about, ‘path-dependency, inter-state conflict, world systems and governmentality.’ Fine, agreed – but if the strife we are seeing is caused by those things why do we not really see the globalism you suggest in the outcome? Put another way, why is the brunt borne by a very limited number of western countries rather than globally?

You say, ‘The US gets the flak as the unipole of the world system.’ Perhaps, but that really does not explain why we do not see anything like the oppobrium from the Islamic world when it comes to Mother Russia or Serbia. Unless you are about to tell me that those countries have the ‘hearts and minds’ (whatever that means) of Muslims globally?

Surely this is either global (caused by the factors you mention) or this is about a unipolar world. I am not convinced that cuts both ways.

It is to my mind glib to say, ‘If Islamism didn’t exist, it would have to be invented.’ Islamism does exist and so there is no need for conjecture. I also think that you rather stretch Bobbit rather. He does I suppose talk about social democratic contracts, but he is far more interested in the ‘market-state’ and the changing nature of legitimacy being about facilitation of citizens’ choices.

Perhaps that is the cultural roots of it, but it is still inexcusable. I can appreciate the anger – especially over Iraq, not so much Afghanistan – but all four of these idiots were second generation British citizens. For most people in this country of ours frustration at politics does not turn to violence against fellow citizens. And, I’d like to emphasise that that applies to the vast majority of Muslim citizens too.

As I said Douglas I am not condoning it anyway but that does not mean I shouldn’t try to fathom it out – as far as I can.

Your post above fails to address the alienation some Muslims feel today in Britain. Without getting into that debate (I have a feeling people have here previously), you know some people feel disengaged to an extent that they do not perceive themselves as British. Even if they have grown up here. Racism, both overt and discreet plays a part in this I imagine. But so does indoctrination. But I would say experiences of the former can make some people more susceptable to the latter. Of course, individual differences in character are also relevent.

But even with that aside. Recent military action (stemming from political decisions) play their part in this. People in the west have to acknowledge that an indeterminate amount of people (globally) view the current situation as a war against Islam conducted by the west. Some insidious Jewish factor is usually thrown in there as well. The situation also has serious racial undertones, with the white imperialist subjugating the natives narrative fitting quite neatly (and in my opinion correctly), onto it.

This is what is causing the upset. What I was saying was that in the face of this, some people are just adapting centuries old military tactics using modern technology. I wasn’t applauding this in anyway.

Naadir @ 47

Is Dalbir hinting that the root cause of terrorism is not religiously-based, but culturally rooted in South Asia, whereas MaidMarian is arguing that’s it religiously-based?

Naadir, it is my firm belief that in that region “religion” and “culture” are so intricately interwoven that it is neigh on impossible to separate them. They are strongly fused together in different ways by different tribes. But in terms of antecedents I think we may be talking about a transmutation of Wahhabist thought fused with regional characteristics here.

Anyway. I’m not saying anymore more on this. It is a touchy one.

Douglas @ 45 is pretty close to what I was trying to get at.

I’m not claiming what I said was the be all and end all of it. It was just a perspective that may (repeat may) help us understand in some small measure.

This is just an objective observation: With all due respect, you appear to have misread Dalbir’s stance on the matters he’s been discussing.

Dalbir is just explaining the background/context of all this according to his own understanding of it — he’s not actually sympathising with it or acting as some kind of “apologist” for it.

Until these folk realise that they are tits, then I’ll poke fun at them…..

Brownie and David T.

Yes, I mean you.

Good stuff. It is far better to talk to extremists, of whatever stripe, than alienate them. Does that make sense?

I have a suggestion for them. Brownie and David T are both obviously happy to comment here. Perhaps it is time that they gave up, completely, on Harry’s Place and attempted to enter the real world? Because neither is a nutter, but they really do need a commentariat that isn’t the sychophantic cess pit that Harry’s Place has become.

They could both, perhaps, start their rehabilitation as human beings, by rejecting the Euston Manifesto. Which, as you no doubt know, I think now was a piece of pish, that I nearly bought into…

That would get them back into the fold of modern humanity…..

And, who knows, perhaps then, they would be worth listening to.

Actually, yes I do advocate that.

There are hardcore members of the BNP and National Front who are lost to the cause, as are many Muslim extremists intent on wrecking havoc. I’d happily advocate the intelligence services infiltrating them.

But there is a larger pool of people who they are surrounded by. In fact I have spent some time talking to and reading stuff by people who are not your typical Nazis but support the BNP for various reasons (immigration, housing etc).

In the same way there are Muslims who will have some sympathy for radicals because they see these people as the only ones standing up to US/UK aggression.

If you want to destroy radicalism you have to infiltrate the first group and neutralise the second, larger group. It’s a good thing the writers of Harry’s Place don’t end up influencing policy much or we’d be truly fucked on this issue. Pragmatism – remember? If your local Muslim population is highly pissed off over the war in Iraq and you want to work with them so they can give up the extremists – then a toning down of polarisation would undoubtedly make your job easier as the police or intelligence service.

Frankly even if the Tories get in this policy won’t change because the MI5/MI6 and police will offer this exact advice. And they’ll have to take it. As I said – it’s a good thing the people running these operations ain’t HP type ideologues.

Is Dalbir hinting that the root cause of terrorism is not religiously-based, but culturally rooted in South Asia, whereas MaidMarian is arguing that’s it religiously-based?

You could travel quite far with the former: Chechnya starts off as standard national-seperatist movement, and then import Al-Qaeda later when offered help by them.
Al-Qaeda born from a potent mix of Wahabbism and local South Asian traditions, stirred by the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence’s needs to continually perpetuate low-intensity warfare against a regional superpower it can’t hope to defeat.
The new ideology than travels across oceans to diaspora groups in Europe using the latest technology.

