Looking Out for The Enemy Within

The Guardian, July 10 2005.

Along with the death and injury they inflicted, Thursday's bombings were a demonstration of an unpalatable truth. The threat of indiscriminate terror will be with us in any future we can realistically foresee. Terror has causes and it is right that they should be identified. The war in Iraq has given al-Qaeda a major boost, enabling it to link its extremist agenda with grievances that are widely felt in Islamic countries. At the same time, it has resulted in a massive diversion of resources from the real work of counterterrorism and significantly boosted terrorist recruitment.

The 'war on terror' suggests terrorism is a global phenomenon but, actually, it remains almost entirely national or regional in its scope and goals. The Tamil Tigers do not operate worldwide any more than the IRA or Eta. Only al-Qaeda has a genuinely global reach, and it has been strengthened by American policies that have turned Iraq into a terrorist training ground.
Western governments have helped make al-Qaeda what it is today, but it would be folly to imagine that any shift in their policies can neutralise the threat it now poses.

No longer the semi-centralised organisation it was before the destruction of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda has mutated into a brand name that covers an amorphous network of groups that are linked together mainly by their adherence to an apocalyptic version of Islamist ideology. This network is the vehicle of a movement that has more in common with Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult whose members planted sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo underground, than it does with any version of traditional Islam.

It is a network that seems to be replicating itself in Europe and other advanced industrial regions, and if it turns out that the London bombings were al-Qaeda-related, the group that committed them could prove to be largely homegrown.

Despite the high level of globalisation of many of al-Qaeda's activities, it is a mistake to think it acts solely as an external trigger for terrorist activity. In fact, we may be witnessing the emergence of an indigenous version of terrorism in this country, and it is important that we understand that this is by no means unprecedented. Some of the most advanced industrial nations have produced terrorist movements, often driven by apocalyptic ideologies, in which the existing world is believed to be on the brink of an imminent, total and violent transformation.

Consider the US and Japan. In the decades before 9/11, terrorism in America was very much an indigenous phenomenon. The Oklahoma bombing of 1995, which killed more than 160 people, emerged out of a netherworld of shadowy right-wing militias that grew up during the Eighties and early Nineties. The world view of Timothy McVeigh, who planted the bomb, was shaped by neo-Nazi groups which believed the US was on the brink of a huge conflict in which it would be partly destroyed, racially 'purified' and then reborn.

The Aum movement grew out of Japan's subculture of new religions. Recruited from Japanese and American universities, and containing engineers and scientists with expertise in pharmacology and genetics, its followers looked forward to the annihilation of most of the human species. Only cult members would survive in the new world that would arise after the conflagration.

Apocalyptic beliefs of this kind recur in the most scientifically advanced societies and they have a long history. In late medieval times, they animated Christian millenarian movements, and the belief that an old world was ending and a new one beginning has been used as a justification of terror at least since the Jacobins, who, more than any other group, can take credit for originating the idea that society can be regenerated through violence.

A similar view inspired anarchist practitioners of propaganda by deed in the late 19th century. In the 20th century, versions of apocalyptic belief were not far under the surface of the Nazi and communist regimes, both of which were notable for their readiness to deploy terror and mass killing as instruments for reshaping human nature and society. Common to all these movements was the belief that the old world was ending and a new one coming into being, whose arrival could be hastened by the systematic use of violence.

In terms of its apocalyptic mindset, al-Qaeda is not unique, nor is it peculiarly Islamic. It is the most recent expression of a tradition of terrorism which has deep roots in Western religious beliefs and in modern revolutionary politics. The idea that violence can be used to remake the world has a powerful appeal, and if al-Qaeda is distinctive, it is in the ruthlessness with which it implements this belief.

Unlike most other terrorist movements, it seeks deliberately to maximise civilian casualties,and, as we saw in Madrid, its members are ready to embrace death in order to avoid capture. It is a potent mix and al-Qaeda seems to be attracting a new generation of recruits who have grown up in some of the world's richest countries.

Terror is not now, if it ever was, something that comes to us from outside. It is a part of the society in which we live. Both liberals and neoconservatives believe terrorism can be dealt with by removing its causes. The truth is less reassuring. Al-Qaeda has mutated into a decentralised, often locally based type of apocalyptic terrorism and, in this new guise, seems to be acquiring a formidable momentum. We are going to need all our resources of wisdom, guile and determination to deal with it.