REVIEW: Understanding the terrorist's mind Reviewed by Touqir Hussain
Published in Dawn on December 28, 2003
"Any creative encounter with evil requires that we not
distance ourselves from it by simply demonizing those
who commit evil acts. In order to write about evil, a
writer has to try to comprehend it, from the inside
out; to understand the perpetrators and not
necessarily sympathize with them. But Americans seem
to have a very difficult time recocgnizing that there
is a distinction between understanding and
sympathizing... when it comes to coping with evil,
ignorance is our worst enemy." - Kathleen Norris
Terror in the Name of God opens with this quotation
that encapsulates the purpose if not the theme of the
book. It is hard to contest this penetrating thought
specially if you have no problem in denominating
terrorism as an evil even if it is in the name of God.
It takes a great moral courage to denounce terrorism
when it represents a cause you sympathize with. And it
takes even greater wisdom to try to understand the
cause when you neither support nor condone the act of
terror that speaks for it. The Islamic world is
obviously short of this courage and the West is
clearly lacking such wisdom. That is why
misperceptions abound. Jessica Stern, a leading US
expert on terrorism, who teaches at Harvard,
transcends this partisanship, and has come up with
just the book that might help inform and educate
readers on both sides of the divide and thus
contribute to the restructuring of knowledge and
understanding of this contentious issue of terrorism.
Her landmark book deals with terrorists who claim to
be seeking religious goals - Christian, Islamic,
Jewish, and Hindu, all included. And she defines
terrorism as "an act or threat of violence against
non-combatants with the object of exacting revenge,
intimidation or otherwise influencing an audience".
Actors could be the state, their surrogates,
international groups or an individual.
The terrorism, according to the author, is essentially
a psychological and spiritual warfare. Although the
world sees the terrorist as evil, his self image is of
a good human being aiming to purify the world. His
grievances that give rise to holy war include
alienation, humiliation, history and territory. She
cites the case of crusaders, Kamikaze pilots and the
inquisition as the historical precursors of modern day
religious terrorists personified by Jihadis, Hindu
fundamentalists, Christian terrorists, such as
anti-abortionists, and Jewish extremists, to name a
few.
The terrorist turns religious passion into a weapon
but he is basically fighting a cultural and political
battle. The struggle is essentially for power or for
political enfranchisement and empowerment. The
Palestinian and Kashmiri causes are a case in point
both of which get an ample and, by and large,
authentic projection in the book.
The book contains extensive interviews of the
leaderships of many militant outfits, jihadi groups in
Pakistan being awarded the biggest space -
organizations such as Harkat ul Mujahideen,
Lashkar-i-Taiba, Jaish-i-Mohammadi, Hizb ul
Mujahideen. There is an exhaustive coverage of the
trail that leads a rootless and innocent young man
from circumstances of poverty to becoming a soldier of
Islam invested with a religious insignia and stable
personal identity he can be proud of. But these are
merely foot soldiers in a very efficient and complex
organizational structure.
The book devotes a considerable portion to the
organizational structure of terrorist outfits. At the
top they are invariably led by inspirational leaders
(such as Osama bin Laden) assisted by a hierarchy of
managers, cadres, and the followers. Today's terrorist
is multinational. He is well financed by efficient
fund raising through the internet, NGOs focusing on
diaspora as well as illicit and licit business. Then
there are lone wolves, such as Kansi, inspired by a
terrorist ideology.
The final chapter suggests policy options stressing
the need for cultural understanding, ethical
reflection, and policy adjustment.
The book is not just about terrorists, inner recesses
of their mind, their mission and organizational
structures. It is also about the context of social
tensions, politico-economic culture and injustices
that hosts and breeds the terrorists. And it is also
about their perceptions of the Western, specially US,
policies in their regions that contribute to blocking
social reform and denial of justice, whether political
or territorial, thus provoking violent reactions.
Hundreds of books have been written on the subject of
terrorism since September 11, but none is so thorough
in its scope, outstanding in scholarship and
dispassionate in its approach as Jessica Stern's
Terror in the Name of God. It leaves the readers free
to evaluate the cause of a terrorist without intrusion
from any bias or pre judgment by the author. This is
an erudite and honest research at its very best where
the author surveys massive evidence and facts, submits
them to a searching mind and insightful analysis
resisting any religious, cultural or ethnic bias of
his or her own, whether Islamic, Christian or, in case
of Jessica Stern, Jewish.
The key point of the book is that an attempt to
understand the cause of a terrorist should not make
the act of terror as morally defensible. It stops
short of endorsing the prevailing view in the Islamic
world that you cannot eliminate terrorism without
addressing its root causes. But if you accept the
point that the attempt to understand the motivation
and grievance of a terrorist does not amount to
condonation of terrorism, it may open a window to the
terrorist's cause and break down one's resistance to
understanding the "evil" and injustice that impels him
to perpetrate another "evil". This intellectual
journey is crucial to the formulation and legitimacy
of any viable policy to combat terrorism. And among
the present Western scholars, I find no one better
open to such a thought than Jessica Stern, and
therefore as qualified as her in coming up in the
future with such a policy outline. To that extent, the
book may have served a larger purpose.
Another larger purpose served by the book - whether
intended or unintended hardly matters - is that,
unlike much of the current Western literature on the
subject, it does not savage Islam as a militant or
extremist religion prone to terrorism. The message
implicit throughout her book is that it is not
religion but the terrorists or entities, whether
Muslim, Christian and Jewish, who spread terror,
whether in the name of religion or some other cause.
And finally, Jessica Stern deserves high acclaim both
for her physical courage, specially as a woman, in
putting herself at serious risk, by travelling to some
obviously dangerous places in the world to make
rendezvous with fearsome militants in unnerving and
rather life threatening environment. And above all,
she has the moral courage to seek truth, even though
it may violate her own ethical, cultural, scholastic
and societal assumptions.
A highly recommended reading - absorbing, fascinating
and compellingly honest.
Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants
Kill
By Jessica Stern
Harper Collins, New York
ISBN 0-06-050532-X
369pp. US$27.95
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