Tweet
It's an interesting theory...
The ideas interview: Faisal Devji
John Sutherland meets a historian who argues that violence is less important to al-Qaida than ethics
Monday October 17, 2005
The Guardian
If you want a reference point for al-Qaida, suggests Faisal Devji, some other movement that channels the same impulses for similar reasons, look no further than environmentalism. Devji, a New York-based historian and author of the new book Landscapes of the Jihad, is unafraid of provocative statements about Islamist terrorism. Another is that al-Qaida and the other groups pursuing the global jihad provide a mirror image of industrial globalisation, so the atrocities they commit are, as one reviewer of Devji's book put it, an "Islamic auto-immune response" to the Coca-Cola machine in Riyadh.
Why should this matter? It is important to know the enemy, he replies, patiently, because "knowing what al-Qaida is prevents one from doing things which are wholly irrelevant".
Devji argues that labelling al-Qaida "evildoers", an enemy to be shot first, questioned later, "is pragmatic but dangerous because it falls into the same rhetoric and patterns of action as used by jihadis themselves". The key to understanding al-Qaida, he proposes, lies in the global nature of its cause - as with environmentalists. "The issues of concern to them are strictly global. They cannot be dealt with by solutions at national level, or even by internationalist solutions - those take too long."
So a US troop withdrawal from the Middle East would not be a solution? "Exactly," he replies. "Obviously in large chunks of the Muslim world withdrawal would be welcomed, but for al-Qaida it would be irrelevant."
That leads to the heart of Devji's thesis - that al-Qaida represents, essentially, an "ethical" rather than a politically militant ideology. It might quite soon, he thinks, "tip over" into something non-violent. Picture Osama bin Laden not with that AK47 in his lap, but alongside Gandhi's spinning wheel.
Devji sees nothing paradoxical in such a notion. "One of the reasons this movement is so violent," he argues, "is because it is so inherently unstable and it could flip at any moment into the opposite. There is no political form which defines them at the global level." Because of this inherent formlessness, in Devji's analysis, "actions like suicide bombings are not actions that can be seen in strategic or instrumental terms. They are not means to an end. There is no 'end', as such."
Martyrdom should be linked not to any political wish list but "ethical practice". That doesn't, of course, mean "there are no strategic aims at all, but the act always folds back into itself because the movement is incapable of controlling anything at the global level. Of course, on one level, the rhetoric is all about policy - but when you look at that rhetoric more carefully you realise that any political or strategic aims dissolve. For instance the Islamic demand 'get out of our lands' is completely unclear. It could mean anything. Such a programme ceases to have any real-world political or strategic relevance. It dissolves into something else."
We should, for our own wellbeing Devji believes, think carefully about that "something else". Starting, for example, by reading what Bin Laden actually says. "I was surprised," Devji recalls, "when I went to the trouble after 2001 of looking at his speeches and statements and communiques at how coherent they were." More than that, how effectively they were picked up and absorbed as a coherent message across the Muslim world.
"It's not as if people were educated to think as he thinks. It's spread amazingly fast. So if you look at the video tape by Mohammad Sidique Khan, the London bomber, it contains the most important elements in Bin Laden's discourse. The stress on 'ethics', for instance - Khan actually uses that word and defines his impending suicide bombing as an 'ethical act'."
So where do we go from here? "As I see it, al-Qaida's actions are typically 'symbolic' - they can be seen as 'effects' rather than political interventions. This is because they have no way of planning what they want to achieve. They have no blueprint for the future. This, of course, is also true of other global movements like environmentalism. They, too, have no coherent political programme."
So how should the west adjust its approach to al-Qaida? First, Devji advises, don't be so afraid. "I tend to think that violence is the least important of al-Qaida's many effects. First, because it will inevitably come to an end. No movement based on violence of this sort has survived for any length of time. Second, violence is the least important thing about al-Qaida because the violence is ethical in origin and will quite likely flip into its opposite. The most important feature of al-Qaida is fragmentation and dispersal of Islamic thought globally."
Are there, then, grounds for optimism? Yes, insofar as "al-Qaida/ International Jihad have displaced old-fashioned Islamic fundamentalism, which I see as an obsolete cold war form of ideology, based on the state - the Taliban was possibly its last gasp. Since its disappearance a new radicalism has emerged but also a new moderation at the other end of the spectrum."
So, then, what kind of war are we in and who is winning? The war, Devji suggests, may actually be in its last phase. He points to the analysis by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's second-in-command, who sees the war on terror as a clinching sign of America's weakness rather than its strength. The superstate's old forms of control in the Middle East, via client states and proxies, is no longer possible. The Americans have been obliged to put their own troops on the ground. That means they are losing the war.
