Jihad 2.0: The Impact of Social Media on the Salafist Scene and the Nature of Terrorism
©2015
Textbook
71 Pages
Summary
More than a decade ago, in 2002, al-Qaeda declared their cyber-aspirations: “We strongly urge Muslim Internet professionals to spread and disseminate news and information about the jihad through e-mail lists, discussion groups and their own Web sites (…). The more Web sites, the better it is for us. We must make the Internet our tool.”<br>Social media is part of today´s battlefield. Over the past decade the Internet has become increasingly important to the loose and decentralized jihadist movement. This book illustrates that Jihadism online has had tremendous significance within the global jihad movement and no doubt its importance will rise in the future, as improved bandwidth, increased functionality, and the fast growing number of users will make the Internet a far more vital nerve than it is today. <br>Salafi-Jihadist websites and social media spaces legitimate the actions of Islamic terrorists and encourage readers to support the Jihad wherever they can. Social media has offered new ways in which to promote terrorism or Jihad, and thus facilitated its intensification. Today everyone can be a part of a radical movement, anywhere. <br>Due to the availability of propaganda material online, the Internet has not only changed the process of radicalization but influenced the nature of terrorism: the autodidactiv terrorist has become the new threat to Western security services.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
8
Salafism is a branch of radical Islam based in Saudi Arabia that seeks to establish an
Islamic empire (Caliphate) across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe and
eventually the entire world. Although Salafists make up only a fraction of the
estimated 4.3 million Muslims in Germany, authorities are concerned that most of
those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who are
especially susceptible to committing terror attacks in the name of Islam. This work
focuses on the militant wing, on those who are eager in supporting or exercising
militant operations.
The information revolution and the exponential rise of the Internet is a global
phenomenon which, alongside other manifestations of globalization and late
modernity, will likely come to define our period of human history as enlightenment
or industrial revolution has previous centuries. The fact that the Internet has
revolutionized our lives has become a truism to say. Yet, the world-wide web has
transformed the way we communicate. It has transformed the way people talk, write,
shop, socialize; it has reduced the costs of communication and opened an easy
access to the world´s knowledge. Beyond national borders and across great
distances, it has made it easier to find like-minded people and create new social
networks of interest. It offers a way of communication where users can act
anonymously and from all around the globe. Apart from remote regions of Africa
and Asia, Internet penetration is not limited to particular demographics or social
class.
After the Islamist motivated murder of a British Army soldier in London on May 22,
2013, the perpetrators encouraged witnesses to take out their phones and videotape
their statement. Margaret Thatcher pronounced in 1985 that "publicity is the oxygen
of terrorism". Today, it is not the TV broadcaster that decides what is being
broadcasted throughout the world, but the terrorists determine themselves whether to
embrace the media as a tool to gain attention, inspire fear or recruit new members.
That is why terrorists of any background have adopted the Internet as one of their
tools of trade. Jihadists have managed to retain control of the narrative and maintain
ideological coherence to a large degree.
Terrorists can use the Internet for a wide range of purposes; Islamist extremists are
increasingly adopting the Internet as an instrument for reconnaissance, training,
9
coordination and fund raising. The rise of instant-messaging, blogging, video
sharing, and social-networking platforms have made it more difficult to remove or
restrict particular types of content in practical terms. Rather than static websites,
which serve only one purpose at a time and may be filtered, the interactive platforms
that carry much of today's online traffic have hundreds of millions of users
uploading, posting, and re-posting terabytes of data every minute. Furthermore, the
majority of violent extremist content is now embedded in privately owned platforms
as for example YouTube or Facebook. The new threat of cybercrime and cyber-
terrorism has been a matter of debate in recent years
1
and brought up a special
branch within intelligence services around the world. However, this paper does not
try to explore this operational use of the Internet but will focus on its communicative
functions as a tool to spread propaganda, information and mobilize potential
supporters. The study at hand aims to explore the ardent enthusiasm of Islamist
extremists to exploit communicative innovations in order to reach larger audiences
quickly, cheaply and anonymously. I shall argue that progressive technology and the
modern Internet landscapes have created new types of social arena and helped
Islamist radicals to cultivate the networks, relationships and bonds that prerequisite
to violent radicalization and terrorism. These changes modified the organizational
structures of the GJM and lead to an emergence of new types of Jihadi terrorists.
