In a recent Time magazine article, Nancy Gibbs suggested that one of the chief lessons of the Fort Hood shootings might be this: the nature of terrorism is changing. Gibbs quotes Bruce Hoffman, a former CIA scholar-in-residence and Georgetown University terrorism expert, who claims that al Qaeda’s new strategy may be “to empower and motivate individuals to commit acts of violence completely outside any terrorist chain of command.”
In other words, terrorist groups may be using the internet and other communication outlets to help turn potential violent extremists into actual ones—disseminating their propaganda so as to radicalize individuals who don’t have actual ties to an extremist group, but who develop a sense of allegiance, and are willing to act on it.
If this is true, terrorists will be much harder to identify and capture. Without an organized plot, without communication among the conspirators, without the planning and arranging that sends inadvertent signals, homeland security operatives won’t have much to go on.
The result may be an increasing emphasis on prejudicial profiling to expand the scope of domestic surveillance of the private lives of individuals who have done nothing wrong (other than commit the “crime” of, say, being Muslim). In other words, the success of forceful interdiction of terrorists may depend on increasing both discrimination and “big brother” intrusions into individual privacy.
Unless, of course, we radically rethink our approach.
Violence Begets Collateral Damage Begets Violence
The fact is that the secular world, in confronting evil, has long relied on one solution: the use of coercive power to violently incapacitate those who do evil and, in the process, deter those who are considering it. Alongside this tactic, and in opposition to it, there has been, for centuries, a quiet but steady religious message—a message one is most likely to hear not within the religious establishment (so often co-opted by secular institutions of power) but by the more prophetic voices, the voices of those who see a disconnect between the status quo and the message emanating from our most profound encounters with the divine.
The message is this: violence begets violence. Hate cannot drive out hate. We need to distinguish between fighting evil and fighting evildoers. Evil will be overcome not through the spread of force and fear, but through the spread of compassion and empathy.
For as long as this quiet message has been voiced, the response of the secular establishment has been to dismiss it as unrealistic. “Sure,” goes the reply, “that may work in private life when everyone involved is reasonable, but it isn’t going to work to stop the crazies out there. Especially the ones with guns, or armies, or bombs. We need to take out the crazies before they get us.”
But a study of the history of fighting terrorism might inspire us to rethink who, precisely, is being unrealistic. In a forthcoming article in The Journal of Moral Philosophy, I argue that the term “terrorism,” which is used in so many competing ways, might be most usefully defined as the use of violence in which an individual or group, motivated by an in-group/out-group ideology, indiscriminately targets members of the ideologically defined “out-group” in pursuit of the “in-group’s” sacred mission or purpose.
If this is what we mean by the term “terrorism,” there are numerous ways in which the conventional strategy of force is, well, unrealistic. First of all, those who are indoctrinated into the terrorist ideology are often perfectly willing to die for the sake of the in-group’s cause. In fact, they often expect to die. They are not going to be deterred by the threat of a violent response from the state.
This means that the state can’t hope that where it falls short in forceful interdiction it will gain ground in deterrence. If terrorists are to be stopped, they must be caught or killed. Governments often find themselves increasing the scope and intensity of their violent anti-terrorism strategies. Since terrorist groups are typically the radical fringes of a larger community with which they identify, and within which they are embedded, increasing the scope and intensity of violence inevitably harms innocents—what is euphemistically called “collateral damage.”
That Old Insanity
The predictable result is moral outrage among members of this broader community to which the terrorists belong. And that outrage is used by the terrorists to fuel their propaganda, to make their ideology of hate increasingly attractive. And so a larger percentage of the targeted community becomes radicalized. More people see the world through the terrorist’s ideological lens and become willing to blow themselves up in the effort to pursue the in-group’s mission against the demonized out-group.
While this pattern is readily identifiable in the decades of conflict between Israel and Palestine, the United States has been courting a similar one. In its military efforts to disable al Qaeda, the U.S. has succeeded in providing fuel for radical Islam’s rhetoric, with its image of a world divided between the faithful and the infidel and the Great Satan threatening the very survival of God’s faithful servants.
The “collateral damage” of America’s war on terror serves as fertile soil in which allegiance to an ideology of hate can take root and grow. And now that it has taken root to such devastating effect in an officer of the US Army, what happens next? Do we respond by treating all Muslims as suspect, as potential terrorists, and so produce a new kind of collateral damage, innocent people who are systematically discriminated against because of their religion?
