Antiterrorism and religion: searching for a solution.

Abstract

Modern terrorism often is affiliated with religion because extremist violence frequently springs from the vacuum left by modernity, and is driven by dread and a desperate quest for meaning. Analyses by Karen Armstrong and Mark Juergensmeyer disclose these religious roots but do not fully acknowledge religion as also the preeminent source of a solution to the problem. When we recognize the religious dimensions of warfare generally, we are better prepared to turn to the mainstreams of the world's major religions as providing the antidote.

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Since September 11, 2001, Americans have suddenly become aware of an unpleasant fact already quite familiar to much of the world's population. Now we too know that when groups feel driven to desperation by years of unresolved grievances and overwhelmed by unchecked power, they may resort to a violence meant to intimidate the wider population. Military targets or strategic advantage, in such cases, seem irrelevant; what counts is to awaken fear and shake public confidence in the social order. That is the very essence of terrorism. Even before urban societies became so vulnerable to modern technologies of disruption, similar methods have been attractive to the underdog.

But perhaps still more alarming to Americans was the recognition that in modern times such theatrical acts of bloodshed can still be carried out in the name of religion. We are dismayed that the comforts and civility of Euro-American life could be hated so vehemently by devout believers. In 1980 the list of international terrorist groups kept by the U.S. State Department contained almost no religious groups, but by 1998 more than half of the list of the world's most dangerous groups were religious (Juergensmeyer, 2001: p. 6). Belatedly we are discerning a linkage.

Secularization theory would have difficulty in explaining why a world supposedly emerging from sectarian dogmatism would commit such irrational lapses. But actually, outside the precincts of Eurocentric high culture, religion shows little evidence of fading into obsolescence. Indeed it is resurging in many parts of the globe, and often in ways quite uncongenial to secular civility. Nor is it convincing to claim that political revolutionaries or malcontents are simply masquerading under the guise of religion in order to win over the masses. The faith slogans shouted by activists go far beyond mere propaganda intended for the gullible or the pious. Interviews of captured militants indicate a depth of personal commitment and readiness for personal renunciation not easily dismissed as a ploy for popular appeal. Palestinians labeled by the West as "suicide bombers" are seen and revered instead by their own people as undertaking "martyrdom operations," actions of devotion and self-sacrifice for the greater good (Kelsay, 2002: pp. 22-25). The document left behind by the hijackers of September 11, 2001, entitled "The Last Night" and probably written by Muhammad Atta, is another example. Despite brutal insensitivity to the fate of the victims, these instructions for purifying oneself in preparation for seizing and destroying an airliner are filled with pious language that echoes traditional Islamic devotional literature (Cook, 2002). We must take seriously, then, the connection of religious fervor and seemingly inhuman violence, if we are to understand and counter this new trend.

I.