In this book, the primary intention is to cast a preliminary analytical eye onto the
troublesome new development of Jihadist action within the broader context of
radical Islam. The objective of this book is neither an analysis of the strategy or
structure of the GJM or al-Qaeda nor is it an interpretation of Internet history. But it
should deliver an understanding of how the emergent online environment has been
influencing and globalizing a religiously fundamental movement that actually rejects
ideas of enlightenment and modernity. An analysis of any radicalization process
cannot be separated from an analysis of the social environment in which the
individual had been socialized. Especially regarding new forms of terrorism like the
1
See i.e. the yearly reports of the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office) on
http://www.bka.de/nn_193360/DE/Publikationen/JahresberichteUndLagebilder/Cybercrime/cybe
rcrime__node.html?__nnn=true
10
Islamist one, a social-psychological approach
2
and an analysis of its ideology is
substantial in understanding the phenomenon of global Jihad.
The practical research which serves as a supplement and support for the theoretical
discourse analysis was carried out over a period of four months between January and
April 2013. This qualitative approach was conducted with a fictive German
character on the social media platform Facebook. The character pretends to be a
male German Muslim convert in his mid-30´s and had a Facebook history of two
years in which he was continuously making online friendships and getting
acquainted with followers, leaders and groups of the German and international
Salafist movement. The character has engaged in the different networks as an
observer and entered frequently into a dialogue through comments, "likes", and own
postings concerning Islamic religious and political issues. This research does not
constitute a representative sample but has proven to be useful in underpinning
arguments and finding current examples. In my case, the methodological approach
does not serve to create a new theory, but rather uses existing theories and concepts
to facilitate the research on the given phenomena aiming to inform the reader on the
trends, the background and context in which the object of research, Islamist
fundamentalism, has grown.
In order to study Salafi Jihadism, whether on the Internet or offline, it is necessary to
define what constitutes the Salafist ideology. In chapter 2, I follow up on the history
of Jihadism and consider the question whether Jihadism is a revolutionary act
against oppression. In times of ubiquitous identity crises, the Salafi law and order
version of Islam provides meaning and security especially to those individuals who
feel disadvantaged and excluded from society. The Salafi counter culture is not only
attracting young Muslims with migration backgrounds in the second or third
generation but young Germans who are looking for a strong community as well.
Discussions about "civilization" and current political ideologies and cultures will
necessarily lead to the theses of Samuel Huntington. Chapter 3 aims to introduce
into the debate triggered by Samuel Huntington and Francis Fukuyama with the
2
A profound analysis of the individual psychology of suicide terrorism that is firmly established in
Jihadist ideology to gain special recognition as a "martyr" is presented by Schmidtbauer, Wolfgang
(2003): Der Mensch als Bombe. Eine Psychologie des neuen Terrorismus. Hamburg: Rowohlt.
11
leading question of how the world changed after the fall of the Berlin wall and the
Soviet empire. The battle of ideologies is in their focus, while Huntington's
"clashing civilizations" are perhaps best illustrated by the renewed conflict between
radical Islam and the West. Much of the Islamic world perceives an assault on the
religion of Mohammed by Western culture, led by the United States, Israel and
Europe. Chapter 3 connects the preceding broader background with an analysis of
essential parts in Salafist ideology, be it the anti-Western sentiment or the critical
stance towards modern globalization. Also known as Wahhabis, Salafists believe
among other anti-Western doctrines that democracy must be destroyed and
replaced with an Islamic form of government.