What do we expect the result will be? Do we expect that, magically, our increased willingness to harm the innocent members of a group in order to wipe out the radical fringe will somehow, this time, have a different result? That’s not merely unrealistic—it verges on a kind of insanity.
But if it is insanity, it’s not a new kind. It’s been around for at least as long as recorded history. But so has this quiet religious voice, which discovers in the mystical experience of union with the transcendent an alternative approach to fighting evil. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop dismissing that voice as unrealistic and begin listening to it. Maybe it’s time for governments to begin seriously asking what a public policy response to terrorism that’s based on spreading compassion and empathy, rather than spreading force and fear, would look like.
Are there ways for nations to deliberately break down the divisive ideologies of extremists? Are there things governments can do to forge human connections across ideological divides? And what effect would such practices have on the occurrences of terrorism in the world?
Perhaps the secular world isn’t yet ready to identify the quiet voice of religious nonviolence with the wisdom of God. But is it ready, at least, to acknowledge how unrealistic its own policies have been, and to start investigating the possibility of something more compassionate and more forgiving? Is it ready to admit that focusing on “taking out” the crazies has too often led to a proliferation of insanity?
For the sake of the world, I hope so.
Tags: compassion, discrimination, fort hood, god, muslim, profiling, religion, terrorism, terrorist, violence
Eric, please consider the possibility that the quiet transcendent voice of an alternate approach to fighting evil is actually a secular voice. We should have listened to that voice to guide our response to 9-11, but the religious voices were in control at the time, and they had that idea in the back of their minds about it being ultimately necessary to destroy the world, hopefully in our lifetime, and everyone else needing to suffer so the righteous can get end times. There are many secular voices around the world that have been working for peace this entire time, and possibly even a few of those secular voices here in this country although here they have been pretty effectively drowned out.
This comment is helpful, in that it offers an opportunity to clarify what I do and don't mean by my use of the "religious" and "secular" labels in this essay.
First, many of those who stood with me in protesting the militaristic response to 9/11 self-identified as agnostic at best. So it is clear that one needn't be a member of an explicit religious community in order to hear and be moved by a nonviolent vision.
Second, it is quite obvious that many explicitly "religious" communities, operating according to doctrines pertaining to the so-called "end times," have been moved to support military actions which they perceive to be ordained by God as part of some divine plan for the end of history. It is clear that "religion" in some sense can be and has been a big part of the problem when it comes to the proliferation of violence.
But it is also clear that secular society has consistently incorporated mechanisms of coercive power into its institutional structures, especially those aimed at promoting domestic security. While I tend to share the view that there is something telling about the fact that an "out" atheist has little hope of becoming president of the United States, I think it is equally telling that an "out" pacifist doesn't have any hope at all. This says something, I think, about the depths to which the institutions of secular society are premised on assumptions at odds with pacifism.
This is not to say that secular society is committed to the kind of militarism which the Bush administration advocated, nor that so-called religious communities won't be. In speaking of the "quiet religious voice" and the "prophetic religious message," I am referring to an idea that arises with special frequency among persons engaged in meditative practices, practices in which there is a deliberate attempt to set aside the barrage of empirical data, the ordinary thoughts and worries of daily life, the anxieties for our own security--in short, to set aside active engagement with the ordinary material world and to find a space of quiet anticipation, of silent waiting, in which something ELSE might enter in to move us and shape us.
If you don't want to call this religious, I'm not going to debate you about that. I'm not especially invested in pursuing a terminological dispute here. But it's what I mean when I use the term.
Personally, I don't want to call fundamentalism "religious," because I think many of its key features are born out of the in-group/out-group instincts that derive from our tribal origins and the evolutionary pressures shaping early human kin groups, rather than out of an experience of the transcendent.
I think that the latter lies at the root of our deepest impulses towards compassion and nonviolence, whether or not we interpret this experience as an encounter with a fundamental, transcendent good at the root of reality. It is because I do interpret it in these terms that I am happy to call it religious.
I appreciate and respect the efforts of the war protesters, but since they are agnostic at best and out pacifists they won't get much respect here in America. We pride ourselves on being a free nation that allows a half dozen of these people to hold their signs on the streetcorner and express their views. I mean no disrespect to you and your fellow protesters, I am just trying to build myself a mental picture to understand the situation better. Are they protesting America's secular military response? This is America, we expect a few war protesters.