The War on Terror could, Devji suggests, be an opportunity for America, "if they will take a huge gamble to reassert their authority globally in different, more relevant, ways". But first, drop the talk about "Evildoers" and "Crusades"
? Faisal Devji is assistant professor of history at the New School University in New York. Landscapes of the Jihad is published by Hurst, price ?15
John Sutherland meets a historian who argues that violence is less important to al-Qaida than ethics
Monday October 17, 2005
The Guardian
If you want a reference point for al-Qaida, suggests Faisal Devji, some other movement that channels the same impulses for similar reasons, look no further than environmentalism. Devji, a New York-based historian and author of the new book Landscapes of the Jihad, is unafraid of provocative statements about Islamist terrorism. Another is that al-Qaida and the other groups pursuing the global jihad provide a mirror image of industrial globalisation, so the atrocities they commit are, as one reviewer of Devji's book put it, an "Islamic auto-immune response" to the Coca-Cola machine in Riyadh.
Why should this matter? It is important to know the enemy, he replies, patiently, because "knowing what al-Qaida is prevents one from doing things which are wholly irrelevant".
Devji argues that labelling al-Qaida "evildoers", an enemy to be shot first, questioned later, "is pragmatic but dangerous because it falls into the same rhetoric and patterns of action as used by jihadis themselves". The key to understanding al-Qaida, he proposes, lies in the global nature of its cause - as with environmentalists. "The issues of concern to them are strictly global. They cannot be dealt with by solutions at national level, or even by internationalist solutions - those take too long."
So a US troop withdrawal from the Middle East would not be a solution? "Exactly," he replies. "Obviously in large chunks of the Muslim world withdrawal would be welcomed, but for al-Qaida it would be irrelevant."
That leads to the heart of Devji's thesis - that al-Qaida represents, essentially, an "ethical" rather than a politically militant ideology. It might quite soon, he thinks, "tip over" into something non-violent. Picture Osama bin Laden not with that AK47 in his lap, but alongside Gandhi's spinning wheel.
Devji sees nothing paradoxical in such a notion. "One of the reasons this movement is so violent," he argues, "is because it is so inherently unstable and it could flip at any moment into the opposite. There is no political form which defines them at the global level." Because of this inherent formlessness, in Devji's analysis, "actions like suicide bombings are not actions that can be seen in strategic or instrumental terms. They are not means to an end. There is no 'end', as such."
Martyrdom should be linked not to any political wish list but "ethical practice". That doesn't, of course, mean "there are no strategic aims at all, but the act always folds back into itself because the movement is incapable of controlling anything at the global level. Of course, on one level, the rhetoric is all about policy - but when you look at that rhetoric more carefully you realise that any political or strategic aims dissolve. For instance the Islamic demand 'get out of our lands' is completely unclear. It could mean anything. Such a programme ceases to have any real-world political or strategic relevance. It dissolves into something else."
We should, for our own wellbeing Devji believes, think carefully about that "something else". Starting, for example, by reading what Bin Laden actually says. "I was surprised," Devji recalls, "when I went to the trouble after 2001 of looking at his speeches and statements and communiques at how coherent they were." More than that, how effectively they were picked up and absorbed as a coherent message across the Muslim world.
"It's not as if people were educated to think as he thinks. It's spread amazingly fast. So if you look at the video tape by Mohammad Sidique Khan, the London bomber, it contains the most important elements in Bin Laden's discourse. The stress on 'ethics', for instance - Khan actually uses that word and defines his impending suicide bombing as an 'ethical act'."
So where do we go from here? "As I see it, al-Qaida's actions are typically 'symbolic' - they can be seen as 'effects' rather than political interventions. This is because they have no way of planning what they want to achieve. They have no blueprint for the future. This, of course, is also true of other global movements like environmentalism. They, too, have no coherent political programme."
So how should the west adjust its approach to al-Qaida? First, Devji advises, don't be so afraid. "I tend to think that violence is the least important of al-Qaida's many effects. First, because it will inevitably come to an end. No movement based on violence of this sort has survived for any length of time. Second, violence is the least important thing about al-Qaida because the violence is ethical in origin and will quite likely flip into its opposite. The most important feature of al-Qaida is fragmentation and dispersal of Islamic thought globally."
Are there, then, grounds for optimism? Yes, insofar as "al-Qaida/ International Jihad have displaced old-fashioned Islamic fundamentalism, which I see as an obsolete cold war form of ideology, based on the state - the Taliban was possibly its last gasp. Since its disappearance a new radicalism has emerged but also a new moderation at the other end of the spectrum."
So, then, what kind of war are we in and who is winning? The war, Devji suggests, may actually be in its last phase. He points to the analysis by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's second-in-command, who sees the war on terror as a clinching sign of America's weakness rather than its strength. The superstate's old forms of control in the Middle East, via client states and proxies, is no longer possible. The Americans have been obliged to put their own troops on the ground. That means they are losing the war.
The War on Terror could, Devji suggests, be an opportunity for America, "if they will take a huge gamble to reassert their authority globally in different, more relevant, ways". But first, drop the talk about "Evildoers" and "Crusades"
? Faisal Devji is assistant professor of history at the New School University in New York. Landscapes of the Jihad is published by Hurst, price ?15
Comment