Terrorism is the active constituent of Jihadism and the popular means for the GJM.
Chapter 4 describes the transition of old terrorism into its new form and provides a
definition for one of the most contested terms in Social and Political sciences. The
ideological goals of modern, Jihadist terrorists have shifted from surgical and
symbolic acts towards indiscriminate attacks against random civilians that are
inferior "infidels" in the eyes of the perpetrators.
After this analysis of both, the ideological and practical components of Jihadist
beliefs, the paper continues with a theoretical background of the Internet as a motor
of change in the globalized world. Chapter 5 will be looking at different schools of
thoughts regarding the potential of new media. The question of education and
mediation of ideology through the Internet as well as its possible impact on society
and democratization will be considered.
Chapter 6 examines the newly promoted Salafist strategy of individualization in the
Jihadist struggle with the means of social media. As part of this trend, the supporters
of the GJM are using Facebook, one of the largest, most popular and diverse social
networking sites, both in the United States and globally, to propagate operational
information in multiple languages. Some tactical information is available on
Facebook, but the majority of Salafist use of Facebook focuses on disseminating
ideological information and exploiting the site as an alternative media outlet for their
propaganda and recruitment. While social networking sites have recently become
popular with radicals, forums have long been used by terrorists to exchange ideas,
12
and spread ideological, tactical and operational information among a sympathetic
audience.
Chapter 7 presents the German Salafist scene and exemplarily studies their use of
social media sites. In recent years, Germany has brought up a new generation of so-
called "homegrown" Jihadists who are born in Germany and either converted to
Islam and radicalized or radicalized their domestic Muslim faith. Salafism is the
fundamentalist interpretation of the Islamic Holy Scriptures. The adherents of this
radical Islamic version aspire to involve in modern communication and lead debates
on social media platforms in order to spread their indoctrination and to recruit new
companions. The "Global Islamic Media Front" and the Salafist group named "Die
Wahre Religion" (Engl.: The true religion) are two examples of this endeavor
spearheading the German Salafist scene each of them with their own interpretation
of Jihadist struggle.
The GJM has not only changed the traditional nature of terrorism but it has also
mastered the art of transforming initial conspiracy group structures into a social
movement. Since 9/11, the US-lead "war on terror" has brought great losses
especially under the leading figures of the GJM and domestic intelligence services
and authorities are aware of the Salafist threat. Chapter 8 reviews the many changes
of the global Jihad movement in their strategies and within the process of
radicalization. Under the umbrella of a collective ideology, individuals can connect
via the Internet and radicalize without a necessity for personal face-to-face contact.
Within this phenomenon of autodidactic Jihad, self-made cells of "Lone-Wolf"-
Jihadists emerge preparing for a terrorist incident without any connection to
hierarchically organized military groups. Lone-wolves are driven by the global
ideology of Jihad and are instructed by material published in forums, social media
platforms or magazines available on the Internet. With their English language
magazine "Inspire", al-Qaida is eagerly supporting this trend that adapts the new
needs of the movement. Al-Qaida gives technical details for possible plots and urges
Muslims living in Western countries of target, to carry out attacks by themselves or
in small autonomous groups.
13
2. Ideology of Islamism and global Jihad
Islamist
3
militancy has risen significantly in the last decade, with many European
countries reporting a steep rise in the number of individuals classified as "potential
violent extremists". Not all Islamists are terrorists, but the framework of Islamism
as an ideological bedrock can be regarded as an incubator for militant operations
under the flag of Jihadist Islam.