What if they were protesting Christianity's support of the war? What if they protested Hagee's Christian Zionism? I don't think the agnostic or non-believer element of the peace movement could get anywhere speaking out against the Christian response to these political issues, but progressive Christians might. It would be hard for them to make a dent, but it might be possible for them to at least get some message through to their war supporting brothers. It would be starting a conversation that the mainstream has put a lot of effort into avoiding, and for good reason because once the questions are allowed the status quo blows up. That is what I would like to see, progressive Christianity attacking conservative Christianity with everything on the table. The progressive Christians should just remember, if the conservatives don't hate what you are saying, then you probably aren't really saying anything.
Indeed, Mr. Reed, I concur that one doesn't have to be in the religious community to be making good happen. I am of the opinion that the religiosity of believers gets in the way of spiritual wholeness, let alone, bridge any complete ecumenical or cultural efforts.
Dr. Reitan supports traditional dualistic teaching in his writings, all the while, supporting a huge chasm between the religious and the secular. We would do well to eliminate our thinking that way and be open to the realization that we are all a part of god and not just predisposed puppets with religious or secular labeling.
The "broader community" in which terrorists find succor is exactly the issue that the new atheists have been calling to attention for some time. Which is, that so-called "moderate" forms of sacralization of group differences, otherwise known as moderate religion, feed ideologies that those who take them most seriously (believe them most "deeply") take to the extremes of self-martydom/terror.
"Do we respond by treating all Muslims as suspect, as potential terrorists, and so produce a new kind of collateral damage, innocent people who are systematically discriminated against because of their religion?"
I am afraid so, actually, because Islam is intimately, theologically, and historically tied up with intense bigotry and violence. There are peaceful forms of Islam, and countless peaceful Muslims. But the core ideology is obviously prone to the dark side, as are, incidentally, fundamentlaist Judaism and our own home-grown militia movements, among many others, including nationalism generally. We should seek to walk a fine line between unnecessary discrimination (harassing civilians without explicit cause) and necessary discrimination (removing members of the military with expressed and militant fundamentalist ideologies).
Consciousness of such ideologies and reasoned attacks on their core irrationality, whether moderate or extreme, are one form of defense, as we also promote Reitan's advocacy against eye-for-an-eye old testament-ism. Keeping the moral high ground and going the extra mile of charity and forebearance could have remarkably positive effects, particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the same time, weakness resulting in one's own crucifixion is not a generally popular or effective policy.
Is Violence our savior or not?
For true believers in Violence, non-belief is unrealistic.
Some are atheists when it comes to Violence. The believe that Violence not only doesn't save us, it destroys us. Respond with hatred to hatred is suicidal.
Meanwhile, others are agnostics when it comes to Violence. Maybe Violence works, maybe not. Or, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. And conditions are changing so that Violence is shrinking savior.
I don't care if you are religious or not. That is not the current critical dividing line. The critical dividing line is how you answer this question: Do you believe in the saving power of Violence or not?
If I read this article correctly, the author does not believe in Violence. And I find his argument compelling.
The next time my plane is hijacked by Islamic Terrorists I'll repead the following mantra "a public policy response to terrorism that’s based on spreading compassion and empathy". Maybe if I repeat it often enough it'll come true
But in all seriousness, how does one ever win a war by handing out roses?
Did the force employed by the "good guy armed forces" of the world stop the terrorists?
In all seriousness, all we have to do is kill everyone except the "good guys" and the problem will be solved? Really?
Which solution has been tried 99.99% of the time against terrorists and "bad guys"? How did that solution work out? Please be realistic.
Eric, this is a little bit of a different issue from your topic here on this thread, but what about the increase in verbal violence in general on RD? Is the polarization growing and the voice level being raised on some of the issues? It seems to me it is, and I wonder if our corner of the internet might ever reach a breaking point. These are not real discussions, and not real arguments. One side has their particular issue they are concerned about, and the point they want to make. Some on the other side seem to be just trying to raise the insult level. They are not trying to make a point, they are trying to insult the others, and I think they hope the level of insults from both sides will just continue to raise until this whole thing goes away. Perhaps the RD community is trying to deal with issues, and they don't want those things to be dealt with, and the only way they can stop the conversations is to have the whole thing blow up to make it go away. Thanks for your part here. I hope it doesn't blow up, and maybe there isn't really any risk and I shouldn't be concerned. I am just wondering if anyone else notices this.
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