On the other hand, there’s the stuff by Olivier Roy I cite in my Zizek piece, which finds that the majority of attacks are carried out by new Muslims, the suggestion being that Islamism has filled in the void in the politics of the disaffected created by the exit of the Left after the Cold War.

All of this is to say, I don’t think you could source the root of Islamist terrorism in either religion or premodern ethnic culture. Rather, path-dependency, inter-state conflict, world systems and governmentality play the crucial role. The US gets the flak as the unipole of the world system, BRIC don’t come close, and we get stuck in the cross fire because we’re a close ally. Islamism becomes the drop-in replacement for Communism, but without a state to operate from, creates new type of conflict that break the rules of the international system.
Finally, I have a as yet unexplainable feeling that we would have seen new types of terrorism with or without the current players as a natural consequence of the unravelling of the social democratic contract (Foucault/Bobbit). If Islamism didn’t exist, it would have to be invented.

To bring this back on topic, I would suggest if the social democratic contract is unrecoverable, than until we can find a new way to bind people together in solidarity, terrorism will continue to be the flip-side of our neoliberal/libertarian politics.

Dalbir is free to say what s/he wants, but to my mind this level of apologism can not pass unremarked. It is an apology for the worst of radical Islamism and a contempt for reality. The bit about Chechnya/Kosovo is really pertinent.

The stark reality is that people like Dalbir (and Sunny) are silent on that because the Muslims in question are not sufficiently brown and white-ish muslims do not fit into the race-oppression narrative that allows the levels of relativism we see on here.

I’m not going to be told I am fair game for the religiously maladjusted of this world.

I think you are being a bit unfair….

I don’t think Dalbir is used to the cut and thrust of what passes for debate here. Give the guy a little slack, please?

What Dalbir has attempted to do is draw a historical perspective, and say:

same as it ever was

Now that might be right, or it might not, and it is certainly true that the Ummah is more likely to wipe itself out before it gets around to the rest of us, but Dalbir is trying to give us his or her ideas.

Anyone that ends a post saying:

This is difficult to explain.

has my automatic sympathy.

__________________________________

Don, and I didn’t post a joke about dunmanifesting ’cause I assumed no-one would get it!

Bedfordshire?

‘One thing that seems plainly clear to me is that is a normal practice to frame conflicts into a jihad by people from that region when it comes to war.’

Oh well, that makes everything OK then doesn’t it – why didn’t you just say? Good lord, are you really suggesting here that somehow any of this is, ‘normal practice.’ It is not in any way normal for people to strap bombs on themselves and try to kill indiscriminately. What about those suicide bombers who went to Iraq to kill and maim Iraqis? Is that tradition too? I don’t care because the word, ‘tradition,’ can not be used as a catch-all to defend what is to everyone but you manifestly indefensible. This is the worst kind of moral relativism.

‘Now the concept has been stretched to encompass dying in any attack on the perceived enemy and their infrastructure/society.’

So you think that the US should have sent the suicide bombers to Middle Eastern countries after the first world trade centre attack? This is dreadful apologism, And still no answer – what about Mother Russia or Serbia. I will have a go at telling you why they were not attacked, because this is not about religion (however much you kid yourself) or ‘War on Islam.’ It is a hatred against a limited vision of the west and its way of life engrained and latterly conflated with religion. Why not attack China given its recent troubles with its Muslim minorities – because only ‘the great satan’ is fair game. It is almost as shocking as the way that useful idiots in the West seem to think that this is all OK.

‘Given that recent western acts have been seen as a blatant attack on Islam itself, it was natural that those fighting would evoke those concepts in their fight back. They always have.’

Natural? – so you do think that Muslims have a hard wired reaction? Outrageous.

‘This is nothing that is going to go away easily. This is how they will fight back against a better equipped larger foe.’

Oh boy, you have a romanticised vision of Muslim brotherhood. Does it mean nothing to you that Muslims have been killing Muslims for decades?

Dalbir, it is stuff like this that means you are a walking advert for the BNP and in all sincerity I ask that you think very closely before putting this thinking on here again.

*plug*
http://www.randomvariable.co.uk/blog/2008/03/16/embedded-in-multiculturalism/
*end plug*

Perhaps that is the cultural roots of it, but it is still inexcusable. I can appreciate the anger – especially over Iraq, not so much Afghanistan – but all four of these idiots were second generation British citizens. For most people in this country of ours frustration at politics does not turn to violence against fellow citizens. And, I’d like to emphasise that that applies to the vast majority of Muslim citizens too.

Despite the obvious jibe, ‘They would say that, wouldn’t they?’, their families seem almost as shocked by all of this as the rest of us.

Someone ought to have given them a introductory talk on identifying friends and foes and discussed with them other options. I suspect they were groomed, in a particularily horrible way.

Very apt observation. I for one cannot understand how Russia gets off scot free with;
Starting the Afghan mess
leveling Chechnya to the stone age.
Enacting racist laws that prevent immigrants from working in Moscow.
Backing Iran with its nuke program
Vetoing any UN resolutions against Sudan for murdering the Muslims of Darfur.

Yes there have been terrorist incidents in Moscow. But they have all been Chechnen based. No Brits/Dutch/Pakistani but Chechnen. In fact the biggest arms dealer to the Islamic world is Russia. Strange how the country with the most Islamic blood on its hands is also the biggest arms supplier. Yet have there being any protests towards Russia? Nah.