This paper frequently uses the terms "Islamism", "Salafism" and "Jihadism". It has
been written in some detail about the history of labels for Islamic movements
respectively their protagonists and the semantic differences
4
. However, the term
"Jihadism" needs some clarification as it has often been labeled a clumsy and
controversial term in readings and discussions. Especially because "Jihad" is an
important religious term of Islam and can refer to an individual spiritual motive of
living according to Islamic laws. It can also refer to the act of defending Islam with
violent methods. The concrete word "Jihadism" is a neologism and therefore not
native to Islamic history. As stated by Jerret Brachman (2009, p. 5), the term has
been employed out of convenience because it "communicates a vital point: namely,
that al-Qaeda and groups like it are distinguished from other Muslims by their
singular focus on the violent side of the Jihad concept. In recent years, the
`Jihadism' label has been validated as the least worst option across the Arab-
speaking world, appearing throughout Arab television and print media." The
world´s counter-terrorism community almost commonly uses that term to refer to
Muslims who use violence in order to pursue their universalistic political agendas.
3
In most newspaper articles and academic literature there is a reluctance to identify acts of
terrorism with the teachings of one of the world's great religions or to recognize the derivation of
the jihad phenomenon from the tenets of Islam. Whether the simple use of terms like "Islamic
terrorism" is a discrimination of a whole religion or whether it could actually be regarded as a
precise and profound description of a modern phenomenon that is taking its ideology from
nothing less than the foundation of a fundamentally political religion, the Quran, is a discourse too
controversial to be examined only briefly.
4
See i.e.: Martin Kramer (2003): Coming to Terms: Fundamentalists or Islamists? In: Middle East
Quarterly, Spring 2003 Vol.2, 65-77 and Cook, David (2005): Understanding Jihad. California:
University Press
14
,,The jihadist ideology combines the extreme and minority interpretation
[jihadi-Salafi] of Islam with an activist-like commitment or responsibility to
solve global political grievances through violence. Ultimately, the jihadist
envisions a world in which jihadi-Salafi Islam is dominant and is the basis of
government." (NYPD 2007, p. 8)
Any equation of terrorism with acts of revolution as a response to a repressive state
needs to be treated with great caution. In his review of the psychological causes of
terrorism, Moghaddam (2005) states that "material factors such as poverty and lack
of education are problematic as explanations of terrorist acts" (p. 162). It would be
an over-simplification to propose that deprivation and oppression provoke acts of
terrorism or the membership in one of the Jihadist groups. Moghaddam is not alone
with his argument that a mere economic explanation can be neglected. A reduction
in poverty or an increase in educational attainment would not seem to have an effect
on the reduction of Jihadist terrorism as Krueger and Maleckova demonstrate in
their analysis that leads both to the conclusion that "(...) any connection between
poverty, education and terrorism is indirect, complicated and probably weak."
(Krueger, Alan B.; Maleckova, Jitka 2003, p. 1).
Marc Sageman (2006) argues in the same direction and points out that most of the
global Salafi terrorists have some occupational skills and were often studying or
working in the technical fields, such as engineering, architecture, or computers: "In
terms of extent of education, about 60 percent of global Salafi terrorists had some
form of college education in contrast with their peers from their respective countries
where higher education is relatively rare." (p. 126) Surprisingly, he states, that very
few of those terrorists were formally educated in religion: "[P]aradoxically, the
future terrorists were very well educated, but lacked any religious education. It was
(...) this combination of technical education and lack of religious sophistication that
made them vulnerable to an extreme interpretation of Islam." (p. 127)
Although any comprehensive future vision of Jihadist goals is hardly to be found
there are recurring pronouncements emphasizing certain themes and a selective
interpretation of Islamic law and history. In the common historical perception of
Jihadists
15
"[t]here is a war of civilization in which `Jews and Crusaders' are seeking to
destroy Islam; armed jihad is the individual obligation of every Muslim;
terrorism and other asymmetric strategies are appropriate for defeating even
the strongest powers, Islam is under siege by Christians, Jews, secularists,
and globalization; and the economy of the United States is its vulnerable
`center of gravity'." (Rabasa et al 2006, p. xviii)
According to Reuven Paz (2010, xxxvii), "the new ideology took on the dimensions
of a global terrorist struggle, justified by the perception that the jihad, like the
Palestinian struggle, was an act of self-defense against a Western-Jewish global
conspiracy."
There are many different perspectives and estimations on the roots of global Jihad.
Paz (2010, xxxvii) recognizes the beginning of global Jihad in the collaboration of
Egyptian and Palestinian Islamic jihad during the late 1970s and early 1980s and in
the flow of Arab and Muslim volunteers to Afghanistan in the 1980s and to Bosnia,
Albania, Kosovo and Chechnya during the 1990s. The massive terrorism against
Israel over the past three decades contributed as well. Hanna Rogan (2006, p. 8)
dates back modern militant Islamism to the 1930`s
5
whereas global Jihadism
appeared as a relatively new phenomenon in the mid 1990´s when Osama bin-Laden
declared the West to be the greatest enemy of the Muslim world and urged his
followers to fight this enemy, irrespective of territorial boundaries:
"The focus then shifted from the near enemy (local `kufr', or infidel,
regimes) to the far enemy (the West) and supporters of this global Jihad
started carrying out attacks in the West as well as on western interests in the
Muslim world. The al-Qaeda organization was the base for global jihadism,
and its training camps in Afghanistan provided the supporters with
ideological information, paramilitary training, and personal relations."
(Rogan 2006, p. 8)
5
For a closer look upon militant Islamism in the 1930´s and the cooperation between the powerful
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the National Socialists that had been overlooked for many years,
Klaus Peter Mallmann & Martin Cüppers (2010) deliver a comprehensive analysis in: Halbmond
und Hakenkreuz. Das `Dritte Reich', die Araber und Palästina. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag
16
Attacking Western targets in a self-defensive manner is a common moral conviction
of Sunni jihadists such as al-Qaeda and Hamas although the latter has developed in
particular in the context of Palestinian nationalism and resistance to Israel (Croitoru
2007). Beyond this basic analysis and program, Jihadism leaves many issues open:
"No single state, movement or leader furnishes a model for all of its
exponents. Islamists may view Iran or the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in a
positive or negative light. They may disagree to the point of fighting among
themselves. Sunni and Shi`a Islamists may champion the cause of their
denomination and hate the other one or, at times, cooperate. Islamists may or
may not favor a leading role for clerics or be led by self-taught figures
whose level of theological knowledge is quite low." (Rubin 2010, xix)
Hezbollah is an example of Shi'a Jihadism, but it, too, is more appropriately defined
by its Lebanese context and ties to Iran and its ambitions for regional hegemony.
Neither they nor Hamas seem largely motivated by the universalistic ambitions of
al-Qaeda, but both make similar arguments on behalf of terrorism and suicide
bombings. These decided anti-American, ideologically anti-Semitic and anti-
Western tenets that regularly leads to attacks in the name of Allah as well as the
ensuing US-lead "war on terror" brought a world-wide focus on religious
fundamentalism and Islamic culture opposing secular democratic values (Tibi 2002,
pp. 166 f.).
17
3. The ideology of political Islam and the West
As previously indicated the fundamental aspect in the Jihadist radicalization process
is ideology. As reported by the New York Police Department (NYPD) in their study
about radicalization of Islamist terrorists that had been socialized in the West,
"Jihadist or jihadi-Salafi ideology is the driver that motivates young men and
women, born or living in the West, to carry out `autonomous jihad' via acts of
terrorism against their host countries. It guides movements, identifies the issues,
drives recruitment and is the basis for action." (NYPD 2007, p.6)
An example for substantial value differences between the "home-grown" Salafi
"counter-culture" (Horst 2012) and Western secularism are "Sharia controlled
zones" in some London boroughs established in 2011. Pasted on bus stops and street
lamps, posters convey the message that there is to be "no gambling", "no music or
concerts", "no porn or prostitution", "no drugs or smoking" and "no alcohol" in the
areas the posters are displayed. The Islamic rules are enforced by Islamist street
gangs that are physically intervening against contraventions
6
. According to the
Islamic information and news site "kavkazcenter.com" (2013, January 23, para. 9),
the Islamist activists in London announce their struggle against the Western way of
life: "This will mean this is an area where the Muslim community will not tolerate
drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling, usury, free mixing between the sexes - the
fruits if you like of Western civilization. We want to run the area as a Sharia-
controlled zone and really to put the seeds down for an Islamic Emirate in the long
term." With this kind of arguments, the ideologues manage to declare the
"Westernized" British society as infidels and therefore legitimate targets of Jihad.
The fall of the Berlin Wall 1989 marked the end of the Cold war era and offered the
chance for new paradigms to develop. Two major, yet contrasting views emerged.
The first view was advocated by Francis Fukuyama in his article "The End of
History?"
7
. In his article, Fukuyama claims that "history", meaning major human
conflicts, had come to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Communism. The new
world order, he argued, would be immune from significant ideological challenges
and future conflicts would be limited to local nuisances that posed no direct threat to
6
See: Muslims enforcing Sharia law on the streets of London (2013 January 17). Retrieved from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gA03rXifM&feature=youtu.be on February 2, 2013
7
Fukuyama, Francis: The End of History?, in: The National Interest (1989) 16, 3-18
18
Western values and Western civilization. The second view was subsequently
articulated by Samuel Huntington. The controversial article of the Harvard professor
"The Clash of Civilizations?"
8
was published in 1993. He argues that ethnically
volatile regions previously held as stable satellite entities by the Cold War powers
would gradually erupt and that these associations among culturally alike states are
taking the place of traditional Cold War ideological alignments as a means for
interstate cooperation and alliance.
3.1 Samuel Huntington
's "clash of civilizations"-theory
The debate about civilization inevitably has to mention the contradictory potential
between the Islamic and the Western civilization. A part of the problem of taking
about civilization hereby lies in the very notion of the term itself. It is an
intrinsically positional and evaluative concept, claiming that one side has it and the
other does not. Nonetheless civilization is not a single or directional process created
through and within society
9
, but rather a set of processes in which a dominant group
seeks to impose its own standards of behavior, its own practices, prejudices and
assumptions about good and bad behavior.
Concerns about civilizational revivalism and conflict were best reflected in the
debate primed by Huntington who was trying to give a new model of world order
five years after the end of the Cold-War. He published his theses 1993 respectively
1996 in his most argued book "Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World
Order". His main argument is that people´s cultural and religious identities will be
the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. He creates a world with
around seven different cultural regions which struggle for supremacy. The "major
civilizations" include "Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-
Orthodox, Latin American and possibly African civilization." (Huntington 1993, p.
8
Huntington, Samuel P., 1993: The Clash of Civilizations?, in: Foreign Affairs 72 (1993) 3, 22-49
9
Concepts of the creation of society can derive from different theoretical models. According to
Karl Marx, human beings are collective and individual initiators of history and yet have lost control
of many of their creations. History is a human product but it has been made in ways that took
control out of their own hands: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they
please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances
directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past." (Marx 2008 [1852], p.15). Theodor
Adorno and Max Horkheimer (2002, p. 153) point out in their Critical Theory of "Dialectic of
Enlightenment": "Civilization is the triumph of society over nature".
19
25) By these civilizations, Huntington means something similar to cultures, but also
something broader and deeper than the way culture is usually conceived. According
to Huntington civilizations are families of cultures and have distinctive ways of
thinking and living because they share the same basic philosophical heritage. The
secular culture of places as Europe or the United States stands in this
conceptualization as subsets of Christendom and Western civilization. Similarly
there are subsets forming the Islamic civilization with diverse nations as Egypt, Iran,
Saudi-Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria. It could be easily understood that to be a nation
within one civilization means that it is part of a homogenous conglomerate without
disharmony. This surely does not reflect the multifaceted struggles for example
between the Shi`ite and Sunni-Islamic countries but can explain a certain
supranational ideology of an Islamic spirit. Considering the majority of the non-
secular Islamic states and their religious-political ideology "Islam may be able to
absorb some liberal references, but, ultimately, it is a vision of submission to God
(...) and a certain social order." (Murden 2011, p. 423)
Huntington claims that the "clash of civilizations" will occur on two levels: the
micro- and the macro level. At the micro-level different neighboring groups will get
into a certain state of conflict along so-called cultural fault lines, fighting over the
control of territories. At the macro-level, states with different cultural ties are
struggling for military and political influence and domination and for control over
international bodies and third parties (Huntington 1993, p. 49). Huntington`s pointed
theory has been accused of conceptual as empirical problems and led to many
controversies, mainly because he stated an increasing antagonism between the
Western and the Islamic civilization due to their universalistic approach (Murden
2011, p. 421). However, regarding the growing influence of Islamist movements, as
for example the government takeover of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2012,
Huntington presents a foundation for further research and discussion. The anti-
Western sentiment, as it will be analyzed further below, constitutes an integral
ideology of politicized Islam and is strongly prevalent within the Salafi movement.
Historically, the proliferation of the West was driven by the search for new capital
opportunities but also by the pursuit of political empire and the thirst for scientific
discovery.
20
"The scientific revolution had no direct territorial reference at all, but was
critical for the expansion of trade and empire. The Western market economy
extended to various areas not or only minimally under the political control of
the European imperial centres, even though the whole enterprise would have
failed without their active support." (Beyer 1994, p. 53)
The Frankfurt School with its notion of a "Dialectic of Enlightenment" has
exemplified that the West cannot be regarded as a linear progressive process of
history. It has witnessed horrendous negations of liberty, individualism, and reason.
The annihilation of the European Jews, industrially organized by the majority of the
German population, became a symbol of the negative, destructive potential of
civilization. The Nazis cultivated the anti-Enlightenment notion of an organic nation
rooted in blood and soil by eliminating the idea of an individual in favor of the
collective unity, the ethnic community, or "Volksgemeinschaft". Anti-Semitism,
Racism, slavery, violence, world wars, and totalitarian regimes: These are inherent
parts when talking about the history of Western civilization. Philippe Nemo (2005,
p. 90) calls these "pre-civilizational" regressions "a betrayal on its own tradition".
The German philosopher of the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer, argues in the
same direction already in 1947:
"In summary, we are the heirs (...) of the Enlightenment and technological
progress. To oppose these by regressing to mere primitive stages does not
alleviate the permanent crisis they have brought about. On the contrary, such
expedients lead from historically reasonable to utterly barbaric forms of
social domination. The sole way of assisting nature is to unshackle its
seeming opposite, independent thought." (Horkheimer 1947, p. 127)
Anti-Western ideology has become a modern ingredient in different forms of
critique. A crucial point of this anti-Western ideology driven by the global Jihad
movement marked the destruction of the World Trade Center and part of the
Pentagon in the eyes of the perpetrators two foremost symbols of the West.
Brachman argues that
"[f]or global Jihadists, Western education creates an army of moral
relativists and multiculturalists (...) viewing multiculturalism as a way for
Western governments to counteract the growth of Islam as a way of life in
Europe and North-America. In short, compromise with the West is an
impossibility as its entire civilization is based on beliefs, views and actions
that look to subvert Islam. The only solution is disavowal, purification and
preparation for war." (Brachman 2009, p. 21)
21
3.2 Competing values
"The terrible terrorist attack that was unleashed on the United States yesterday was
not directed against the American administration, nor against its policies in this or
that part of the world. It was an attack planned by people who want to destroy a
whole system of values, in effect all that the civilization of "the West" respresents
liberty, democracy, economic power, and military capability."
(Editorial of the Israeli newspaper Ha´aretz on September 12, 2001)
The deliberate destruction of the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon on
September 11, 2001, seemed to vindicate Samuel Huntington´s prediction of a
"clash of civilizations": terrorists who claim to act in the name of Allah and who
disdain Western freedoms are now fighting a war against the West.
Regarding a letter carried by Muhammad Atta, one of the perpetrators of September
11, it unveils that the Islamist terrorists had not in mind to attack an individual
country since neither the "United States" nor "America" were mentioned in the
letter. Instead the actions were directed against a "civilization of disbelievers" or an
amorphous, faceless evil (Paz, 2010, xxxviii). This basic understanding of Islam has,
according to Paz, become an initiation of sorts for adherents to global jihad: "They
tend to adopt norms of behavior that are simple to understand, and these norms in
turn create a basis for unity among different groups and individuals, this
sidestepping the difficult terrain of ideological and theological interpretation." (Paz,
2010, xxxviii)
Culture may not be the only major influence on human behavior, but it is certainly
one of them. The problem with cultural analysis is that the concept is fiercely and
often emotionally embattled. One principal criticism of cultural analysis is that it
fails to show how culture works or how cultural identity really affects particular
human behavior, especially when it comes to the level of world politics.
Reproaching Huntington`s argument it has been said that this discourse stood for a
political agenda to maintain existing patterns of community, culture and exclusion
(Murden 2011, p. 417). Some criticism considered Huntington´s downplaying of
other factors that influence the behavior of humans and their organizations like the
imperatives of economics. Current conflicts are multi-faceted and have political,
22
economic and social dimensions which are playing a very similar role to culture.
However, if it comes to Salafi terrorism in particular, that currently constitutes the
most violent and aggressive anti-Western movement, a strictly rational explanation
about the reasons especially regarding the trend of suicide attackers can´t
conceive its non-rational dimension. As mentioned above, prevalent attempts of
understanding those terrorist incidents bring mostly frustration about economic
disadvantages, political repression, or cultural homogenization into effect. But
besides those moments, unbridgeable worldview differences
10
need to be taken into
account:
"Osama bin Laden, the Taliban and their Muslim fundamentalist allies (...)
see themselves not as individuals with wants and needs, which is a relatively
modern notion, but as operatives of Allah. For them, everything is religion,
everything faith. In fact, they don't acknowledge any other legitimate way to
look at the world. (...) in the madrasas, the Muslim religious schools in
Pakistan and Afghanistan, students are strictly forbidden from learning
anything except the Koran, (...)The spiritual and the rational can coexist, as
they do in almost every society, but Muslim fundamentalist terrorists don't
see it that way. (...) their grievance is that their way of thinking is being
destroyed by the inundation of Western influences (...).Their mission is to
rescue the world from rationality and restore it to religion as they interpret
it." (Gabler 2001, para. 3)
The Muslim Brotherhood is one of the Arab´s world most influential social
movements. Its original bylaws could be found on the Brotherhood's English
language website
11
till 2011 but have since been preserved
12
. These bylaws make
clear that the Brotherhood conceives itself as "an international Muslim Body, which
seeks to establish Allah's law in the land by achieving the spiritual goals of Islam
and the true religion (...) establishing the Islamic State" and "building a new basis
of human civilization as is ensured by the overall teachings of Islam (...) The
Islamic nation must be fully prepared to fight the tyrants and the enemies of Allah as
a prelude to establishing an Islamic state." (IPT 2011, p. 2)
By humiliating the enemies and by making them subhuman Islamist ideology asserts
their own moral superiority: "America is called the `Great Satan' by its enemies in
10
An illustrating phrase willingly used by Islamic radicals i.e.: ,,You love life, we love death!". See:
Küntzel, Matthias (2007): Jihad and Jew-Hatred. New York: Press Publishing
11
www.ikhanweb.com
12
Screenshot by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT). Retrieved from:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/673.pdf, on April 22, 2013.
